BY this name the street-sellers have long distinguished the warehouses, or rather shops, where they purchase their goods. The term , or , or , is, as was before stated, a Scotch word, meaning a large collection, a "lot." The haberdashery, however, supplied by these establishments is of a very miscellaneous character; which, perhaps, can best be shown by describing a "haberdashery swag," to which a street-seller, who made his purchases there, conducted me, and which, he informed me, was of the most frequented by his fraternity, if not most frequented, in the metropolis.

The window was neither dingy, nor, as my companion expressed it, "gay." It was in size, as well as in "dressing," or "show"—for I heard the arrangement of the window goods called by both those names by street people—half-way between the quiet plainness of a really wholesale warehouse, and the gorgeousness of a retail drapery concern, when a "tremendous sacrifice" befools the public. Not a quarter of an inch of space was lost, and the announcements and prices were written many of them in a bungling schoolboy- like hand, while others were the work of a professional "ticket writer," and show the eagerness of so many of this class of trade to obtain custom. In corner was this announcement: "To bootmakers. Boot fronts cut to any size or quality." There was neither boot nor shoe visible, but how a boot front cut "to any quality," is beyond my trade knowledge. Half hidden, and read through laces, was another announcement, sufficiently odd, in a window decorated with a variety of combustible commodities: "Hawkers supplied with fuzees cheaper than any house in London." On the "ledge," or the part shelving from the bottom of the window, within the shop, were paper boxes of steel purses with the price marked so loosely as to leave it an open question whether or was the cost. There was also a good store of silk purses, marked ; bright-coloured ribbons, in a paper box, and done up in small rolls, ; cotton reels, a penny; worsted balls, a penny; girls' night-caps, ; women's caps, from to ; (the was always in small indistinct characters, but it was a very favourite adjunct); diamond patent mixed pins—London and Birmingham— an oz. My companion directed my attention to the little packets of pins: "They're well done up, sir, as you can see, and in very good and thick and strong pink papers, with ornamental printers' borders, and plenty of paper for ounces. The paper's weighed with the pins, and the price is an oz.; so the paper fetches a pound." There were also many papers of combs, and tied outside the packet as a specimen, without a price marked upon them. "The price varies, sir;" said my guide and informant, and I heard the same account from others; "it varies from a pair to such as me; up to or perhaps to a servant-maid what looks innocent."

From what appeared to be slender rods fitted higher up to the breadth of the window depended "black lace handkerchiefs, ;" and cap fronts, some being a round wreath of gauze ornamented with light rose-coloured artificial flowers, and marked "only ;" together with lace (or edgings) which hung in festoons, and filled every vacancy. Higher up were braces marked ; and more lace; and to the back of all was a sort of screen—for it shuts out all view of the inside of the shop—of big-figured shawls (the figures in purple, orange, and crimson) and of silk handkerchiefs: "They're regular duffers," I was told, "and very tidy duffers too—very, for it's a respectable house."

In the centre of the window ledge was a handsome wreath of artificial flowers, marked "If a young woman was to go in to buy it at , I've seen it myself, sir," said the streetseller, "she's told that the ticket has got out of its place, for it belonged to the lace beneath, but as she'd made a mistake without thinking of the value, the flowers was to her, though they was cheap at "

From this account it will be seen that the swag or wholesale haberdashers are now very general traders; and that they trade "retail" as well as "wholesale." or years ago, I am informed, the greater part of these establishments were really haberdashery swags; but so fierce became the competition in the trade, so keen the desire "to do business," that gradually, and more especially within these or years, they became "all kinds of swags."

A highly respectable draper told me that he never could thoroughly understand where hosiery, haberdashery, or drapery, began or ended; for hosiers now were always glovers, and often shirtmakers; haberdashers were always hosiers (at the least), and drapers were everything; so that the change in the character of the shops from which the street-sellers of textile fabrics procure their supplies, is but in accordance with the change in the general drapery trade. The literal meaning of the word haberdashery is unknown to etymologists.

There are now about haberdashery swags

There is another description of shops from which a class of street traders derive their supplies of stock. These are the "print-brokers," who sell "gown-pieces" to the hawkers or streettraders. Only about a dozen of such shops, and those principally in the borough and in , Bishopsgate, are frequented by the London street-sellers. man showed me a draper's shop, at which hawkers were "supplied," but without an announcement of such a thing, as it might affect the character of the concern for gentility. The gown-pieces were rolled loosely together, and to each was attached a ticket, or , with intermediate prices, but those here mentioned were the most frequent. The was in pencil, so that it could be altered at any time, without the expense of a new ticket being incurred. "That ed ," said the street-seller, "would be charged to me , and the in the same way , or I might get it at If those gown-pieces don't take—and they are almost as thin as silver-paper, —they'll be marked down to and , just by degrees, as you see them shown in the window." The regular "print-brokers" make no display in their windows or premises.

The "duffers" and "lumpers" are supplied almost entirely at shop in the east end. The proprietor has the sham, or inferior, silk handkerchiefs manufactured for the purpose; and for the supply of his other silk-goods, he purchases any silk "miscoloured" in the dyeing, or faded from time. "A faded lavender," of his customers told me, "he'll get dyed black, and made to look quite new and fresh. Sometimes it's good silk, but it's mostly very dicky." This tradesman is also a retailer.

Such things as braces and garters are sold to the street people at the general as well as the haberdashery swag-shops; and are more frequently sold wholesale than other goods; indeed the general swag-shop keepers sell them by no other way; but the "wholesale haberdashers" will sell a single pair, though not, of course, at wholesale price. Some houses again supply the more petty street-sellers, solely with such articles as are known in Manchester by the name of small-ware, including thread, cotton, tapes, laces, &c.