M'Conwick assured me, when he came to London, that the English populace were taken with novelty, and that by either moving his feet, snapping his fingers, or passing a joke upon some one of the surrounding crowd, he was sure of gaining money. He carries matches as an article of sale, and thereby does not come under the denomination of a pauper. Now and then, to please his benefactors, he will sport a bull or two, and when the laugh is increasing a little too much against him, will, in a low tone, remind them that bulls are not confined to the lower orders of Irish. The truth of this assertion may be seen in Miss Edgworth's Essay on Irish bulls, published 1803, from which the following is an extract: "When Sir Richard Steele was asked how it happened that his countrymen made so many bulls, he replied, 'It is the effect of climate, sir; if an Englishman were born in Ireland, he would make as many.'" However, great mistakes are sometimes made by the wisest of the English; for it is reported of Sir Isaac Newton, that after he had caused a great hole to be made in his study door for his cat to creep through, he had a small one for the kitten. When the present writer gave this Irishman a shilling for standing for his portrait, he exclaimed, "Thanks to your honour, an acre of performance is worth the whole land of promise." [Illustration: _"Ginger Bread Nuts"_] GINGERBREAD NUTS, OR JACK'S LAST SHIFT. PLATE XXIII. The etching in front of the present Plate, was taken from Daniel Clarey, an industrious Irishman, well known to the London schoolboy as a gingerbread-nut lottery office keeper. Dan had fought for his country as a seaman, and though from some unlucky circumstance he is not entitled to the comforts of Greenwich Hospital, still he boasts of the honour of losing his leg in an engagement on the "Salt Seas." Rendered almost destitute by the loss of his limb, he was nevertheless not wanting in wit to gain a livelihood, and became a vendor of gingerbread-nuts, which he disposed of by way of lottery, and humourously calls this employment, "Jack's last Shift." Though Dan is inferior in some respects to his lively countryman McConwick, who has afforded theme for the preceding pages, yet he is blessed with a sufficient memory to recollect what he has heard, and has persuasive eloquence enough to assure the boys that his lottery is no "South Sea Bubble," where, as he tells them, "not even saw-dust was produced, when deal boards were promised; but that every adventurer in his scheme is sure of having a prize from seven to one hundred nuts, there being no blanks to damp the courage of any enterprizing youth; that some of his gingerbread shot are so highly seasoned that they are as hot as the noble Nelson's balls when he last peppered the jackets of England's foes." The manner of obtaining these gingerbread prizes is as follows:--The hollow box held by Clarey has twenty-seven holes variously numbered, and