class who attend this market in summer time,
and that they buy one-tenth of all that is
sold here. I know that if each has a barrow
or a basket, as he must have, it is not his;
for why should he think of saving money to
buy one, or ever living otherwise than on the
old hand-to-mouth eat-and-drink-in-summer-
and-starve-in-winter plan of costermongers
in general? If he wants a common barrow
or a barrow with a board, are there
not five thousand of them to let on hire in
London for a daily or weekly rent, averaging
about a thousand per cent. per annum upon
their value? If he wants a donkey, he
may borrow that too. He might buy a
donkey in Smithfield at any price between
five shillings and three pounds; but why
should he, when he can hire one for three
shillings a week? He can have even his
stock bought for him by the barrow-master;
or from the same benevolent individual
he can get the loan of a capital of ten
shillings, for the moderate interest of sixpence
a day. He can have a shallow basket
worth a shilling for a penny a day; a battered
pewter quart pot, or a pair of scales, for twopence
a day; an honest weight for a penny
a day, or a " slang one " for twopence. What
occasion then has he for any property but
his hands? What need of any revenue but
his own good spirits?

In the matter of drinking, I only peep into
one or two public-houses, and know at once
that the old system of drinking strong liquors
on market mornings to counteract the raw
morning air has long been dying away. The
very public-houses look like a dissolving view
of a gin-shop slowly changing into the interior
of a coffee-house. I observe that there is
still a lingering faith in rum and milk as a
morning draught; but it is fading, and I hear
not the name of early purl. Market people
order coffee, and bread and butter, and
cold meat; for I do not confound with them
a glassy-eyed young woman in the parlour,
alone with a short thick little glass empty
beside her; nor a pale shabby young man
in spectacles who sits with his back to the
wall, and his legs resting on the bench, and
lingers there (having nowhere particular to
go to) on the strength of having ordered
something several hours ago.

Centre Row is awake and open now; but
what may I find here that all the world does
not know? I have been through Centre Row
hundreds of times in summer and winter, and
wondered who were the wealthy luxurious
individuals who did not hesitate to pamper
themselves with hothouse grapes at twenty-five
shillings a pound, with pottles of British
Queens or Black Princes at one shilling an
ounce, with slender French beans at three
shillings a hundred, peas at two pounds a
quart, and new potatoes at four shillings and
sixpence a pound; and never knew till now
that they are mostly bought by kindly friends
as a surprise for invalids and sickly and
afflicted persons. It was worth walking
through here to know that. I never knew
till now that the fruiterers here (who seem to
be always having tea or coffee, and to divide
their time between mugs, account-books, gold
fish, and the vegetable world) can pay four
or five hundred pounds per annum for the
rent of a little shop, and that their shops pass
from father to son, or to their nominees by
will, on payment of a fine, almost in the same
way as copyhold property. I did not know
that the late Mr. Jonquil—who did not know
how to write his name, and was never anxious
to learn—made thirty thousand pounds in one
of these little Ionic pens. I was not aware
that one back shop keeps sixty persons
during the season constantly shelling peas;
nor that nosegay-making has been an art
since the Duchess of Sutherland made it one;
nor that girls who practise it skilfully can
earn an easy living. Much less (sober bachelor
that I am) did I suspect that a wedding
nosegay will sometimes cost two guineas; or
that those little bouquets in cut paper, which
the première danseuse picks up and sniffs and
smiles at, and presses to the rim of her corset,
and feigns to guard as inestimable treasures,
have cost from five to ten shillings each.

And now, having bid good morning to my
guide, I find myself alone, and am sensible of
nothing but of being very tired, and feeling
as if I could even sleep in any of the hotels
around the market in spite of the noise
without. The shady burial-ground— behind
the church (of which I catch a glimpse in
passing a little grated doorway in Henrietta
Street), where the author of Hudibras,
Wycherley the dramatist, Dr. Arne, Macklin,
and a host of writers still to be heard of in
the Elegant Extracts, sleep under the sycamores
—leaves a tranquil image in the mind,
after all this crowd and bustle.

CHIPS.
A DIGGER'S WEDDING.

A SUCCESSFUL Australian digger—successful,
not merely in siftings and washings, but
bearing the title, and its best credentials, of
a ''nuggetter"— came down from Forest
Creek lately, and took up his abode in a low
lodging-house in Little Bourke Street, Melbourne.
The "nuggetter" had been a common
labourer, and the house was full of men
of this class; also of runaway sailors, some
of whom had returned very successful from
the diggings, and were spending their gold as
fast as they could—in fact, they had come
down for a week or two expressly for that
purpose.

The woman of the house had an impudent,
vulgar, fat. flashy daughter, who would have
been downright ugly, but for a pair of
great leering eyes of considerable brilliancy,
with which she had already charmed half
the gold away from several sailors in turn,