In the licensed gambling-houses there is always a little crowd of excited men and women, who, when they have lost their trifling earnings, speedily proceed to the pawnshops with any article of clothing or furniture that is not absolutely indispensable to their existence. When their own property has all been squandered they take that belonging to other people, thus producing an endless succession of daily thefts. The city is full of pawnshops, some streets containing scarcely any other form of business. It is in these places that the Europeans hunt for their frequently stolen property, or search for the curios that are afterwards presented to friends or sold to museums at home. The numbers of civil, genial postmen in their yellow kharki uniforms faced with red, and carrying big Japanese umbrellas under their arms, are sufficiently numerous and busy to testify to the efficiency of this branch of the Civil Service. Most of the policemen are Siamese, but their appearance is always a decided contrast to that of the neatly clad postmen. Their uniforms, made of blue cloth, are intended to be reproductions of those worn by their London brethren. But as they are made of a cloth that rapidly shrinks and fades, a caricature rather than an imitation is the result. They are partial to umbrellas, roll their trousers above their knees, wear no shoes, and seem to revel in the possession of battered helmets. There is nothing whatever in their bearing that is characteristic of authority, neither are they men of great stature or commanding strength. Yet they seldom meet with any resistance in the exercise of their duties, and it is a common sight to see a puny-looking policeman leading three or four natives to the police-station, each prisoner being merely fastened by the arm to the one behind, with his own scarf or pocket-handkerchief.