a lancet in his girdle, and on whose brow
is written "Analysis?"—that, when I read
the placards relative to "Fine young Hyson,"
"Well-flavoured Pekoe," "Strong family
Souchong," "Imperial Gunpowder," this imp,
putting his thumb to his nose, and spreading
his fingers out demoniacally, whispers, " Sloe-leaves,
China-clay, Prussian blue, yellow ochre,
gum, tragacanth, garbage, poison?"—that,
pointing to Muscovado, and "Fine West
India," and "superfine lump," he mutters
"Sand, chalk, poison?" — that when I talk of
cocoa, he screams,"Venetian Red, and desiccated
manure?"—that, when I allude to coffee,
mocking gibes of burnt beans, chicory, poison?—
that he dances from the grocer's to the baker's,
next door, and executes maniacal gambadoes
on the quartern loaves and French rolls,
uttering yells about chalk, alum, and dead
men's bones?—that he draws chalk and horses'
brains from the dairyman's milk; and horse-flesh,
and worse offal still, from sausages?—that
he shows me everywhere fraud, adulteration
and poison! Avaunt, imp! I begin to think
that there is nothing real in the eating and
drinking line—that nothing is but what is not
—that all beer is cocculus Indicus—all gin,
turpentine, in this delusive Whitechapel. And
not in Whitechapel alone. Art thou immaculate,
Shoreditch? Art thou blameless,
Borough? Canst thou place thy hand on
thy waistcoat, Oxford Street, the aristocratic,
and say thy tea knows no "facing or glazing,"
thy sugar no potato starch, thy beer no
doctoring?

But one of my friends is clamorous for beer;
and, to avoid adulteration, we eschew the delusive
main thoroughfare for a moment, and
strike into a maze of little, unsavoury back-streets,
between Whitechapel Church and
Goodman's Fields. Here is a beer-shop—a little,
blinking, wall-eyed edifice, with red curtains in
the window, and a bar squeezed up in one
corner, as though it were ashamed of itself.
From the door of the tap-room which we open,
comes forth a thick, compact body of smoke.
There are, perhaps, twenty people in the room,
and they are all smoking like limekilns. From
a kiln at the upper extremity, comes forth the
well-remembered notes of the old trink-lied,
"Am Rhein, am Rhein." We are in Vaterland
at once. All these are Teutons—German
sugar-bakers. There are hundreds more of
their countrymen in the narrow streets about
here, and dozens of low lodging-houses, where
the German emigrants are crimped and
boarded and robbed. Here, also, live the
German buy-a-broom girls. There are little
German public-houses, and German bakers,
and little shops, where you can get sauerkraut
and potato-salad, just as though you
were in Frankfort or Mayence. Dear old
Vaterland! pleasant country of four meals
a-day. and featherbed counterpanes—agreeable
land, where you can drink wine in the
morning, and where everybody takes off his
hat to everybody else! Though thy cookery
is execrable, and thy innkeepers are robbers,
I love thee, Germany, still!

My experienced friend, when we have refreshed
ourselves at this hostelry, brings us,
by a short cut, into Union Street, and so into
the broad Whitechapel-road. Here the curb-stone
market I have alluded to, crosses the
road itself, and stretches, in a straggling,
limping sort of way, up to Whitechapel Workhouse.
We come here upon another phase of
Saturday-night Whitechapel life. The children
of Jewry begin to encompass us, not so
much in the way of business; for though their
Sabbath is over, and work is legal — though
Aaron, at the other extremity, is in full swing
of money-making activity, yet the majority of
the Israelites prefer amusing themselves on a
Saturday night. They are peculiar in their
amusements, as in everything else. The public-house
—the mere bar, at least, has no
charms for them; but almost all the low
coffee-shops you pass are crowded with young
Jews, playing dominoes and draughts; while
in the publics, where taprooms are attached,
their elders disport themselves with cards,
bagatelle, and the excitement of a sing-song
meeting. Smoking is universal. Cigars the
rule—pipes the exception. Houndsditch, the
Minories, Leman Street, Duke's Place, St.
Mary Axe, Bevis Marks, and Whitechapel
itself, have all contributed their quota to fill
these places of amusement; and here and
there you will see some venerable Israelite,
with long beard and strange foreign garb,
probably from Tangier or Constantinople, on
a visit to his brethren in England. There
are legends, too, of obscure places in this
vicinity, where what the French call "gros
jeu" or high play, is carried on. In
Butcher Row, likewise, are Jew butchers,
where you may see little leaden seals, inscribed
with Hebrew characters, appended to
the meat, denoting that the animal has been
slaughtered according to the directions of the
Synagogue. In the daytime you may see long
bearded rabbins examining the meat, and
testing the knives on their nails.

What have we here? "The grand Panorama
of Australia, a series of moving pictures."
Admission, one penny. Just a-going
to begin. Some individuals, dressed as Ethiopian
serenaders, hang about the door; and
one with the largest shirt-collar I have ever
seen, takes my penny, and admits me, with
some score or two more, where, though it is
just a-going to begin, I and my friends wait a
good quarter of an hour. There are two
policemen off duty beside me, who are indulging
in the dolce far niente, and cracking
nuts. There is a decent, civil-spoken silk-weaver
from Spitalfields, too, whose ancestors,
he tells me, came over to England at the time
of the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, and
who has a romantically French name. He
has the old Lyons indentures of his ancestors
at home, he says.

We give up the panorama in despair; and,