FLY-PAPER came, generally, into street-traffic, I am informed in the summer of .

The fly-paers are sold wholesale at many of the oil-shops, ut the principal shop for the supply of the street-aders is in Whitechapel. The wholesale price, a dozen, and the (street) retail charge paper, or A young man, to whom I as referred, and whom I found selling, or rather bartering, crockery, gave me the following account of his experience of the flypaper trade. He was a rosy-cheeked, strong-built young fellow, and said he thought he was "getting on" in his present trade. He spoke merrily of his troubles, as I have found common among his class, when they are over.

My father had a milk-walk," he said, "and when he died I was without money and had nothing to do, but I soon got a place with a single gentleman. He had a small house, and kept only me and a old housekeeper. I was to make myself generally useful, but when I first went, the most I had to do was to look after a horse that master had. Master never was on horseback in his life, but he took Skipjack—that was the horse's name, he was rising six—for a debt, and kept him two months, till he could sell him to his mind. Master took a largeish garden—for he was fond of growing flowers and vegetables, and made presents of them—just before poor Skipjack went, and I was set to work in it, besides do my house-work. It was a easy place, and I was wery comfable. But master, who was a good master and a friend to a poor man, as I know, got into difficulties; he was something in the City; I never understood what; and one night, when I'd been above a year and a-half with him, he told me I must go, for he couldn't afford to keep me any longer. Next day he was arrested, quite sudden I believe, and sent to prison for debt. I had a good character, but nobody cared for one from a man in prison, and in a month my money was out, and my last 3s. 6d. went for an advertisement, what was no good to me. I then took to holding horses or anything that way, and used to sleep in the parks or by the road-sides where it was quiet. I did that for a month and more. I've sometimes never tasted food all day, and used to quench myself (so he worded it) with cold water from the pumps. It took off the hunger for a time. I got to know other boys that was living as I was, and when I could afford it I slept at lodging-houses, the boys took me to or told me about. One evening a gentleman gave me 1s. for catching his horse that he'd left standing, but it had got frightened, and run off. Next morning I went into the flypaper trade,—it's nearly two years ago, I think— because a boy I slept with did tidy in it. We bought the papers at the first shop as was open, and then got leave of the deputy of the lodginghouse to catch all the flies we could, and we stuck them thick on the paper, and fastened the paper to our hats. I used to think, when I was in service, how a smart livery hat, with a cockade to it, would look, but instead of that I turned out, the first time in my life that ever I sold anything, with my hat stuck round with flies. I felt so ashamed I could have cried. I was miserable, I felt so awkerd. But I spent my last 2d. in some gin and milk to give me courage, and that brightened me up a bit, and I set to work. I went Mile-end way, and got out of the main streets, and I suppose I'd gone into streets and places where there hadn't often been fly-papers before, and I soon had a lot of boys following me, and I felt, almost, as if I'd picked a pocket, or done something to be 'shamed of. I could hardly cry 'Catch 'em alive, only a halfpenny!' But I found I could sell my papers to public-houses and shopkeepers, such as grocers and confectioners, and that gave me pluck. The boys caught flies, and then came up to me, and threw them against my hat, and if they stuck the lads set up a shout. I stuck to the trade, however, and took 2s. 6d. to 3s. every day that week, more than half of it profit, and on Saturday I took 5s. 6d. The trade is all to housekeepers. I called at open shops and looked up at the windows, or held up my hat at private houses, and was sometimes beckoned to go in and sell my papers. Women bought most, I think. 'Nasty things,' they used to say, 'there's no keeping nothing clean for them.' I stuck to the trade for near two months, and then I was worth 13s. 6d., and had got a pair of good shoes, and a good second-hand shirt, with one to change it; and next I did a little in tins and hardware, at the places where I used to go my fly rounds, and in the winter I got into the crock-trade, with another young fellow for a mate, and I'm in it yet, and getting a tidy connection, I think.

Some of the fly-paper sellers make their stockin- trade, but -fourths of the number buy them ready-made. The street-sellers make them of old newspapers or other waste-paper, no matter how dirty. To the paper they apply turpentine and common coach varnish, some using resin instead of varnish, and occasionally they dash a few grains of sugar over the composition when spread upon the paper.

Last summer, I was informed, there were or persons selling fly-papers and beetle wafers in the streets; some of them boys, and all of them of the general class of street-sellers, who "take" to any trade for which suffices as capital. Their average earnings may be estimated at a day, about -half being profit. This gives a street outlay, say for a "season" of weeks, of , calculating sellers.

A few of these street traders carried a side of a newspaper, black with flies, attached to a stick, waving it like a flag. The cries were "Catch 'em alive! Catch 'em alive for !" "New method of destroying thousands!"