could by any means be avoided, before
some bargains had been made, and some
profit, however small, secured. Towards
twelve o'clock the clothesmen would return
with heavily laden bags ; and then the space
before the bar became so crowded with Jews
and their sacks that it resembled a granary
of old clothes ; then was the foaming pot
quaffed, and the fried flounder eaten ; then
were racy anecdotes told of keen bargains
and unwary customers, and clothes vendors
who " didn't know the value of things, no
more than a child, my dear." Towards evening
the bar would be crowded again, but
always with Jews. They betted on every
imaginable topic — horses, dogs, the various
length of cigars, theatricals, politics, —
anything, in short, on which a variety of opinion
could possibly exist, and could consequently
offer a field for a wager. And then they
played — these jovial Jews — at cribbage, at
all-fours, at any game at which sixpences
could be won or lost. The card tables were
the top of the counter, the crown of a hat, the
knees of the players, a pair of bellows, or any
other object offering a plane surface. The card-
playing at the Jews' Harp grew to such a
pitch that at last Moss lost his license. He
goes under the name of Montmorency now ;
has a Brougham and handsome chambers in
Waterloo Place ; and, I am given to understand,
does little bills for the Guards, horse
and foot.

If you would see a genuine Jewish
public (since Holywell Street has been un-
Israelitised), our dray must rumble us through
the narrow straggling City streets viâ
Aldgate Pump to the heart of Jewish London.
We could have taken St. Mary Axe as a
nearer approach to it; but Bevis Marks,
Mitre Street, Duke's Place, Cree Church
Lane, St. Anne's Square, half-a-dozen choked
up little streets running into the broad channel
of Houndsditch, are more redolent of Jewish
life. The sign of the people is everywhere.
The air is heavy with the fumes of Minories-
made cigars. Old — very old — Old Jewry is
puffing lazily from open windows, or lounging
on door steps, or chatting at street corners
apparently idle, but, trust me, doing keen
strokes of business. It is Sunday morning,
and the New Police Act notwithstanding,
I can find half-a-dozen publics, not wide
open, but still in the full swing of business.
Sunday not being the Sabbath of
the peculiar people, they have, of course,
none of the scruples connected with working
on that day that we have; so the Nemesis
of the blue uniform, the lettered collar, and
the glazed hat slumbers in Jewry on
Sunday morning; won't see that beer is
sold, won't remember that Church service is
proceeding, won't hear the gurgling of
beer-engines, or the murmurs of spirit taps.
Our Judaical public-house lies in Aminadab
Street, close to Talmud Square, and hard by
the Marks. It used to be known as Duke's
Place. On one side resides Mr. Reuben
Sheeny, dealer in old gold and silver, who
displays nothing more valuable in his shop
window than a wooden bowl with two anchor
buttons, within a ragged, tarnished epaulette ;
but who, I dare say, has the wealth of the
Indies inside, somewhere. On the other side
is a little squeezed-up sandwich of a shop ;
which, at first sight, I mistook for a stall for
the repair of Hebrew soles and upper leather ;
imagining that the Hebrew inscription over
the window and on the door-jambs related to
the mysteries of the crispinical art. But I
have since found out my error. The grave
old man with goggle-eyed spectacles and a
flowing white beard is not a cobbler. He is
a scribe, a public letter-writer, an écrivain
public. He will write love-letters, draw
contracts and agreements, make severe applications
for little bills, and conduct the general
correspondence of Jewry. Unchanging Jewry !
Here, among the docks and screaming
factories, to find a scribe. Writing, perhaps,
with a reed pen, and possessing very probably
the rolls of the law in his corner cupboard.
Between these two tenements is the Bag o'
Rags. The shutters are up, and the front
door is closed ; but, by the side door, free
ingress and egress are afforded. Not less
than fifty persons are in the narrow parlour
and scanty bar, and your humble servant the
only Nazarene. Behind the counter is Miss
Leah, a damsel of distracting beauty, but
arrayed for the moment in a gown of cotton
print. Probably Miss Cosher adheres to the
principle that beauty, when unadorned, is
adorned the most, although yesterday, had
you seen her walking to Synagogue, you
would have seen the rainbow-tinted produce
of the Chinese insect on her " fair bodye ; "
the chef-d'oeuvre of the looms of India on her
symmetrical shoulders ; the sparkling treasures
of the mines of Golconda and of the
Brazils on her neck and fingers ; and with
surely " enough gay gold about her waist "
in the way of watches, Trichinopoly chains,
chatelaines and waist-buckles, to purchase
that landed estate in the county of
Northumberland alluded to by the proud young
porter of Lord Viscount Bateman. Old
Cosher sits smilingly by his blooming
daughter, smoking ; old Mrs. Cosher (very
fat, and with a quintuple chin), is frying
fish in a remarkably strong-smelling oil in the
snuggery behind the bar, and Master
Rabshekah Cosher, aged eight, is officiating as
waiter, and pocketing the perquisites or
royalties attached to his office with
amazing rapidity, and with a confidence
beyond his years. On the muddy pewter
counter sits a huge tom-cat — a cat of grave
and imposing mien, a feline Lord Chancellor
— sitting, solemnly blinking from out his robes
of three-piled fur.

I may say of the customers of this hostelry,
of the neighbouring public the Three Hats,
and of the Sheenies Arms round the corner,