THE artists who work for the street-sellers are less numerous than the poets for the same trade. Indeed, there is now but man who can be said to be a street-artist. The inopportune illustration of ballads of which specimens have already been given—or of any of the street papers—are the work of cheap wood-engravers, who give the execution of these orders to their boys. But it is not often that illustrations are prepared expressly for anything but what I have described as "Gallows literature." Of these, samples have also been furnished. The of a real murder, and the other of a fabulous , or "cock," together with a sample (in the case of Mr. Patrick Connor) of the portraits given in such productions. The cuts for the heading of ballads are very often such as have been used for the illustration of other works. and are "picked up cheap."

The artist who works especially for the street trade—as in the case of the man who paints the patterers' boards—must address his art plainly to the eye of the spectator. He must use the most striking colours, be profuse in the application of scarlet, light blue, orange—not yellow I was told, it ain't a good candlelight colour— and must leave nothing to the imagination. Perspective and back-grounds are things of but minor consideration. Everything must be sacrificed for effect.

These paintings are in water colours, and are rubbed over with a solution of some gum-resin to protect them from the influence of rainy weather. of the subjects most in demand of late for the patterers' boards were "the Sloanes" and "the Mannings." The treatment of Jane Wilbred was "worked" by boardmen, each with his "illustration" of the subject. The illustrations were in "compartments." In the Mr. and Mrs. Sloane are "picking out" the girl from a line of workhouse children. She is represented as plump and healthy, but with a stupid expression of countenance. In another compartment, Sloane is beating the girl, then attenuated and wretched-looking, with a shoe, while his wife and Miss Devaux (a name I generally heard pronounced among the street-people as it is spelt to an English reader) look approvingly on. The next picture was Sloane compelling the girl to swallow filth. The represented her as in the hospital, with her ribs protruding from her wasted body —"just as I've worked Sarah Simpole," said a patterer, "who was confined in a cellar and fed on 'tato peels. Sarah was a cock, sir, and a ripper." Then came the attack of the people on Sloane, old woman dressed after the fashion of Mrs. Gamp, "prodding" him with a huge and very green umbrella. The and last was, as usual, the trial.

I have described the "Sloanes' board" , as it may be more fresh in the remembrance of any reader observant of such things. In the "Mannings' board" there were the same number of compartments as in the Sloanes'; showing the circumstances of the murder, the discovery of the body of Connor, the trial, &c. standing patterer, who worked a Mannings' board, told me that the picture of Mrs. Manning, beautifully "dressed for dinner" in black satin, with "a low front," firing a pistol at Connor, who was "washing himself," while Manning, in his shirt sleeves, looked on in evident alarm, was greatly admired, especially out of town. "The people said," observed the patterer, "'O, look at him a-washing hisself; he's a doing it so nattral, and ain't a-thinking he's a-going to be murdered. But was he really so ugly as that? Lor! such a beautiful woman to have to do with

When there is "a run" on any particular subject, there are occasionally jarrings—I was informed by a "boardman"—between the artist and his street-customers. The standing patterers want "something more original" than their fellows, especially if they are likely to work in the same locality, while the artist prefers a faithful copy of what he has already executed. The artist, moreover, and with all reasonableness, will say: "Why, you must have the facts. Do you want me to make Eliza Chestney killing Rush?" The matter is often compromised by some change being introduced, and by the characters being differently dressed. man told me, that in town and country he had seen Mrs. Jermy shot in the following costumes, "in light green welwet, sky-blue satin, crimson silk, and vite muslin." It was the same with Mrs. Manning.

For the last or years, I am told, the artist in question has prepared all the boards in demand. Previously, the standing patterers prepared their own boards, when they fancied themselves capable of such a "reach of art," or had them done by some unemployed painter, whom they might fall in with at a lodging-house, or elsewhere. This is rarely done now, I am told; not perhaps more than times in a twelvemonth, and when done it is most frequently practised of "cock-boards;" for, as was said to me, "if a man thinks he's getting up a fakement likely to take, and wants a board to help him on with it, he'll try and keep it to hisself, and come out with it quite fresh."

The charge of the popular street-artist for the painting of a board is or , according to the simplicity or elaborateness of the details; the board itself is provided by the artist's employer. The demand for this peculiar branch of street art is very irregular, depending entirely upon whether anything be "up" or not; that is, whether there has or has not been perpetrated any act of atrocity, which has riveted, as it is called, the public attention. And so great is the uncertainty felt by the street-folk, whether "the most beautiful murder will take or not," that it is rarely the patterer will order, or the artist will speculate, in anticipation of a demand, upon preparing the painting of any event, until satisfied that it has become "popular." A deed of more than usual daring, deceit, or mystery, may be at once hailed by those connected with murder-patter, as " that will do," and some speculation may be ventured upon; as it was, I am informed, in the cases of Tawell, Rush, and the Mannings; but these are merely exceptional. Thus, if the artist have a dozen boards ordered "for this days, he may have , or , or none for the next ;" so uncertain, it appears, is all that depends, without intrinsic merit, on mere popular applause.

I am unable to give—owing to the want of account-books, &c., which I have so often had to refer to as characteristic of street-people— a precise account of the average number of boards thus prepared in a year. Perhaps it may be as close to the fact as possible to conclude that the artist in question, who, unlike the majority of the street-poets, is not a street-seller, but works, as a professional man, but not the streets, realises on his boards a profit of weekly. The pictorial productions for street-shows will be more appropriately described in the account of street-performers and showmen.

This artist, as I have shown concerning some of the street-professors of the sister art of poesy, has the quality of knowing how to adapt his works exactly to the taste of his patrons the sellers, and of their patrons, the buyers in the streets.