THIS is of the street-trades which has been long in the hands of the Jews, and, unlike the traffic in pencils, sealing-wax, and other articles of which I have treated, it remains so principally still.

In perhaps no article which is a regular branch of the street-trade, is there a greater diversity in the price and quality than in sponge. The streetsellers buy it at (occasionally ), and as high as the pound. At time, I believe about years back, when fine sponge in large pieces was scarce and dear, some street-sellers gave the pound, or, in buying a smaller quantity, an ounce.

I have sold sponge of all sorts," said an experienced street-seller, "both 'fine toilet,' fit for any lady or gentleman, and coarse stuff not fit to groom a ass with. That very common sponge is mostly 1s. the lb. wholesale, but it's no manner of use, it's so sandy and gritty. It weighs heavy, or there might be a better profit on it. It has to be trimmed up and damped for showing it, and then it always feels hask (harsh) to the hand. It rubs to bits in no time. There was a old gent what I served with sponges, and he was very perticler, and the best customer I ever had, for his housekeeper bought her leathers of me. Like a deal of old coves that has nothing to do and doesn't often stir out, but hidles away time in reading or pottering about a garden, he was fond of a talk, and he'd give me a glass of something short, as if to make me listen to him, for I used to get fidgety, and he'd talk away stunning. He's dead now. He's told me, and more nor once, that sponges was more of a animal than a wegetable," continued the incredulous street-seller, "I do believe people reads theirselves silly. Such —— nonsense! Does it look like a animal? Where's its head and its nose? He'd better have said it was a fish. And it's not a wegetable neither. But I'll tell you what it is, sir, and from them as has seen it where its got with their own eyes. I have some relations as is seafarin'--men, and I went a woyage once myself when a lad—one of my relations has seen it gathered by divers, I forget where, from the rocks at the bottom and shores of the sea, and he says it's just seamoss—stuff as grows there, as moss does to old walls in England. That's what it is, sir. As it's grown in the water, it holds water you see. I've made 15s. on sponge alone, in a good week, when I had a good stock; but oftener I've made only 10s., and sometimes not 5s. My best trade is at private houses a little ways out of town. I've heard gents say, 'A good sponging's as good as a bath,' and when I could get good things cheap they'd be sure to sell. No, I never did much at the mews.

Another man told me that he once bought a large quantity of sponge at the lb., trimmed it up as well as he could, and got a man to help him, and the "worked it off" in barrows; there was barrows full, and as was empted it was replenished. It was sold at and a lump; about lumps, or pieces, going to a pound, so that there was profit on what cost , even on the penny lumps. He had forgotten the exact amount he cleared, and he and his mate sold it all in summer's evening, but it was somewhere about This happened some years ago, when the common sponge, which I heard called also "honeycomb" sponge, was not so "blown upon," as my informant expressed it, as it is now. On my asking this man as to the proportion of Jews in this trade, he answered: "Well, many a day I'm satisfied there's people selling sponge, and I should say that for every or Jews is Christian, and half of them, or more, has been in some sort of service, I mean the Christians has, most likely stable-helpers, and they supplies the mews and the job and livery stables, such of them as requires men to find their own sponges, but that's only a few; sponges is mostly bought for such places at the saddlers' and other shops. In my opinion, sir, Jews is better Christians than Christians themselves, for help another, and we don't. I've been helped by a Jew myself, without any connection with them. They're terrible keen hands at a bargain, though."

The sponge in the street-trade is purchased, wholesale, chiefly in . The wholesale trade in sponge, I may add, is also in the hands of the Jews. The great mart is Smyrna, the best qualities being gathered in the islands of the Greek Archipelago. The sponge is carried by the street-traders in baskets, the bearer holding a specimen piece or in his hand. Smaller pieces are sometimes carried in nets, and nets were more frequently in use for this purpose than at present. It is nearly all sold by itinerants, in the business parts as well as the suburbs, the purchasers being "shopkeepers, innkeepers, gentlemen, and gentlemen's servants." Sometimes low-priced sponge is offered in a street-market on a Saturday or Monday night, but very rarely, as it is a thing little used by the poor. A little is sold to the cabmen at their stands. The spongesellers, I may add, when going a regular round, offer their wares to any passer-by. A little is done by the Jews in bartering sponge for old clothes. There are or women in the trade.

I have reason to believe that the estimate of my informant, as to the number of sponge-sellers, is correct. But some sell sponge only occasionally, some make it only a portion of their business, and others vend it only when they "have it a bargain." Calculating, then, that only persons (so allowing for the irregularities in the trade) vend sponge daily, and that each takes weekly,— some taking , and others but —with about half profit on the whole (the common sponge is often from to per cent. profit), we find the outlay to be