he had a right to reserve the other
until he had occasion for it--he was allowed to go about his business.

No. 7, and the last in our classification, are the _Female
Sweepers_.--It is singular, that among these we rarely if ever
meet with young women, properly so called. The calling of a
crossing-sweeper, so far as it is carried on by females, is almost
entirely divided between children or young girls, and women above the
age of forty. The children are a very wandering and fickle race,
rarely staying for many weeks together in a single spot. This love of
change must militate much against their success, as they lose the
advantage of the charitable interest they would excite in persons
accustomed to meet them regularly in their walks. They are not,
however, generally dependent upon the produce of their own labours for
a living, being for the most part the children of parents in extremely
low circumstances, who send them forth with a broom to pick up a few
halfpence to assist in the daily provision for the family. The older
women, on the other hand, of whom there is a pretty stout staff
scattered throughout the metropolis, are too much impressed with the
importance of adhering constantly to one spot, capriciously to change
their position. They would dread to lose a connection they have been
many years in forming, and they will even cling to it after it has
ceased to be a thoroughfare through the opening of a new route, unless
they can discover the direction their patrons have taken. When a poor
old creature, who has braved the rheumatism for thirty years or so,
finds she can stand it no longer, we have known her induct a successor
into her office by attending her for a fortnight or more, and
introducing the new-comer to the friendly regard of her old patrons.
The exceptions to these two classes of the old and the very juvenile,
will be found to consist mostly of young widows left with the charge
of an infant family more or less numerous. Some few of these there
are, and they meet with that considerate reception from the public
which their distressing cases demand. The spectacle of a young mother,
with an infant on one arm muffled up from the driving rain, while she
plies a broom single-handed, is one which never appeals in vain to a
London public. With a keen eye for imposture, and a general
inclination to suspect it, the Londoner has yet compassion, and coin,
too, to bestow upon a deserving object. It is these poor widow