rter, and apply it to the same test.
Look at a marine-store dealer's, in that reservoir of dirt, drunkenness,
and drabs: thieves, oysters, baked potatoes, and pickled
salmon--Ratcliff-highway. Here, the wearing apparel is all nautical.
Rough blue jackets, with mother-of-pearl buttons, oil-skin hats, coarse
checked shirts, and large canvas trousers that look as if they were made
for a pair of bodies instead of a pair of legs, are the staple
commodities. Then, there are large bunches of cotton
pocket-handkerchiefs, in colour and pattern unlike any one ever saw
before, with the exception of those on the backs of the three young
ladies without bonnets who passed just now. The furniture is much the
same as elsewhere, with the addition of one or two models of ships, and
some old prints of naval engagements in still older frames. In the
window, are a few compasses, a small tray containing silver watches in
clumsy thick cases; and tobacco-boxes, the lid of each ornamented with a
ship, or an anchor, or some such trophy. A sailor generally pawns or
sells all he has before he has been long ashore, and if he does not, some
favoured companion kindly saves him the trouble. In either case, it is
an even chance that he afterwards unconsciously repurchases the same
things at a higher price than he gave for them at first.

Again: pay a visit with a similar object, to a part of London, as unlike
both of these as they are to each other. Cross over to the Surrey side,
and look at such shops of this description as are to be found near the
King's Bench prison, and in 'the Rules.' How different, and how
strikingly illustrative of the decay of some of the unfortunate residents
in this part of the metropolis! Imprisonment and neglect have done their
work. There is contamination in the profligate denizens of a debtor's
prison; old friends have fallen off; the recollection of former
prosperity has passed away; and with it all thoughts for the past, all
care for the future. First, watches and rings, then cloaks, coats, and
all the more expensive articles of dress, have found their way to the
pawnbroker's. That miserable resource has failed at last, and the sale
of some trifling article at one of these shops, has been the only mode
left of raising a shilling or two, to meet the urgent demands of the
moment. Dressing-cases and writing-desks, too old to pawn but too good
to keep; guns, fishing-rods, musical instruments, all in the same
co