to restrain the said pledger from violently
wresting from My Uncle's hands any article
before he has legally redeemed it, I am unable
to say. Furthermore, it will be not with
out emotion that you will become sensible
that in very many of the pawnbroking warehouses
my Uncle is for the nonce transformed
into my Aunt—not simply figuratively, in the
French sense—but substantially. The person
who unties your package, names the extent
of the investment therein by way of loan, fills
up the duplicate and hands you the cash is a
Young Lady; sharp-eyed, quick-witted, and
not to be done by any means.

I have said that my Uncle is troubled
with few articles of any considerable value
on Saturday nights. This is ordinarily the
case; but not unfrequently a young lady of
an inflamed complexion bears down on my
Uncle, laden with the spoils of some galleon
from the Spanish Main; the watch, chain,
trinkets, and clothes of some unfortunate
sailor fresh from abroad, whom she has
plundered. Sometimes this tight craft disposes
successfully of her booty, and sheers off
with all her prize-money, and with flying
colours; but occasionally, suspicions being
awakened and signals made to the Preventive,
she is compelled to heave-to, and to tack, and
to change her course, and even to proceed
under convoy to a roadstead known as Bridewell;
the harbour-dues of which are so
considerable, that an overhauling before a
stipendiary magistrate, and a lengthened
sojourn in a graving dock near Kirkdale
gaol are absolutely necessary before she
can get to sea again. Sometimes, again, a
drunken sailor (they are every whit as apt
to rob themselves as to be robbed) will
drop in with a watch, or a gold thumb ring,
or even the entire suit of clothes off his
back to pawn. One offered a five-pound
note in pledge on a Saturday night; upon
which my Uncle considerately lent him (he
was very far gone) five shillings—taking care
to ascertain to what ship he belonged—and
the next morning, to Jack's great joy and
astonishment, returned him four pounds
fifteen shillings.

Here is a " vault: " it has nothing to do
with pallid death. It is indeed, a chosen
rendezvous for " life," in Whitechapel. Such
life as is comprised in spirituous jollity, and
the conviviality that is so nearly allied to
delirium tremens. The vault is large
enough to be the presence-chamber of a
London gin palace; but lacks the gilding,
plate-glass, and French polish, which are
so handsomely thrown in with a London
pennyworth of gin. The walls are soberly
coloured; the only mural decorations being
certain and sundry oleaginous frescoes, due,
perhaps, to the elbows and heads of customers
reclining thereagainst. The bar-counter is
very high, and there are no enclosed bars or
snuggeries; but there is one unbroken line
of shop-board. The vault is very full
to-night. A party of American sailors in
red flannel shirts, and bushy whiskers, and
ear-rings, are liberally treating a select party
of ladies and gentlemen ; hosts and guests
being already much the worse for liquor.
One mariner, to my personal knowledge, had
been regaling for the last ten minutes on a
series of " glasses to follow," of almost every
exciseable fluid ; taken without any relation
to their chemical affinities or proper order of
succession. He is now reduced to that happy
frame of mind, common, I am told, in some
stages of Bacchic emotion, which leads him to
believe, and to state (indistinctly), that
though he has spent his last sixpence, it is
" awright ; " and that things generally must
come round and be as satisfactory (in a
rectified point of view) as a trivet. Next
to the sailors and their guests are a knot of
Irish labourers, gesticulating, quarrelling, and
all but fighting, in their native manner,
and according to the custom of their country.
Next are ragged women, and mechanics, who
have already spent, prospectively, up to the
Friday of the next week's earnings. Next,
and next, and next, are sailors, and Irish,
and women, and mechanics, over and over
again.

We are arrested at the door by an episode
of a domestic nature, which merits tarrying
an instant to witness. A very broad Lancastrian
chandler's shop- keeper, speaking
broad Lancashire, and of mature years, has
been drinking in an adjoining apartment
with a Sergeant and a couple of recruits
of one of Her Majesty's regiments of
militia. Arrived at that happy state in
which the celebrated Willie may reasonably
be supposed to have been when he had
finished brewing the peck of malt, it has
occurred to this eccentric tradesman to slip on
one of the recruits' scarlet jackets, and to
represent to the partner of his joys, (who,
according to the Hymeneal Statute in that
case made and provided, has " fetched " him),
that he has " 'listed; " at which she sheds
abundant floods of tears, and beseeches him
to "cast t' red rag oft' and coom awa."
"Coom awa, Robert, coom awa," she passionately
says, "yans nowt but jack-snappers
(hangmen), yaus nowt but 'shepstering rads'
(whatever can they be ?) coom awa! The'll
crop 'te pow, lad. They'll mak thee shouther
arms, lad. Dunna go wi' 'em, Robert." But
her adjurations are vain. Her husband—
who, however far gone he may be in liquor,
is a long way too far North to 'list in reality—
maintains the impossibility of violating the
engagement he has recently entered into with
Her Majesty the Queen. " I'se geatten
byounty, lass," he represents, "An I mun go
wi Seargent! " At length, deeming further
expostulation useless, she abandons the cause;
"Go thy ways, thou fool," she exclaims, '' Go
thy ways and be hanged, thou Plump Muck!"
with which last transcendant figure of rhetoric,
she sweeps into the street. Whether the