xercise of a very catholic faith, looks for his reward to
the value he supposes us to entertain for that virtue which, from time
immemorial, has been in popular parlance classed as next to godliness.

Time was, it is said, when the profession of a street-sweeper in
London was a certain road to competence and fortune--when the men of
the brooms were men of capital; when they lived well, and died rich,
and left legacies behind them to their regular patrons. These palmy
days, at any rate, are past now. Let no man, or woman either, expect a
legacy at this time of day from the receiver of his copper dole. The
labour of the modern sweeper is nothing compared with his of half a
century ago. The channel of viscous mud, a foot deep, through which,
so late as the time when George the Third was king, the carts and
carriages had literally to plough their way, no longer exists, and the
labour of the sweeper is reduced to a tithe of what it was. He has no
longer to dig a trench in the morning, and wall up the sides of his
fosse with stiff earth, hoarded for the purpose, as we have seen him
doing in the days when 'Boney' was a terror. The city scavengers have
reduced his work to a minimum, and his pay has dwindled
proportionately. The twopences which used to be thrown to a sweeper
will now pay for a ride, and the smallest coin is considered a
sufficient guerdon for a service so light. But what he has lost in
substantial emolument, he has gained in _morale_; he is infinitely
more polite and attentive than he was; he sweeps ten times as clean
for a half-penny as he did for twopence or sixpence, and thanks you
more heartily than was his wont in the days of yore. The truth is,
that civility, as a speculation, is found to pay; and the want of it,
even among the very lowest rank of industrials in London, is at the
present moment not merely a rarity, but an actual phenomenon--always
supposing that something is to be got by it.

The increase of vehicles of all descriptions, but more especially
omnibuses, which are perpetually rushing along the main thoroughfares,
has operated largely in shutting out the crossing-sweepers from what
was at one period the principal theatre of their industry.
Independent, too, of the unbroken stream of carriages which renders
sweeping during the day impossible, and the collection of small coin
from the crowd who dart impatiently across the road when a practicable
breach presents itself, equally so, it is found t