a cause for the detention of
the Quaker, swore the brother to these facts. About three
o'clock the Quaker walked up Bow-street, when an officer
conducted him to the presence of the Magistrate, who
detained him, and at seven o'clock delivered him into the
care of his brother.

~365~~ very quietly walking with a Police Officer, and exhibiting a
caricature of himself mounted on a velocipede, and riding over
corruption, &c. It was soon ascertained that he had accepted an
invitation from one of the Magistrates of Bow Street to pay him a visit,
as he had done the day before, and was at that moment going before him.

"I apprehend he is a little cracked," said Tom; "but however that may
be, he is a very harmless sort of person. But come, we have other game
in view, and our way lies in a different direction to his."

"Clothes, Sir, any clothes to-day?" said an importunate young fellow at
the corner of one of the courts, who at the same time almost obstructed
their passage.

Making their way as quickly as they could from this very pressing
personage, who invited them to walk in.

"This," said Tom, "is what we generally call a _Barker_. I believe the
title originated with the Brokers in Moor-fields, where men of this
description parade in the fronts of their employers' houses, incessantly
pressing the passengers to walk in and buy household furniture, as they
do clothes in Rosemary Lane, Seven Dials, Field Lane, Houndsditch, and
several other parts of the town. Ladies' dresses also used to be barked
in Cranbourn Alley and the neighbourhood of Leicester Fields; however,
the nuisance has latterly in some measure abated. The Shop-women in that
part content themselves now-a-days by merely inviting strangers to look
at their goods; but Barkers are still to be found, stationed at the
doors of Mock Auctions, who induce company to assemble, by bawling "Walk
in, the auction is now on," or "Just going to begin." Of these mock
auctions, there have been many opened of an evening, under the imposing
glare of brilliant gas lights, which throws an unusual degree of lustre
upon the articles put up for sale. It is not however very difficult to
distinguish them from the real ones, notwithstanding they assume all the
exterior appearances of genuineness, even up to advertisements in the
newspapers, purporting to be held in the house of a person lately gone
away under embarrassed circumstances, or deceased. They are deno