THE preparations of milk which comprise the street-trade, are curds and whey and rice-milk, the oldest street-sellers stating that these were a portion of the trade in their childhood. The is a summer, and the other a winter traffic, and both are exclusively in the hands of the same middle-aged and elderly women. The vendors prepare the curds and whey in all cases themselves. "Skim-milk," purchased at the dairies, is used by the street-purveyors, a gallon being the quantity usually prepared at a time. This milk gallon is double the usual quantity, or quarts. The milk is "scalded," the pan containing it being closely watched, in order that the contents may not boil. The scalding occupies or minutes, and it is then "cooled" until it attains the lukewarmness of new milk. Half a pound of sugar is then dissolved in the milk, and a tea-spoonful of rennet is introduced, which is sufficient to "turn" a gallon. In an hour, or in some cases , the milk is curded, and is ready for use. The street-sale is confined to stalls; the stall, which is the ordinary stand, being covered with a white cloth, or in some cases an oil-cloth, and on this the curds, in a bright tin kettle or pan, are deposited. There are mugs on the board, and a spoon in each, but those who affect a more modern style have glasses. of the neatest stalls, as regards the display of glass, and the bright cleanliness

A woman who had sold "cruds"—as the street-people usually call it—for eighteen years, gave me the following account:—"Boys and girls is my best customers for cruds, sir. Perhaps I sell to them almost half of all I get rid of. Very little fellows will treat girls, often bigger than themselves, at my stall, and they have as much chaffing and nonsense about it's being 'stunning good for the teeth,' and such like, as if they was grown-up. Some don't much like it at , but they gets to like it. boy, whose young woman made faces at it—and it a little sour to be sure that morning—got quite vexed and said, 'Wot a image you're a-making on yourself!' I don't know what sort the boys are, only that they're the street-boys mostly. Quiet working people are my other customers, perhaps rather more women than men. Some has told me they was teetotallers. Then there's the women of the town of the poorer sort, good customers,—as indeed I think they are for most cooling drinks at times, for they seem to me to be thirsty. I never sell to dustmen or that sort of people. Saturday is my best day. If it's fine and warm, I sell a gallon then, which makes about penn'orths; sometimes it brings me , sometimes ; it's rather more than half profits. Take it altogether, I sell gallons in fine dry weeks, and half that in wet; and perhaps there's what I call a set down wet week for every dry. Nobody has a better right to pray against wet weather than poor women like me. years ago I sold almost twice as much as I can now. There's so many more of us at present, I think, and let alone that there's more shops keeps it too."

Another old woman told me, that she used, "when days was longest," to be up all night, and sell her "cruds" near theatre, and often received in a few hours or , from "ladies and gentlemen out at night." But the men were so rackety, she said, and she'd had her stall so often kicked over by drunken people, and no help for it, that she gave up the nighttrade, and she believed it was hardly ever followed now.

To start in the curds and whey line requires the following capital:—Saucepan, for the scalding and boiling, ; stall, ; mugs, ; or glasses, ; spoons, ; tin kettle on stall, ; pail for water to rinse glasses, Then for stock-money: gallon skimmed milk, or ; and lb. sugar, In all, , reckoning the materials to be of the better sort.

Of the whole number of street curd-sellers, dispose of as much as my informant, or gallons in weeks; the other sell only half as much. Taking the season at months, we find the consumption of curds and whey in the street to be double gallons (as regards the ingredient of milk), at a cost to the purchasers of , half of which is the profit accruing to the street-seller. The receipts of those having the better description of business being weekly; those of the smaller traders being There is a slight and occasional loss by the "cruds" being kept until unsaleable, in which case they are "fit for nothing but the hog-wash man."