I SPECIFY these commodities jointly, because they are frequently sold by the same individual. In Whitechapel and Spitalfields are establishments, where the street-sellers of blacking are principally supplied with their stock. It is sold in cakes, which are wrapped in a kind of oil paper, generally printed on the back, so as to catch the eye, with the address of some well-known blacking manufacturer. Thus some which a streetseller of blacking showed me were printed, in large type, as a sort of border, "Lewis's India Rubber Blacking," while in the middle was a very black and very predominant , and beneath it, in small and hardly distinguishable type, "Princess-st., Portman-market." Any shopkeeper, who "supplies the trade," if he be a regular customer of the manufacturer, can have his name and address printed on the cover of the blacking-cakes. The is meant to catch the eye with the wellknown flourish of ", Strand."

The quality of these cakes of blacking, the street-sellers whom I questioned told me was highly approved by their customers, and, as blacking is purchased by the classes who aim at a smartness and cleanliness above that of the purchasers of many street commodities, there is no reason to doubt the assertion. The sale of this blacking, indeed, is chiefly on a round, and it would be hopeless as to future custom to call a time at any house where bad blacking had been sold on a previous visit. The article is vended wholesale, in "gross boxes," and "halfgross boxes." The half-gross boxes are , and capital, even in this trifling trade, has its customary advantages, for the "gross boxes" are but It should be remembered, however, that to the buyer of "half-gross" a couple of the plain wooden boxes, in which the blacking is sold, and often hawked, must be supplied; but to the buyer of a "gross box" only of these cases is furnished. I may mention, to the credit

This trade presents the peculiarity of being almost entirely a street "door-to-door" trade, as I heard it described. Blacking is not presented for purposes of begging, as are lucifer-matches, tracts, memorandum-books, boot-laces, &c.; for the half-trading, half-begging, is carried on in the quieter parts of town, and more extensively in the suburbs, ladies being principally accosted, and to them blacking is not offered.

There are now, I learn from good authority, never fewer than persons selling cake blacking, "from door to door." More than half of them are elderly women, and more than threefourths women of all ages and girls. The other sellers are old men and boys. None of the blacking-sellers make the article they vend. To sell dozen cakes a week is a full average, and of these the "pennies" and the "half-pennies" are about equally divided. This gives a weekly outlay of to each individual seller, with an average profit of about , and shows a yearly streetexpenditure by the public of The profit, however, is not in equal apportionment among the traders in blacking, for the "old hands" on a regular round will do double the business of the others.

In liquid blacking the trade is now small. It is occasionally sold in the street markets on Saturday nights, but the principal traffic is in the public-houses. This kind of blacking is retailed at a bottle, and, I was informed by a man who had sold it, was "rather queer stuff." It is labelled "equal to" (in very small letters) DAY AND MARTIN" in very large letters. of the manufacturers a few years ago told my informant that he had been threatened "with being sued for piracy, but it was no use sueing a mouse." There are sometimes none, and sometimes persons hawking this blacking, and they are principally, I am informed, the servants of showmen, "out of employ," or "down on their luck." Some of these men "raffle" their blacking in public-houses. They are provided with tickets, numbered from to , which are thrown, the blank sides upwards on a table, and the drawer of number wins a -penny bottle of blacking for ; for this the raffler receives Few of these traders sell more than dozen bottles in a day, the principal trade being in the evening, and "-and-a-half dozen is a very good day." The goods are carried in a sack, slung from the shoulder, and are a very heavy carriage, as twoand-a- half dozen, which are often carried, weigh about lbs. If men, the year through, take each weekly (about half the amount being profit), which, I am assured, is the average extent of the trade, we find yearly expended in this liquid blacking. " years ago," said blacking seller to me, "it was times as much as it is now." At the mews blacking is sold by men who are for the most part servants out of place, or who have become known to the denizens of the mews, from having been "helpers" in some capacity, if they have not worn a livery. Here the article vended is what it is announced to be,—"Hoby's" or "Everett's" blacking. The sellers are known to the coachmen and grooms, many of whom have to "find their own blacking," or there would be no business done in the mews, the dwellers there being great sticklers for "a good article." The profit to the vendors is in Shilling bottles are vended as numerously as "sixpennies." An old coachman, who had lived in mews in all parts of town, calculated that, take the year through, there was every day men selling blacking in the mews, with an average profit of a day, or a week, so taking each. This gives a mews expenditure, yearly, of

, for the polishing of grates, is sold in small paper packets, the half ounce being a , and the ounce a The profit is cent. per cent. Nearly all the women who sell blacking, as I have described, sell black-lead also. In addition to these elderly traders, however, there are from to boys and girls who vend blacklead in the street markets, but chiefly on Saturday nights, and on other days offer it through the area rails—their wretched plight, without any actual begging, occasionally procuring them custom.

The black-lead sold in the streets has often a label in imitation of that of established shopkeepers, as "Superfine Pencil Black-Lead, prepared expressly for, and sold by T. H. Jennings, Oil- Colour and Italian Warehouse, , Wormwoodstreet, City." The name and address must of course be different, but the arrangement of the lines, and often the type, is followed closely, as are the adornments of the packet, which in the instance cited are heraldic. In other parts of town, the labels of tradesmen are imitated in a similar way, but not very closely; and in nearly half the qantity sold a label is given, without imitation or sham. "There would be more sold in that way," I was told by a sharp lad, "quite the real ticket, if the dons as wholesales the black-lead, would make it up to sell in ha'porths and penn'orths, with a proper 'lowance to us as sells." This boy and a young sister went on a round; the boy with black-lead, the girl with

There are, I am informed, to persons selling and hawking black-lead in the streets, and it may be estimated that they take each weekly (the adults selling other small articles with the black-lead); thus we find, averaging the number of sellers at , that is yearly expended in this article, half of which sum forms the profit of the street-folk.