THE sale of "prints," "pictures," and "engravings"—I heard them designated by each term—in umbrellas in the streets, has been known, as far as I could learn from the streetfolk for some years, and has been general from to years. In this traffic the umbrella is inverted and the "stock" is disposed within its expanse. Sometimes narrow tapes are attached from rib to rib of the umbrella, and within these tapes are placed the pictures, resting upon another. Sometimes a few pins are used to attach the larger prints to the cotton of the umbrella, the smaller ones being "fitted in at the side" of the bigger. "Pins is best, sir, in my opinion," said a little old man, who used to have a "print umbrella" in the New Cut; "for the public has a more unbrokener display. I used werry fine pins, though they's dearer, for people as has a penny to spare likes to see things nice, and big pins makes big holes in the pictures."

This trade is most pursued on still summer evenings, and the use of an inverted umbrella seems so far appropriate that it can only be so used, in the street, in weather. "I used to keep a sharp look-out, sir," said the same informant, "for wind or rain, and many's the time them devils o' boys—God forgive me,

The engravings thus sold are of all descriptions. Some have evidently been the frontispieces of sixpenny or lower-prieed works. These works sometimes fall into hands of the "waste collectors," and any "illustrations" are extracted from the letter-press and are disposed of by the collectors, by the gross or dozen, to those warehousemen who supply the small shopkeepers and the street-sellers. Sometimes, I was informed, a number of engravings, which had for a while appeared as "frontispieces" were issued for sale separately. Many of these were and are found in the "street umbrellas;" more especially the portraits of popular actors and actresses. "Mr. J. P. Kemble, as Hamlet"— "Mr. Fawcett, as Captain Copp"—"Mr. Young, as Iago"—"Mr. Liston, as Paul Pry"—"Mrs. Siddons, as Lady Macbeth"— "Miss O'Neil, as Belvidera," &c., &c. In the course of an inquiry into the subject nearly a year and a half ago, I learned from "umbrella man" that, or years previously, he used to sell more portraits of "Mr. Edmund Kean, as Richard III.," than of anything else. Engravings, too, which had been admired in the "Annuals"—when halfa-guinea was the price of the "Literary Souvenir," the "Forget-me-not," "Friendship's Offering," the "Bijou," &c., &c.—are frequently found in these umbrellas; and amongst them are not unfrequently seen portraits of the aristocratic beauties of the day, from "waste" "Flowers of Loveliness" and old "Court Magazines," which "go off very fair." The majority of these street-sold "engravings" are "coloured," in which state the street-sellers prefer them, thinking them much more saleable, though the information I received hardly bears out their opinion.

The following statement, from a middle-aged woman, further shows the nature of the trade, and the class of customers:

I've sat with an umbrella," she said, "these seven or eight years, I suppose it is. My husband's a penny lot-seller, with just a middling pitch" [the vendor of a number of articles, sold at a penny "a lot"] "and in the summer I do a little in engravings, when I'm not minding my husband's 'lots,' for he has sometimes a day, and oftener a night, with portering and packing for a tradesman, that's known him long. Well, sir, I think I sell most 'coloured.' 'Master Toms' wasn't bad last summer. 'Master Toms' was pictures of cats, sir—you must have seen them—and I had them different colours. If a child looks on with its father, very likely, it'll want 'pussy,' and if the child cries for it, it's almost a sure sale, and more, I think, indeed I'm sure, with men than with women. Women knows the value of money better than men, for men never understand what housekeeping is. I have no children, thank God, or they might be pinched, poor things. 'Miss Kitties' was the same sale. Toms is hes, and Kitties is she cats. I've sometimes sold to poor women who was tiresome; they must have just what would fit over their mantel-pieces, that was papered with pictures." [My readers may remember that some of the descriptions I have given, long previous to the present inquiry, of the rooms of the poor, fully bear out this statement.] "I seldom venture on anything above 1d., I mean to sell at 1d. I've had Toms and Kitties at 2d. though. 'Fashions' isn't worth umbrella room; the poorest needlewoman won't be satisfied with them from an umbrella. 'Queens' and 'Alberts' and 'Wales's' and the other children isn't near so good as they was. There's so many 'fine portraits of Her Majesty,' or the others, given away with the first number of this or of that, that people's overstocked. If a working-man can buy a newspaper or a number, why of course he may as well have a picture with it. They gave away glasses of gin at the opening of that baker's shop there, and it's the same doctrine" [The word she used]. "I never offer penny theatres, or comic exhibitions, or anything big; they spoils the look of the umbrella, and makes better things look mean. I sell only to working people, I think; seldom to boys, and seldomer to girls; seldom to servant-maids and hardly ever to women of the town. I have taken 6d. from one of them though. I think boys buy pictures for picture books. I never had what I suppose was old pictures. To a few old people, I've known, 'Children' sell fairly, when they're made plump, and red cheeked, and curly haired. They sees a resemblance of their grandchildren, perhaps, and buys. Young married people does so too, but not so oft, I think. I don't remember that ever I have made more than 1s. 10d. on an evening. I don't sell, or very seldom indeed, at other times, and only in summer, and when its fine. If I clear 5s. I counts that a good week. It's a great help to the lot-selling. I seldom clear so much. Oftener 4s.

The principal sale of these "pictures," in the streets, is from umbrellas. Occasionally, a street-stationer, or even a miscellaneous lotseller, when he has met with a cheap lot, especially of portraits of ladies, will display a collection of prints, pyramidally arranged on his stall,—but these are exceptions. Sometimes, too, an "umbrella print-seller" will have a few "pictures in frames," on a sort of stand alongside the umbrella.

The pictures for the umbrellas are bought at the warehouse, or the swag-shops, of which I have before spoken. At these establishments "prints" are commonly supplied from to the dozen. The street-sellers buy at and the dozen, to sell at a a piece; and

In so desultory and—as intelligent streetseller with whom I conversed on the subject described it—so a trade, it is difficult to arrive at exact statistics. From the best data at my command, it may be computed, that for weeks of the year, there are umbrella print-sellers (all exceptional traders therein included) each clearing weekly, and taking Thus it appears that is yearly expended in the streets in this purchase. Many of the sellers are old or infirm; who was among the most prosperous before the changes in the streets of , was dwarfish, and was delighted to be thought "a character."