in halfpenny bunches. Sometimes they are so thick that. the smell of fried fish and paraffin lamps is forgotten for a moment.

Cross the road to the other side, and you come upon a stream of pleasure-makers pure and simple. A very old man plays unrecognisable tunes from a very old hurdygurdy; yet if you watch, you will see that he receives no end of coppers. At one corner two men stand with a phonograph, and there are always a good dozen of people who have paid a penny to hear the latest music-hall song as rendered by the man who introduced it.

But the best scene of all is where a loudvoicel barrel organ is playing dance-tunes outside a crowded public-house. Here you may chance to see one or two men more or less drunk, but the scene itself is gay in the extreme. In the centre of a ring of spectators a couple of girls are dancing very prettily, one of them bareheaded and unkempt, the other in a clean white blouse and flimsy black hat, which she has to keep in place with one hand. As dance succeeds dance, she removes her hat and passes it to a friendly spectator, taking in its place a handkerchief with which to mop her face. Meanwhile a crowd of bare-headed girls

take the pavement and dance in couples with the same fiery energy, while one of the men in charge of the organ goes the round with his cap. Presently the girls in the ring are much too excited for the common forms of dance. Each lays her hands upon the shoulders of her companions, and together they whirl round and round, more and more rapidly at every turn, as if they stood upon a revolving pivot.

They stop instantaneously with the end of the tune, and stagger laughing into the ranks of the spectators. But they cannot be tired out so long as the organ keeps its place. When the last tune has been played, the girl in the white blouse snatches her hat and replaces it on her head. "Come awn!" she cries impatiently, catching her companion by the arm; and they go off together in search of fresh excitement.

It is in the two side streets mentioned above that some of the most interesting developments of life in Walworth are seen. At the corner of Westmoreland Street you can usually provide yourself with an umbrella at whatever price you choose to name. "And here," says the man, "is a fine silk umbrella, guaranteed Fox's Paragon frame." He puts it up and holds it against

the light of his hanging lamp. Then he puts it up and down rapidly, after the fashion in which people are said to have kept furious bulls at bay. "Nah, will anyone say five shillings? Four-and-six-four shillings-three-and-six-three shillingshalf-a-crown!" There he pauses, but as no buyer comes forward, he quickly reduces his price to eighteenpence. Probably it is eventually sold for ninepence, though any lady may fit herself out at sixpence. A little further on there is a man who sells ornamental vases, writing-cases, and such like matters. Look at it nah," he says, to a lady whose fancy has been taken by a scarlet writing case. "It ain't moroccer, is it?

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"Second-hand black kid gloves."

Now, what'll you give me for it? Half-aguinea?" He takes half-a-crown, and proceeds to exhibit a similar article in "real" crocodile skin. One great charm of his talk, and perhaps a reason for his success, is that he speaks quite impersonally and as though he had not the slightest interest in the sale of his goods.

It is exactly the tone of the man who guides you over some celebrated building, reciting a tale he has told for years without number. Look!" he says, showing two vases in red and blue, "did yer ever see two vauzes painted like that? I'll take two

guineas." No one laughs; in a moment, speaking without any change of tone, the man knocks off the odd pounds, cffering to sell the vases for two shillings, if they happen to strike the fancy of a man who has already been a customer to the extent of half-a-crown.

In the same street is a seller of cheap hosiery who always occupies the same place, and boasts of his fidelity to Walworth at intervals of about three minutes. He stands upon his stall, shouting until he is hoarse, and a quiet woman stands below taking the money and handing out the goods as they are disposed of. The man wears a cloth cap, and even in July-a long coat of dirty sheep skin. If his goods fail to go off he grows pathetic: "Now, you know you can rely on what I sell. I am not here for one day only. I might have gone to the New Cut and done good, but I came here. Now who'll buy two pairs of engineers at sixpence? There's no mistake about it, they are real engineers, and every pair stamped by Somerset House before I get them!" should be said that these " engineers" are socks; as to the meaning of the name, it is to be supposed the goods are rejected Government stores.

It

Sometimes this man sells braces; one has seen him dispose of a large stock of long black merino stockings, the price being one shilling for three pairs! Hardly less interesting are the places where the secondhand clothing is for sale. A great pile, made up of garments of every description, lies betwixt the roadway and the narrow pavement, an iron rod driven into the ground supporting the usual oil-lamp. One or two women display the garments, turning them inside out and holding them up to the light for the inspection of customers who stand in a close ring about the pile.

There are stalls altogether filled with things which have been thrown away by well-to-do people: rusty door-keys, old ivory knife-handles, padlecks, chains, and table knives with blades broken off half-way. And another stall is very pathetic amid the bustle of the street. It consists of a shallow tray covered with white paper, and on it there is nothing but a collection of secondhand black kid gloves, for such as are bereaved. For the last luxury the poor relinquish is that of mourning." As a set-off to this, you may buy beautiful tall lilies, or magnificent palms, of a man whose position is on the other side of the street.

In another street you may sometimes visit a most wonderful show. A dwelling-house

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is parted from the roadway by iron railings, inside which a half-door opens on the steps which lead down into a cellar. A young man, clad in a dirty waistcoat and a jersey bright with bars of mauve and yellow, stands at the entrance and bids you wait a moment. The performance is just over, and the audience are coming forth.

Some great, strong, bare-headed girls come first, to each of whom he puts the question, Satisfied, my dear?" Each answers in the affirmative. Small boys are all "Tommy" to him, and are all similarly questioned. Then a stout woman in a big white apron and faded bonnet struggles up the stairs and draws in a great breath of the air, which is laden with the odour of fried fish and boiling oil. Satisfied, mother? says the showman. "Yes, my dear, and

more than satisfied."

"Thank you, mother." And then you are at liberty to pay your penny and enter.

The cellar measures some ten feet by twelve; as for its height, one can best describe it by stating that the flaring paraffin lamp is suspended from a hook in the boards of the raftered ceiling, and the flame of it is on a level with the top button of one's waistcoat. The floor is apparently of soot. At the end of the wall opposite the entrance is a passage closed by a dirty striped curtain. Against the same wall are some boxes covered with American cloth. The atmosphere is stifling, and even tobacco is of little avail to mitigate its nastiness.

In a very few minutes the audience has entered. Most noticeable are some big strong girls in white aprons with fringed hair on their foreheads, who at once proceed to exchange chaff with certain small boys who appear to be temporarily in charge of the show. There are one or two pale-faced, under-sized men in black suits, who expectorate a good deal and exchange dubious jokes; a very respectable person who has brought his sweetheart, and begins to doubt if he did wisely; a better class workman who expresses a certain contempt for the show, being well acquainted with the South London Palace, and Walworth's own musichall, the Montpellier; and others to the number of thirty, or thereabouts. Among these is a child of ten, very pretty in the bigeyed London fashion, who surveys the scene with infinite amusement from the doorway. And when you have begun to think that you must go or die of suffocation, the show begins.

The man whose acquaintance you have made at the entrance now appears from

behind the curtain, and explains that he will first of all exhibit the wonderful two-headed ox which was born, date and place given. Then one of the boxes is turned round, and you behold a stuffed calf, having a second head tucked away at the side of its neck. Somehow the effect is pathetic in the extreme, the second head is so glaringly out of place. Next comes another box, containing a stuffed lamb, with two heads and an indefinite number of limbs and bodies. And then the Indian Prince enters, simply clad in a shako and petticoat of dirty sheepskin.

He makes a variety of uncouth guttural noises, stamping on the soot floor with his bare feet, and gesticulating frantically. But, as the showman says, always referring to him as "this human being:" "It ain't to hear him pray nor to see him dance, but for talent that's in him." He hands some knuckle-bones to the man, who puts them into his mouth one after the other until it holds five, and is horribly distended; he makes grimaces. Now," says the showman, "put your hands together and give him a clap." Which done, the "human being" ejects the knuckle-bones from his mouth with horrible grimaces until at last only one remains. This he gets between his teeth and his lower lip, showing what the proprietor terms "A nice mouth to kiss a girl with." The exhibition is not a little disgusting.

But greater things are to come.

The proprietor takes up another box; in it, behind glass, is vaguely discerned what what looks like the image of a small monkey in brown clay. This, we are told, is a strange creature, "half fish and half female," caught by "this human being" in unknown seas, and by him brought to Walworth Road. The showman waxes pathetic as he tell how wealthy he would be if the thing were but his own. "But it aint, ladies and gentlemen. It belongs to this human being."

Then a red-hot poker is brought in, and the Prince licks it, and, having carefully licked his palms, grasps it. Put your hands together! cries the showman, and then he announces that "the human being" is to take up a collection on his own account. And now his cry is, "Put your hands in your pockets." The man goes about the cellar making horrible noises and uncouth gestures. When he has received a donation he seems upon the point of apoplexy, and insists on your shaking the hand he has just