CLOCKS—American, French, German, and English eightday dials.

WATCHES—Gold and Silver.

MUSICAL BOXES—, , , and Airs.

WATCH-GLASSES—Common Flint, Geneva, and Lunettes.

MAIN-SPRINGS—Blue and Straw-colour, English and Geneva.

WATCH MATERIALS—Of every description.

JEWELLERY—A general assortment.

SPECTACLES—Gold, Silver, Steel, Horn, and Metal Frames, Concave, Convex, Coloured, and Smoked Eyes.

TELESCOPES—, , and draws.

MATHEMATICAL INSTRUMENTS.

COMBS—Side, Dressing, Curl, Pocket, Ivory, Small- Tooth, &c.

MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS—Violins, Violincellos, Bows, &c., Flutes, Clarionets, Trombones, Ophoclides, Cornopeans, French-Horns, Post-Horns, Trumpets, and Passes, Violin Tailboards, Pegs, and Bridges.

ACCORDIONS—French and German of every size and style.

It must not be thought that swag-shops are mainly repositories of "fancy" articles, for such is not the case. I have described only the "windows" and outward appearances of these places— the interior being little demonstrative of the business; but the bulkier and more useful articles of swag traffic cannot be exposed in a window. In the miscellaneous (or Birmingham and Sheffield) shops, however, the useful and the "fancy" are mixed together; as is shown by the following extracts from the Circular of of the principal swag-houses. I give each head, with an occasional statement of prices. The firm describe themselves as "Wholesale, Retail, and Export Furnishing Ironmongers, General Hardwaremen, Manufacturers of Clocks, Watches, and Steel Pens, and Importers of Toys, Beads, and other Foreign Manufactures."

"Britannia Metal Goods" (tea-pots, &c.), "German Silver Goods" (tea-spoons, to per dozen, &c.).

Japanned goods, brass goods, iron saucepans, oval iron pots, iron tea-kettles, &c., iron stew-pans, &c. The prices here run very systematically:—

Patent enamelled saucepans, oval tin boilers, tin saucepans, tea-kettles, coffee-pots. In all these useful articles the prices range in the same way as in the iron stew-pans. Copper goods (kettles, coal-scoops, &c.), tin fish-kettles, dish-covers, rosewood workboxes, glass, brushes (tooth, hair, clothes, scrubbing, stove, shoe, japanned hearth, banister, plate, carpet, and dandy), tools, plated goods (warranted silver edges), snuffers, beads, musical instruments (accordions from to , &c.). Then come dials and clocks, combs, optics, spectacles, eye-glasses, telescopes, opera glasses, each to , China ornaments, lamps, sundries (these I give verbatim, to show the nature of the trade), crimping and goffering-machines, from , looking-glasses, pictures, &c., beads of every kind, watch-guards, shaving-boxes, guns, pistols, powder-flasks, belts, percussion caps, &c., corkscrews, to , nut-cracks, to , folding measures, each to , silver spoons, haberdashery, skates per pair to , carpet bags, each to , egg-boilers, tapers, flat and box irons, Italian irons and heaters, earthenware jugs, metal covers, tea-pots, plaited straw baskets, sieves, wood pails, camera-obscuras, medals, amulets, perfumery and fancy soaps of all kinds, mathematical instruments, steel pens, silver and German silver patent pencil-cases and leads, snuffboxes "in great variety," strops, ink, slates, metal eyelet-holes and machines, padlocks, braces, belts, Congreves, lucifers, fuzees, pocket-books, bill-cases, bed-keys, and a great variety of articles too numerous to mention.

Notwithstanding the specific character and arrangement of the "Circulars with prices," it is common enough for the swag-shop proprietors to intimate to any likely to purchase that those prices are not altogether to be a guidance, as per cent. discount is allowed on the amount of a ready-money purchase. of the largest "swags" made such an allowance to a street-seller last week.

The swag-shops (of which I state the numbers in a parenthesis) are in (their principal locality) (), (), Whitechapel (), Ratcliffe-highway (), (), Longlane, (), Fleet-lane (), Holywellstreet, Strand (), (), Comptonstreet, Soho (), Hatton-garden (), Clerkenwell (), , Borough (), New-cut (), (), (), Londonroad (), Borough-road (), Waterloo-road ()— in all ; but a person who had been upwards of years a frequenter of these places counted up others, many of them in obscure courts and alleys near , Ratcliffe Highway, &c., &c. These "outsiders" are generally of a smaller class than those I have described; "and I can tell you, sir," the same man said, "some of them—ay, and some of the big ones,

It may be safely calculated, then, that there are swag-shops to which the different classes of street-sellers resort for the purchase of stock. Among these establishments are pot swag, stationery swag, haberdashery swag, jewellery swag, and miscellaneous swag—the latter comprise far more than half of the entire number, and constitute the warehouses which are described by their owners as "Birmingham and Sheffield," or "English and Foreign," or "English and German." It is in these last-mentioned "swags" that the class I now treat of—the street-sellers of metal manufactures—find the commodities of their trade. To this, however, there is exception. Tins for household use are not sold at the general swagshops; but "fancy tins," such as japanned and embellished trays, are vended there extensively. The street-sellers of this order are supplied at the "tin-shops,"—the number of the wholesale tinmen supplying the street-sellers is about . The principle on which the business is conducted is precisely that of the more general swag-shop; but I shall speak of them when I treat of the street-sellers of tins.

An intelligent man, who had been employed in different capacities in some of the principal swagshops, told me of which had been carried on by the same family, from father to son, for more than years. In the largest of the "swags" about "hands" are employed, in the various capacities of salesmen, buyers, clerks, travellers, unpackers, packers, porters, &c., &c. On some mornings large packages — some of small articles entirely — are received from the carriers. In week, when my informant assisted in "making up the books," the receipts were upwards of "In my opinion, sir," he said, "and it's from an insight into the business, Mr. ——'s profit on that was not less than per cent.; for he's a great capitalist, and pays for everything down upon the nail; that's more than profit in a week. Certainly it was an extra week, and there's the hands to pay,—but that wouldn't range higher than , indeed, not so high; and there's heavy rent and taxes, and rates, no doubt, and he (the proprietor is a Jew); a fair man to the trade, and not an uncharitable man—but he will drive a good bargain where it's possible; so considering everything, sir, the profits must be very great, and they are mostly made out of poor buyers, who sell it to poor people in the streets, or in small shops. It's a wonderful trade."

From the best information I could obtain I come to the conclusion that, including small and large shops, yearly is the average receipt of each—or, as it is most frequently expressed, that sum is "turned over" by the swag-shop keepers yearly. There is great competition in the trade, and much of what is called "cutting," or tradesman underselling another. The profit consequently varies from to and (rarely) per cent. Sometimes a swag-shop proprietor is "hung-up" with a stock the demand for which has ceased, and he must dispose of it as "a job lot," to make room for other goods, and thus is necessarily "out of pocket." The smaller swag-shops do not "turn over" a year. The calculation I have given shows an outlay, yearly, of at the swag-shops of London; "but," said a partner in of these establishments, "what proportion of the goods find their way into the streets, what to the shops, what to the country, and what for shipping, I cannot form even a guess, for we never ask a customer for what purpose he wants the goods, though sometimes he will say, 'I must have what is best for such or such a trade.' Say half a million turned over in a year, sir, by the warehousemen who sell to the street-people, among others, and you're within the mark."

I found the street-sellers characterize the "swags" as hard and grinding men, taking every advantage "in the way of trade." There is, too, I was told by a man lately employed in a swagshop, a constant collision of clamour and bargaining, not to say of wits, between the smarter streetsellers—the pattering class especially—and the swag-men with whom they are familiar.

The points in which the "swag-shops" resemble the "slaughter-houses," are in the traffic in work-boxes, desks, and dressing-cases.