Here are to be found dealers in pieces of every coloured cloth, of all ages, qualities, shades, and capabilities, for the service of such as wish to repair or alter damaged or ill-fitting garments. Some of the shops present huge piles of old shoes, some trodden down of heel, others twisted, torn, worn, split, and in holes, presenting a mass of nameless, formless, colourless objects, among which are grimly visible some species of fossil soles about an inch thick, studded with thick nails, resembling the door of a prison and hard as a horse's hoof, the actual skeletons of shoes whose other component parts have long since been consumed by the devouring hand of Time. Yet all this mouldy, dried up accumulation of decaying rubbish will find a willing purchaser, an extensive body of merchants trading in this particular line. Then there are the vendors of gimps, fringes, bindings, cords, tassels, and edgings of silk, cotton, or thread, arising out of the demolition of curtains past all cure and defying all reparation. Other enterprising individuals devote themselves to the sale of females' hats and bonnets, these articles only reaching their emporium by the means of the dealers in old clothes, and after having performed the strangest journeys and undergone the most surprising transformations, the most singular changes of colour. In order that the article traded in may not take up too much room in a warehouse ordinarily the size of a large box, these bonnets are carefully folded in half, then flattened and laid upon each other as closely as they can be packed, with the exception of the brim. They are treated in every respect the same as herrings, requiring to be stowed in a cask. By these means it is almost incredible what a quantity of these usually fragile articles may be accommodated in a small space of about four feet square. Should a purchaser present himself, the various specimens are removed from the high pressure to which they have been exposed, the vendor, with a _degage_ air, gives the crown a dexterous blow with his fist, which makes the centre rise to its accustomed situation, then presses the front out upon his knee, concluding by holding up, with an air of intense satisfaction at his own ingenuity, an object so wild, so whimsical, and withal so irresistibly striking, as to remind one of those traditional costumes ascribed for ages past to fishwomen, apple-women, or any whose avocation involves the necessity of carrying a basket on the head.