Shopman shakes his head.

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Nine broken pitchers and Jacob's well," screams a shrill youth; "and what's a church, and wheat or chaff."

"Ten garments of faith, and fifty bands of hope," cries another.

"Come!" adds a third, "give us old brown and the new jerusalem, and I'll be off."

"Do you keep the two thieves?" asks a fourth.

"Yes; how many?"

"Two two thieves and thoughts in prison."

The traffic here, as you perceive, is of a peculiar kind, being mostly in publications of a low price, and of a religious character. The moment a customer gets what he wants, he is off elsewhere for serials or volumes of a different description. The demand of the present day being chiefly for cheap or low-priced literature of one kind or another, we find the greatest crowds where that is dispensed in the greatest quantity. In places where volumes and the dear magazines form the whole, or nearly the whole, of the materials of traffic, there is time, even on Magazine-day, to conduct the business with more deliberation and decorum. But time must not be lost; and the dinner-hour comes at this particular crisis with but an apology for dinner, or not even that, to the majority of the actors in the busy scene.

As the afternoon wanes, the collectors gradually disappear, and that for an obvious reason, as their burdens have to be sorted, packed, and sent off before six o'clock. As other people's collectors desert the publisher's shop his own begin to return, having fulfilled their commissions; and now there is an hour and a half, or two hours, in which the work of packing has to be completed. The packing of books is an art, not an intuition. If it is not well done, the books suffer in their transit to the bookseller, and may be refused by the customer; and if it is not done quickly on Magazine-day, it may as well not be done at all. Practice, however, renders

the packers adroit; and it is amusing as well as surprising to note how rapidly a heap of books, of all sizes and all shapes, of damp magazines and flimsy sheets, is transformed into a neat brown-paper parcel, corded and directed, and ready for carriage. This all-important work employs all hands, and consumes the last labouring-hours of the day. As time draws on, symptoms begin to appear of the conclusion of the labour. Head-clerks and shopmen button on their coats, and march off to a late dinner; chops, steaks, and cups of coffee walk in, to the solace of those who are left behind to see to the termination of the day's business; and carts and waggons begin to defile into the Row from the western entrance, to carry off the parcels to the carriers' depôts. According to a very necessary regulation, well understood, the carts and vehicles performing this service enter the Row from the western or Ludgate Hill end, and draw up with horses' heads towards Cheapside. As a compensation for any trouble this rule may occasion, the carters have a small monthly gratuity allowed them. The carriers send for the goods at their own expense, receiving only the usual booking-fee for each parcel. Notwithstanding these regulations, however, the carting process rarely goes off without a bout at wrangling and squabbling among the drivers. Now and then an unsalaried carter, hired for the single job, and ignorant of the etiquette which requires that all vehicles shall depart at the Cheapside end of the Row, will obstinately persist in crushing his way in the contrary direction, and though he is generally defeated in the attempt he does not submit to fate without the usual demonstrations characteristic of his class. When the carts have all been filled and driven off, the Row assumes a sudden tranquillity, in remarkable contrast with the bustle and turmoil of the past day. By the time its shops are finally closed for the night, some million or so of copies of the latest productions of the press have taken to themselves wings of steam, and are all flying from London, as a common

centre, to all parts of the realm; and before to-morrow night the greater portion of them will be affording to the reading public their monthly literary treat.

The above glance at the operations of the publishing-trade furnishes us with a reason sufficiently obvious why publishers should congregate-in so doing they do but practise what is mutually convenient and profitable. It shows us, moreover, that the convenience at present derived from association is capable of very considerable enhancement. What to us appears to be wanting is, the establishment of a publishers' hall of commerce, in which, of everything published, not only in London but in all parts of the country, copies should be deposited for sale at the wholesale prices to all the members. The establishment need not be large, nor its management expensive; and the expense should be defrayed by a rate chargeable to each member, and deducted from the sums handed over to him in payment for his deposits. If the publishing trade goes on increasing for the next thirty years in the same proportion as during the last thirty years, Paternoster Row, with its present limits, cannot long continue to form its principal store-house. As other nuclei arise in other places, the necessity for some common area for the despatch of business will become more imperative and indisputable; and something equivalent to what we here suggest will arise, as most improvements in commercial systems have arisen, out of the urgent requirements of the hour.

OUR TERRACE ON SUNDAY.*

FROM the fact of Our Terrace standing in the line of cattle transit from the rearing-grounds in the north of the island to the market of Smithfield, we are all invariably awakened on the Sunday morning by the ba-a-ing of sheep, the lowing and bellowing of cattle, the bawling of drovers, and the barking of drovers' dogs. This matutinal concert begins, whatever the season of the year, before it is light, and continues at intervals, rarely of long duration, throughout the whole of the day. It is not by any means so monotonous a performance as a stranger might suppose, being enlivened by a variety of little accidents and pleasantries on the part of the fourfooted pilgrims, all of which we can hear and perfectly comprehend as we lie comfortably in our beds, which, on this morning of the week alone, a commercial people may be said fully to enjoy. Sometimes it is a vivacious ox, that, seized with an unforeboding whim of friskiness, takes it into his head to leap out of the road to the high pavement of the terrace, and thence into one of the small gardens, where he marches straight to the house-door, and butts at it with his horns, as though bent on a morning call to some particular friend of his own. Sometimes it is a flock of Norfolk wethers that have made an irruption into the doctor's garden at the villa over the way, through the negligence of the boy, who, after polishing the brass-plate on Saturday night, and getting up a bright face on it for the morrow, forgot to lock the gate.

* This sketch represents a state of things which has undergone considerable modification since the removal of the cattle-market from the city.

E

Sometimes it is a vociferous exchange of compliments between a couple of north-country drovers, who, without the slightest suspicion that a hundred pair of ears are cognisant of every syllable they utter, are lavishing affectionate endearments upon each other. These little incidents serve to vary the monotony of the perpetual ba-a-ing and boo-o-ing, and have a further effect in inducing us at length to rouse up, turn out, and confront the cold-water ewer, in preparation for getting down to breakfast.

As early as seven or eight o'clock in the morning, if we are up so early, which is not always the case with all of us, we may see, on looking out of window, detached groups of artisans, and apprentices to humble handicrafts not a few, in fustian and second-hand garb, but with unmistakeable holiday faces, passing onwards towards Highgate or Hornsey, and the picturesque country in the neighbourhood of both, resolved on the enjoyment of a rural holiday in the fields and lanes where they will spend the entire day in the full appreciation of such pleasures as perfect idleness and perfect freedom can afford. These are soon followed by groups of anglers, with their tackle and rods in canvas-bags. A sense of propriety makes these fishermen, who catch no fish, set forth on their expeditions at an early hour. It would be a scandal, they think, to be seen with a fishing-rod at an hour when church-going people are abroad with their prayerbooks; and, in consequence, the two discordant spectacles are seldom visible at once on the pavement of London. Comfortable anglers of mature years, who lie abed late on Sunday morning, and go a-fishing after breakfast, lock up their tackle at the fishing-stations, and are never seen carrying it at all. Next to the angler, it is as likely as not that the fowler passes along the terrace; he has generally with him an assistant in the shape of a ragged boy or lad, tolerably well loaded both on the outward and homeward bound march. Besides the nets and the poles, which,