All the English toymakers agree, with one
accord, that we cannot for an instant compete
with the Germans and Tyrolese in the fabrication
of such articles, price for price. We have not
made it a large and important branch of
handicraft; and our workmen have not studied
natural history with sufficient assiduity to give
the proper distinctive forms to the animals.
The more elaborate productions—such as the
baby-dolls which can say "mamma," and make
their chests heave like any sentimental damsels
—are of French, rather than German manufacture,
and are not so much wooden productions
as combinations of many different materials.
Papier mâché, moulded into form, is becoming
very useful in the doll and animal trade; while
india-rubber and gutta-percha are doing
wonders. The real Noah's Ark work, however,
is thoroughly German, and is specially connected
with wood-working. Some of the more delicate
and elaborate specimens of carving—such as the
groups for chimney-piece ornaments, honoured
by the protection of glass shades—are made of
lime-tree or linden-wood, by the peasants of
Oberammergan, in the mountain parts of
Bavaria. There were specimens of these kinds of
work at our two Exhibitions which could not
have been produced in England at thrice the
price; our good carvers are few, and their
services are in request at good wages for mediæval
church-work. We should be curious to know
what an English carver would require to be paid
for a half guinea Bavarian group, now before us
—a Tyrolese mountaineer seated on a rock, his
rifle resting on his arm, the studded nails in his
climbing shoes, a dead chamois at his feet, his
wife leaning her hand lightly on his shoulder,
his thumb pointing over his shoulder to denote
the quarter where he had shot the chamois, his
wooden bowl of porridge held on his left knee,
the easy fit and flow of the garments of both
man and woman—all artistically grouped and
nicely cut, and looking clean and white in
linden-wood. No English carver would dream
of such a thing at such a price. However, these
are not the most important of the productions
of the peasant carvers, commercially speaking;
like as our Mintons and Copelands make more
money by every-day crockery than by beautiful
Parian statuettes, so do the German toymakers
look to the Noah's Ark class of productions as
their main stay in the market, rather than to
more elegant and artistic works.

ACCOMMODATION.

You ask me what is my profession or calling,
—what are my means of living? I am "tout"
to a number of money-lenders—to any one of
that trade who will employ me; all of them being
glad for me to bring fish to their respective nets.
Was I always in this line of business? Certainly
not. I began life in the army. When twenty
five years of age, I was a captain of heavy
dragoons, with an income of a thousand a year,
derived from my patrimony of twenty thousand
pounds, securely invested at five per cent. I
was a gentleman then, not merely in profession,
but in thought, word, and deed—of what I am
now, the less we say the better. How did I
fall from the past to the present? If a man has
certain pursuits, it does not take long to run
through twenty thousand pounds. I managed
to do it in less than five years, leaving behind
me a track of debts amounting to ten thousand
pounds additional. At thirty years of age I
was an outlawed insolvent. But what I had
lost in money I had gained in experience, and
resolved to turn my knowledge to account. A
relative left me five hundred pounds to set me
up as a wine-merchant, but in six months I
failed for three thousand. Another friend
procured me a situation in an insurance-office,
but I could not keep the place. When a man
has a taste for extravagant life—when for five
years he has kept his four or five hunters in
"the shires," his shooting-box in the
Highlands, and his yacht at Cowes, to say nothing
of his personal expenses in London, his trips to
Baden, Homburg, and other parts where the
main is cried, and the talk is of red and black
—it is more than difficult to sober down and
become a useful member of society. At any
rate, I found it impossible, and therefore, in
order to earn my daily bread, I accepted the
offer of a well-known West-end money-lender, to
look out for victims for him, and to be paid a
commission of five per cent upon every transaction
which he does by means of my introduction.

You say that people would never suspect me of
following this calling; of course they would not.
If it were known that I derived any profit from
bill or other monetary transactions, I should be
avoided at once. I dress well—no man better—
I have always remained a member of a military
club, and it is generally supposed by the
numerous men about town who know me that
I have property of my own, and live rather a
fast life in London; or that I "make a book"
on the chief races, or dabble in shares and
stocks. Only yesterday I overheard a young
Guardsman ask a friend—a very old hand about
town—"What is Captain Blank? How does he
gain his living?" The reply was, "Don't
know; sold out of Heavies years ago; seems
always to have coin; meet him everywhere;
capital fellow; up to anything." And such
would be the opinion of nine men out of ten
about the clubs, if asked who or what I am.

What do I make by my profession? Never
less than ten guineas a week, and sometimes
as much as thirty or forty. It all depends
upon the season, and luck. The most profitable
times of the year are from Easter to the
end of the London season, which is the time
when men about town are most in want of
money; and again about the end of the year,
when means must be had to meet, at any rate
in part, tradesmen's bills. Trade expenses I
have little or none, beyond a standing
advertisement in two or three of the weekly papers,
in which I inform "NOBLEMEN, GENTLEMEN
OF PROPERTY, AND OFFICERS UPON FULL PAY,