ey were little more than skeletons of trees,
the smoky atmosphere having long since stopped all growth.

~Eccentrics.~--There are just a few now to be found, but in these days
of heaven-sent artists and special-born politicians, it would be an
invidious task to chronicle their doings, or dilate on their peculiar
idiosyncracies, and we will only note a few of the queer characters of
the past, leaving to the future historian the fun of laughing at our men
of to-day. In 1828 the man of mark was "Dandie Parker," a well-to-do
seedsman, who, aping Beau Brummel in gait and attire, sought to be the
leader of fashion. He was rivalled, a little while after, by one Meyers,
to see whom was a sight worth crossing the town, so firm and spruce was
he in his favourite dress of white hat and white trousers, dark green or
blue coat with gilt buttons, buff waistcoat, and stiff broad white
neckcloth or stock, a gold-headed cane always in hand. By way of
contrast to these worthies, at about the same period (1828-30) was one
"Muddlepate Ward," the head of a family who had located themselves in a
gravel pit at the Lozells, and who used to drive about the town with an
old carriage drawn by pairs of donkeys and ponies, the harness being
composed of odd pieces of old rope, and the whip a hedgestake with a bit
of string, the whole turnout being as remarkable for dirt as the
first-named "dandies" were for cleanliness.--"Billy Button" was another
well-known but most inoffensive character, who died here May 3, 1838.
His real name was never published, but he belonged to a good family, and
early in life he had been an officer in the Navy (some of his
biographers say "a commander"), but lost his senses when returning from
a long voyage, on hearing of the sudden death of a young lady to whom he
was to have been married, and he always answered to her name, Jessie. He
went about singing, and the refrain of one of his favourite songs--

"Oysters, sir! Oysters, sir!
Oysters, sir, I cry;
They are the finest oysters, sir,
That ever you could buy."

was for years after "Billy Button's" death the nightly "cry" of more
than one peripatetic shellfishmonger. The peculiarity that obtained for
the poor fellow his _soubriquet_ of "Billy Button" arose from the habit
he had of sticking every button he could get on to his coat, which at
his death, was covered so thickly (and many buttons were of rare
patterns), that it is said to have weighed over 3