ng the Minories.

"Here is a place," said Dashall, "well known, and no doubt you have
often heard of--Sparrow Corner and Rosemary Lane are better known by
the appellation of Rag Fair. It is a general mart for the sale of
second-hand clothes, and many a well-looking man in London is indebted
to his occasional rambles in this quarter for his appearance. The
business of this place is conducted with great regularity, and the
dealers and collectors of old clothes meet at a certain hour of the
afternoon to make sales and exchanges, so that it is managed almost upon
the same plan as the Royal Exchange, only that the dealers here come
loaded with their goods, which must undergo inspection before sales can
be effected: while the Merchant carries with him merely a sample, or
directs his Purchaser to the warehouse where his cargo is deposited. The
principal inhabitants of this place are Jews, and they obtain supplies
from the numerous itinerant collectors from all quarters of London and
its suburbs, whom you must have observed parading the streets from the
earliest hour of the morning, crying _Ould clothes--Clothes sale_."

"It surely can hardly be a trade worth following," said Talltho.

"There are many hundreds daily wandering the streets, however," replied
Tom, "in pursuit of cast-off apparel, rags, and metals of different
sorts, or at least pretend so. The Jews are altogether a set of traders.
I do not mean to confine my observations to them only, because there
are persons of other sects employed in the same kind of business; and
perhaps a more dangerous set of cheats could ~309~~ scarcely be pointed
at, as their chief business really is to prowl about the houses and
stables of people of rank and fortune, in order to hold out temptations
to their servants, to pilfer and steal small articles not likely to be
missed, which these fellows are willing to purchase at about one-third
of their real value. It is supposed that upwards of 15,000 of these
depraved itinerants among the Jews are daily employed in journeys of
this kind; by which means, through the medium of base money and other
fraudulent dealings, many of them acquire property with which they open
shops, and then become receivers of stolen property; the losses thus
sustained by the public being almost incalculable--

"For wid coot gould rings of copper gilt--'tis so he gets his
bread,
Wit his sealing-vax of brick-dust, and his pencils without lead."

It