lation cannot be altogether
unprofitable. In traversing the same route in the middle of the day,
not three of the sweepers would be found at their post; and the reason
would be obvious enough, since the streets are then comparatively
deserted, being populous in the morning only, because they are so many
short-cuts or direct thoroughfares from the suburbs to the city. The
morning sweeper is generally a lively and active young fellow; often a
mere child, who is versed in the ways of London life, and who, knowing
well the value of money from the frequent want of it, is anxious to
earn a penny by any honest means. Ten to one, he has been brought up
in the country, and has been tutored by hard necessity, in this great
wilderness of brick, to make the most of every hour, and of every
chance it may afford him. He will be found in the middle of the day
touting for a job at the railway stations, to carry a portmanteau or
to wheel a truck; or he will be at Smithfield, helping a butcher to
drive to the slaughterhouse his bargain of sheep or cattle; or in some
livery-yards, currying a horse or cleaning out a stable. If he can
find nothing better to employ him, he will return to his sweeping in
the evening, especially if it be summer-time, and should set in wet at
five or six o'clock. When it is dark early, he knows that it won't pay
to resume the broom; commercial gentlemen are not particular about the
condition of their Wellingtons, when nobody can see to criticise their
polish, and all they want is to exchange them for slippers as soon as
possible. If we were to follow the career of this industrious fellow
up to manhood, we should in all probability find him occupying
worthily a hard-working but decent and comfortable position in
society.

No. 3 is the _Occasional Sweeper_.--Now and then, in walking the
interminable streets, one comes suddenly upon very questionable
shapes, which, however, we don't question, but walk on and account for
them mythically if we can. Among these singular apparitions which at
times have startled us, not a few have borne a broom in their hands,
and appealed to us for a reward for services which, to say the best of
them, were extremely doubtful. Now an elderly gentleman in silver
spectacles, with pumps on his feet, and a roquelaure with a fur-collar
over his shoulders, and an expression of unutterable anguish in his
countenance, holds out his hand and bows his head as we pass, and
groans audibly the ver