BY those who are not connected with the street trade, the proprietors of the swag-shops are often called "warehousemen" or "general dealers," and even "slaughterers." These descriptions apply but partially. "Warehousemen" or "general dealers" are vague terms, which I need not further notice. The wretchedly underpaid and over-worked shoe-makers, cabinetmakers and others call these places "slaughterhouses," when the establishment is in the hands of tradesmen who buy their goods of poor workmen without having given orders for them. On Saturday afternoons pale-looking men may be seen carrying a few chairs, or bending under the weight of a cheffonier or a chest of drawers, in Tottenham-court Road, and thoroughfares of a similar character in all parts. These are "small masters," who make or (as man said to me, "No, sir, I don't make these drawers, I put them together, it can't be called making; it's not workmanship") who "put together" in the hastiest manner, and in any way not positively offensive to the eye, articles of household furniture. The "slaughterers" who supply all the goods required for the furniture of a house, buy at "starvation prices" (the common term), the artificer being often kept waiting for hours, and treated with every indignity. East-end "slaughterer" (as I ascertained in a former inquiry) used habitually to tell that he prayed for wet Saturday afternoons, because it put extra into his pocket! This was owing to the damage sustained in the appearance of any painted, varnished, or polished article, by exposure to the weather; or if it had been protected from the weather, by the unwillingness of the small master to carry it to another slaughter-house in the rain. Under such circumstances—and under most of the circumstances of this unhappy trade—the poor workman is at the mercy of the slaughterer.

I describe this matter more fully than I might have deemed necessary, had I not found that both the "small masters" spoken of—for I called upon some of them again—and the street-sellers, very frequently confounded the "swag-shop" and the "slaughter-house." The distinction I hold to be this:—The slaughterer buys as a rule, with hardly an exception, the furniture, or whatever it may be, made for the express purpose of being offered to him on speculation of sale. The swag shop-keeper his goods as a rule, and buys, as an exception, in the manner in which the slaughterer buys ordinarily. The slaughterer sells by retail; the swag-shop keeper only by wholesale.

Most of the articles, of the class of which I now treat, are "Brummagem made." An experienced tradesman said to me: "All these low-priced metal things, fancy goods and all, which you see about, are made in Birmingham; in cases out of at the least. They may be marked London, or Sheffield, or Paris, or any place — you can have them marked North Pole if you will— but they're genuine Birmingham. The carriage is lower from Birmingham than from Sheffield—that's thing."

The majority of the swag-shop proprietors are Jews. The wares which they supply to the cheap shops, the cheap John's, and the streetsellers, in town and country, consist of every variety of article, apart from what is eatable, drinkable, or wearable, in which the trade class I have specified can deal. As regards what is wearable, indeed, such things as braces, garters, &c., form a portion of the stock of the swagshop.

In street (a thoroughfare at the east-end of London) are of these establishments. In the windows there is little attempt at display; the design aimed at seems to be rather to the window—as if to show the amplitude of the stores within, "the wonderful resources of this most extensive and universal establishment"—than to tempt purchasers by exhibiting tastefully what may have been tastefully executed by the artificer, or what it is desired should be held to be so executed.

In of these windows the daylight is almost precluded from the interior by what may be called a perfect wall of "pots." A streetseller who accompanied me called them merely "pots" (the trade term), but they were all pot

The window of a neighbouring swag-shop presented, in the like crowding, and in greater confusion, an array of brooches (some in coloured glass to imitate rubies, topazes, &c., some containing portraits, deeply coloured, in purple attire, and red cheeks, and some being very large cameos), time-pieces (with and without glasses), French toys with moveable figures, telescopes, American clocks, musical boxes, shirt-studs, backgammon-boards, tea-trays ( with a nondescript bird of most gorgeous green plumage forming a sort of centrepiece), razorstrops, writing-desks, sailors' knives, hairbrushes, and tobacco-boxes.

Another window presented even a more "miscellaneous assortment;" dirks (apparently not very formidable weapons), a mess of steel pens, in brown-paper packages and cases, and of black-lead pencils, pipe-heads, cigar-cases, snuff-boxes, razors, shaving-brushes, letterstamps, metal tea-pots, metal tea-spoons, glass globes with artificial flowers and leaves within the glass (an improvement man thought on the old ornament of a reel in a bottle), Peel medals, Exhibition medals, roulette-boxes, scent bottles, quill pens with artificial flowers in the feathery part, fans, side-combs, glass penholders, and pot figures (caricatures) of Louis Philippe, carrying a very red umbrella, Marshal Haynau, with some instrument of torture in his hand, while over all boomed a huge English seaman, in yellow waistcoat and with a brick-coloured face.

Sometimes the furniture of a swag-shop window is less plentiful, but quite as heterogenous. In were only American clocks, French toys (large), opera-glasses, knives and forks, and powder-flasks.

In some windows the predominant character is jewellery. Ear-drops (generally gilt), rings of all kinds, brooches of every size and shade of coloured glass, shawl-pins, shirt-studs, necklaces, bead purses, small paintings of the Crystal-palace, in "burnished 'gold' frames," watch-guards, watch-seals (each with impressions or mottoes), watch-chains and keys, "silver" tooth-picks, medals, and snuff-boxes. It might be expected that the jewellery shops would present the most imposing display of any; they are, on the contrary, among the dingiest, as if it were not worth the trouble to put clean things in the window, but merely what sufficed to characterise the nature of the trade carried on.

Of the swag-shops in question, were confined to the trade in all the branches of stationery. Of these I saw , the large window of which was perfectly packed from bottom to top with note-paper, account and copy-books, steel-pens, pencils, sealing-wax, enamelled wafers (in boxes), ink-stands, &c.

Of the other shops, had cases of watches, with no attempt at display, or even arrangement. "Poor things," I was told by a person familiar with the trade in them, "fit only to offer to countrymen when they've been drinking at a fair, and think themselves clever."

I have so far described the exterior of these street-dealers' bazaars, the swag-shops, in what may be called their head-quarters. Upon entering some of these places of business, spacious rooms are seen to extend behind the shop or warehouse which opens to the street. Some are almost blocked up with what appears a litter of packing-cases, packages, and bales—but which are no doubt ordered systematically enough— while the shelves are crammed with goods in brown paper, or in cases or boxes. This uniformity of package, so to speak, has the effect of destroying the true character of these swag store-rooms; for they present the appearance of only or different kinds of merchandise being deposited on a range of shelves, when, perhaps, there are a . In some of these swag-shops it appears certain, both from what fell under my own observation, and from what I learned through my inquiries of persons long familiar with such places, that the "litter" I have spoken of is disposed so as to present the appearance of an affluence of goods without the reality of possession.

In no warehouses (properly "swag," or wholesale traders) is there any arranged display of the wares vended. "Ve don't vant people here," street-seller had often heard a swagshopkeeper say, "as looks about them, and says, ''Ow purty!—Vot nice things!' Ve vants to sell, and not to show. Ve is all for bisness, and be d——d." All of these places which I saw were dark, more or less so, in the interior, as if a customer's inspection were uncared for.

Some of the swag-shop people present cards, or "circulars with prices," to their street and other customers, calling attention to the variety of their wares. These circulars are not given without inquiry, as if it were felt that must not be wasted. On I find the following enumeration:—.