which I have never shot anything! Remove it
from above my chimneypiece, and take a load
from my heart!"

The advertisers who seek to make their wants
known through the pages of The Exchange
and Mart, seem to possess many characteristics
in common. The same articles appear to be
popular and unpopular with them. They all
want sealskin jackets and sewing- machines,
and none of them want incomplete pieces of
Berlin wool work, and "boxes of oil paints
nearly new." There is, by the way, a very
brisk desire to get rid of these last, suggesting
the idea that a considerable proportion of the
advertisers have been the victims of a false
impression that they had a vocation for art.
Sometimes the revulsion of feeling brought
about by the acquirement of these " paints" is
very strong indeed, as in the case of an advertiser
in the twentieth number of The Exchange,
who suddenly discovers, after cultivating for a
brief space the peaceful arts that soften men's
manners, a certain blood-thirsty tendency, at
once incongruous and terrible. " I have," says
this gentleman, " an oil-paint box almost complete,
and very little-used. I want a small
breech-loading revolver."

Among the characteristics shared in common
by the clients of the Exchange journal must
be noted a wonderful and touching hopefulness.
They are so inexplicably sanguine. They
see nothing outrageous in the idea of getting
new lamps for old ones. The lamps they have
to dispose of are very old ones, and they know
it. The wares they offer for competition are,
for the most part, no doubt, defective, imperfect,
and disappointing; yet they expect that
the objects which they are to get in exchange
for them are to possess none of those qualities.
Here is a wonderful instance of this hopefulness.
It is headed " GOATS!"

"Three pure white Sicilian goats to be exchanged
for a lock-stitch sewing-machine, Wilson
preferred, in perfect condition."

A gentleman or lady possessed of a sewing-
machine, by the best maker, in perfect condition,
is expected to part with it, and to receive in
return—three terrible goats! Is this a thing
likely to happen? Is it likely, again, that the
advertiser who has " a fine tame fox, which he
wishes to exchange for a gold watch or guard,"
will meet with a customer? Or that the proprietor
of an ivory card-case is to be able to
exchange it, or "two pieces of Chinese and
Japanese embroidery" for a "Cleopatra" or a
"Wanzer" sewing-machine, in good order?

These sewing-machines are in continual request.
In one copy of The Exchange there are no
less than eleven advertisements for these useful
articles, for which the most various and incongruous
things—guitars, celestial and terrestrial
globes, bantam cocks, and magic lanterns,
among the rest—are offered in exchange.

This incongruity between the object offered
and that which is advertised for, is another of
the curiosities of advertisement which the new
journal supplies us with. Besides such instances
as have been already mentioned, we find such
notices as the following, in plenty: "Butter-
dish of carved white wood, with green glass
centre, quite new, never used, cost eight shillings
and sixpence. To exchange for Mendelssohn's
Lieder ohne Worte; or a pair of lady's
skates, or a round brass American clock, or a
carved fretwork brooch, or Tennyson's poems."
"I will give forty pencil drawings," says one
advertiser, "all good, some excellent, for
twelve pounds of good honey!" " ' Raising
the Maypole,' quite new," says another; " size,
forty inches by thirty inches. Wanted blankets,
or offers." Another advertiser wishes to change
a pair of archery targets for a good guitar; another,
to become possessed of a small revolver
in place of Knight's Natural History; another
to exchange a handsome lever gold watch and
seals, for—a cow!

Among the remarkable points to which one's
attention is frequently drawn in considering
these notices, is the exceeding popularity of
sealskin. The advertisements for sealskin
jackets, sealskin muffs, sealskin waistcoats, sealskin
purses, follow one another in close succession,
and are even more numerous than those
for sewing-machines. Neither do the owners
of the former, any more than the latter, appear
to tire of such possessions, or wish to be rid of
them. There are no instances of advertisers
wishing to part, either with sealskin jackets or
sewing-machines.

Occupying ourselves still with the especial
peculiarities developed in the columns of this
curious periodical, one cannot help noticing
what a rare quality accuracy and intelligibility in
written description is. This is manifested by
the Exchange advertisers, both in describing
the objects they wish to part with, and those of
which they desire to become possessed. Thus,
there are advertisers who announce their possession
of a "very good long thick watch-
chain," without specifying of what metal it is
composed; others, who are in want of a yard
"or so " of piece silk; others, who yearn for a
large new album, " to hold four in a page"—
four what? Some of the descriptions, too, are
very minute in detail, and some characterised
by a certain conscientiousness. A set of steel
ornaments, for instance, which are "slightly
rusty," are advertised; and a lace shawl, a
"little soiled;" while one advertiser, in her
desire to be strictly honest, enters into quite a
little narrative of the autobiographical sort: " I
have," she says, " a good bracelet, bought at the
Exhibition in '62. I do not know of what metal
it is made, but I think it cannot be plated, as I
have worn one bought at the same time, a great
deal, and it has not in the least turned colour."

Some people are possessed of very hopeless
goods indeed, and seem to be perfectly conscious
of their unfortunate position. Here is
an unhappy case: " I have ten gross of plate-
powder, each in packet boxes. I wish to exchange
for anything useful. Open to offers."
And here another: "I have about a hundred
different, mostly freethought, pamphlets,
average price sixpence, which I would exchange
for anything useful worth a guinea."