LIKE many street-callings which can be started on

The laces are bought at the haberdashery swagshops I have spoken of, and amongst these old women I found the term "swag-shop" as common as among men who buy largely at such establishments. The usual price for boot-laces to be sold in the streets is a dozen. Each lace is tagged at both ends, sufficing for a pair of boots. The regular retail price is a penny, but the lace-sellers are not unfrequently compelled to give , or lose a customer. A better quality is sold at and a dozen, but these are seldom meddled with by the street lace-sellers. It is often a matter of strong endeavour for a poor woman to make herself mistress of , the whole of which she can devote to the purchase of boot-laces, as for she can procure a gross, so saving in dozen.

The stay-laces, which are bought at the same places, and usually sold by the same street-traders, are and the dozen. I am told that there are as many of the higher as of the lower priced stay-laces bought for street sale, "because," of the street-sellers told me "there's a great many servant girls, and others too, that's very particular about their stay-laces." The stay-laces are retailed at each.

These articles are vended at street-stalls, along with other things for female use; but the most numerous portion of the lace-sellers are itinerant, walking up and down a street market, or going on a round in the suburbs, calling at every house where they are known, or where, as woman expressed it, "we make bold to venture." Those frequenting the street-markets, or other streets or thoroughfares, usually carry the boot-laces in their hands, and the stay-laces round their necks, and offer them to the females passing. Their principal customers are the working-classes, the wives and daughters of small shop-keepers, and servant-maids. "Ladies, of course," said lace-seller, "won't buy of us." Another old woman whom I questioned on the subject, and who had sold laces for about years, gave me a similar account; but she added:—"I've sold to high--up people though. Only or weeks back, a finedressed servant maid stopped me and said, 'Here, I must have a dozen boot-laces for mistress, and she says, she'll only give for them, as it's a dozen at once. A mean cretur she is. It's grand doings before faces, and pinchings behind backs, at our house.'"

Among the lace-sellers having rounds in the suburbs are some who "have known better days." old woman had been companion and housekeeper to a lady, who died in her arms, and whose legacy to her companion-servant enabled her to furnish a house handsomely. This she let out in apartments at "high-figures," and anything like a regular payment by her lodgers would have supplied her with a comfortable maintenance. But fine gentlemen, and fine ladies too, went away in her debt; she became involved, her furniture was seized, and step by step she was reduced to boot-lace selling. Her appearance is still that of "the old school;" she wears a very large bonnet of faded black silk, a shawl of good material, but old and faded, and always a black gown. The poor woman told me that she never ventured to call even at the houses where she was best received if she saw any tax-gatherer go to or from the house: "I know very well what it is," she continued, "it's no use my calling; they're sure to be cross, and the servants will be cross too, because their masters or mistresses are cross with them. If the tax-gatherer's not paid, they're cross at being asked; if he is paid, they're cross at having had to part with their money. I've paid taxes myself."

The dress of the boot lace-sellers generally is that of poor elderly women, for the most part perhaps a black chip, or old straw bonnet (often broken) and a dark-coloured cotton gown. Their abodes are in the localities in all parts of the metropolis, which I have frequently specified as the abodes of the poor. They live most frequently in their own rooms, but the younger, and perhaps I may add, coarser, of the number, resort to lodging-houses. It is not very uncommon, I was told by of the class, for poor women, boot-lace sellers or in some similar line, "to join" in a room, so saving half the usual rent of for an unfurnished room. This arrangement, however, is often of short duration. There is always arising some question, I was told, about the use or wear of this utensil or the other, or about washing, or about wood and coals, if street-seller returned an hour or before her companion. This is not to be wondered at, when we bear in mind that to these people every farthing is of consequence. From all that I can learn, the boot-lace sellers (I speak of the women) are poor and honest, and that, as a body, they are little mixed up with dishonest characters and dishonest ways. The exceptions are, I understand, among some hale persons, such as I have alluded to as sojourning in the lodging-houses. Some of these traders receive a little parochial relief.

intelligent woman could count up persons depending chiefly upon the sale of boot and stay-laces, in what she called her own neighbourhood. This comprised , , Tottenham Court-road, the Hampstead-road, and all the adjacent streets. From the best data at my command, I believe there are not fewer than individuals these wares in London. Several lace-sellers agreed in stating that they sold a dozen boot-laces a-day, and a dozen stay-laces, and dozen extra on Saturday nights; but the drawbacks of bad weather, &c., reduce the average sale to not more than dozen a week, or

The same quantity of stay-laces sold at a dozen shows an outlay of , with about an equally proportional profit to the sellers.

Most of these traders sell tapes and other articles as well as laces. The tapes cost and the dozen, and are sold at a knot. A dozen in days is an average sale, but I have treated more expressly of those who depend principally upon boot-lace selling for their livelihood. Their average profits are about a week, on laces alone. The trade, I am told, was much more remunerative a few years back, and the decline was attributed "to so many getting into the trade, and the button boots becoming as fashionable as the Adelaides."