handles, disabled locks, bunches of obsolete
keys, superseded door knockers, ancient jam
pots, broken china figures, plaster casts without
noses, empty ink jars, medicine bottles
half full of mixture which was to be taken
three times a day and wasn't, worn-out toothbrush
handles, knobs that have come off everything
that could have a knob, handles of everything
that could have a handle—handles of
parasols, of button hooks, of butter knives, of
paper knives, of water jugs, of tea pots. There
are, besides such mere rubbish and refuse, certain
objects which belong to most people, which
are of some—occasionally of great—intrinsic
value, but which we don't in the slightest
degree appreciate, and secretly yearn to be
delivered from. There is the pair of vases for
the chimneypiece, which were given you on
your marriage day, and which, entirely destroying
the effect of your drawing-room, you have
banished to a bedroom, where they are bitterly
in the way. There is the set of dining-room
chairs, bought by yourself, with your eyes
open, when you paid away hard money—and a
good deal of it—in order that you might become
possessed of what you detest from the
bottom of your soul. There is that claret-
coloured surtout, which will not answer at all,
and which is not likely to wear out, because
you never put it on; also, the pair of unmentionables,
the material of which, when they
were brought home, turned out to be so much
more violent in colour than it looked in the
tailor's pattern-book. What are you to do with
such things as these? You cannot burn a
whole set of dining-room chairs, or a claret-
coloured surtout; and you don't like the idea
of selling them, because, if it got about, your
friends would at once come to the conclusion
that you were on the eve of bankruptcy, and
so your social position might suffer. What are
you to do?

What you are to do is simply this: You are
to advertise in a journal called The Exchange
and Mart. You are to advertise that you are
willing to barter these objects which are harassing
the life out of you, for certain other objects,
which you specify, and which are equally
harrowing to their present proprietor.

The Exchange and Mart is a weekly periodical,
which has been in existence something
over six months. The object with which this
journal has been started may be best explained
by a quotation from the first page of the work
itself:

"THE EXCHANGE AND MART JOURNAL" has been
established to provide a medium between the seller and
buyer, and at a very cheap rate to enable any one who
wishes to dispose of any article, either by exchange or
by sale, to do so to the very best advantage.

It will be desirable to give a short explanation of our
scheme, so that intending advertisers may the more
easily avail themselves of the advantages we offer.

First, let us suppose a person wishing to effect an exchange
through our columns, he will write to the editor
thus: Sir, I wish to make the following exchange
(Here follows the list of articles to be exchanged), for
which I enclose——stamps (enclosing the number of
stamps as per regulations). If the advertiser chooses
to add his own name and address, he can of course do
so; but supposing he should wish to keep it secret, he
will then send us his name and address, and we shall
attach a number to his advertisement, in place of his
name, and all letters answering his advertisement will
therefore be addressed to that number at our office. In
addition to this, the advertiser can, if he wish, send the
article advertised for exchange to our office on view.
The same rules apply to the department of "The
Mart," with this addition, that a charge of five per
cent will be made on all articles sold at our office. As
to the department of " Wants and Vacancies," the desirability
of having some organ where servants and
masters can be brought into communication at a merely
nominal cost, is too obvious to need demonstration.

It will be seen here that not only do the originators
of this scheme take the interests of
their clients very much to heart, but that great
consideration for their feelings is also exhibited,
and ample provision made for that tendency to
shrink from observation which ever besets the
amateur seller, and which we see provided
against by the pawnbroking fraternity in the
shape of those private doors round the corner,
always inseparable from such of their establishments
as are found in our genteeler neighbourhoods.

Some plain directions to intending advertisers
follow:

Let us now proceed to point out the course to be pursued
by any persons answering the advertisements;
and first as regards "The Exchange." The person
answering an advertisement of Exchange must enclose
that answer, stamped, and with the distinguishing
number of the advertisement clearly written upon the
top of it, under cover to the editor of THE EXCHANGE
AND MART, who will thus bring the two parties into
communication. The same course of procedure applies
to " The Mart."

To ensure that the advertisement should be widely
seen, we guarantee a minimum circulation of ten thousand
weekly."

That last "guarantee" is a bold one, and
shows that the proprietors of the undertaking
regard the class which is ready to fly to ills it
knows not of, rather than to endure those
which it has, as rather a large one. And, indeed,
judging from the advertisements which
fill more than a dozen large columns of this
wonderful journal, it would seem to be so. It
is pathetic to observe how—the means of
making their miseries known having at length
come in their way—the proprietors of all sorts
of detested objects hurry forward in search of
deliverance from their passive tormentors. The
present writer once went to see the " Home
for Lost and Starving Dogs;" and as soon as
he appeared in the yard, every one of those
poor ownerless wretches rushed headlong to
the bars behind which they were confined, each
imagining that his especial proprietor had at
last turned up. So with these advertisers.
They were pining hopeless among those fatal
possessions, when suddenly the proprietors of
The Exchange and Mart appeared on the scene
with signals of deliverance; and instantly the
advertisers flung themselves at their feet,
frantic with gratitude and hope. " Rescue me
from this concertina, which I can't play!" cries
one. " Deliver me from this statuette, the
sight of which is killing me by inches!" shrieks
another. " This gun," groans a third, " with