Anti-slavery bugle. [volume] (New-Lisbon, Ohio) 1845-1861, 1853-10-08
Mlisfcllaneous.
LONDON STREET MARKETS ON sATUR
DAY NIGHT.

FROM the London Leisure Hour, published by
the Religious Tract Society, we take the following
picture of scenes visible Of Saturday night in
the great British metropolis
Owing to the system Of late payments which
prevails in too many establishments, there is II
constant stream Of working mems wives, who have
but just received their market money and are has
tening to lay in stock Of provisions for the NOR
row. or II may be for the best part Of the ensuing
week. Basket ON arm, they group round through
the vegetable stalls, sounding the cabbages and
lettucos, pressing the potatoes with vigorous thumb
or posing green peas by the handful to Judge OF
their contents by weight. Here u weathcr-worn
matron is musing pensiyely over barrel of brine
sodden pork from which she finally extracts u ham
or q breast for which she strikes bargain at six.
pence pound. The butcher, with uutiring lungs
is still firing off his "buyl buyl buy what d W
buyW and his assistants are busy rs bees, hag
Cling chaliering chopping and weighing pounds
and half pounds Of steak or chop, with now and
then q small joint.
There is q steady and Gathering din contnuou.
rs the noises of rushing stream, rising from all
sides, varied occasionally by an uproariUus scream
or a drunken Yell At the slop-shop under the
awning the traffic is at its hcighth laboring men
are trying on fustain jackets and gnudy crimson
waistcoats, half throttng themselves with spot
ted "belchcrs;" anxious mothers, leading their
ragged urchin sons by the hand, are fitting their
matted heads with tour-pcnny cap or their pro
truding toes with pair Of Sunday shoes navi-
Of seven pound weight while slatternly girl bids
ninepence for a wrinklcd pair of dancing shoes
which she stuifs into her pocket her basket being
already overloaded with greens, potatoes, bread,
and pigs face.
The pawnbrokcr's shop is crammcd full with his
thriiless and improvident patrons. 1t is going to
be fine day tO-morrow the weather has set in
fair and there is fear of rain on this account.
Tom and Ned aud Harry, and Nelly and Sally and
Magde, and the whole of the improyidcnt pledge
- a 1. II
golden balls to get their best clothes out of pawn
that they may not be shut up at home for the want
Of something to appear abroad in Coats, waist
coats and trowscrs-shaws, dresses and mantlcs-
orc tumbling down the spot all the evening long
and being handed over to the cxpcctant owners
who, without thought of extravaganza, are pay
ing from twenty to fifty per cent. per annum for
the temporary use or abuse Of the paltry sum
raised upon them. On the other hand, clothes and
household necessaries brought TO the general
depository by the starving, the sick the uniortu-
nate, or the unemployed, who, but for the few
pence or shilling or two thus desperately secured
would be dinnerless the morrow.
We must not omit one repusive feature, which
unhappily is never wanting in the poor mans Sat
urday night market You can scarcely stand
minute in any part of it without recognizing its
disgracefu presence. We allude to the multfarious
trade in impostures Of all sorts, which is carried
on during the few hours preceding midnight,
wherever the poor and the laboring classes are
drawn together to spend their hard earnings. just
on the same principle the shopkcepcrs and stall
owners prepare their goods and display their yar
Gus manufactures to tempt the desires Of the mon
eyed customers, do the vile dealers in stimulated
misery and misfortune prepare their narrowing
and heart-rcnding exhibitions to speculate upor
the sympathy of the charitable poor. Every Sat
urday night in London, the lame, the halt and tn,
blind, the MANNED, the mutilated and the crippled
the widowed and the deserted are manufactures
by hundreds to reap the harvest of a certain amour
of beneyolcnce which is known to characterize tn,
lower orders Of the London working populace tn,
majority Of whom, it should be remembered, ar,
not Londoners born, but country-bred artizan,
who have come hither in pursuit of employment
These miscreants display wonderful ingenuit,
in the concocton of their stratagems and disguiscs
If the weather be dry and fine, as ON the present
occasion, they resort to irreparable calamity
their stock in trade, such total blindness or
semi-paralyss. If however it rain hail. and blow
u tempest, and the roads are running with streams
of liquid mud, then the domestic misery sham is
most profitable, and in the place of one paralytc
subject jabbering ON crutches you will see a pyra-
mid Of motherless children, all with clean faces,
and clean white aprons, standing bareheadcd in
the rain, and headed by decent respectable-ook-
ing man, who intoncs a dolefu tale about his want
Of work. his long sojourn in the hospital, and the
death Of his wife who has left him with six help
less babes for whose hapless sake he is compelled
to appeal to your compassion, sickness prevents
stances such appeals may be genuine, but the pro-
liability is that he has hired the children of their
beggarly mothers, at n sixpence u head for the
night, and there is no doubt but he will make n
good speculation Of it before the night is over and
ia all probability get drunk with the proceeds.
Another very remuneratiyc deception is the
poor gentleman" young fellow of fve-and-
twenty, with pale, sallow, and woe-bcgonc com.
plexion, stands with his back against a gas lamp
or the wall. lie is clad in an undeniable gentle
=. r 4 4 l. 4 II
shabby by constant wear; snow-wite collar con
trass forcibly with the jaundice hue of his sickly
countenance; and snow-whte wrist bands Of un
spotted cleanliness, but fringed and Jagged ut tn,
edges to denote his poverty and the hardness O
his struggle to maintain senteel appearance, hal
conceal his skeleton fingers, in which he grasps
single box of lucifermatches. Around his brow
there is fllet of white linen, and he wears {
green shade over his eyes. His tout ensemble ~
he hangs his head in an angle indicative Of broken
hearted detection, presents spectacle of melan
choly reverse Of fortune and unmerted degradation
against which the hearts Of poor men and theil
wives are not proof, and you may see them, with q
half expressed sympathetic moan, dropping into
his open hand share of their hard-won gains
which the unprncipled fellow will dissipate before
the dawn in the nocturnal orgies of some of the
thieves and cadgers, among whom he is renowned
as q universal genius.
Blind men, with pair Of excellent eyes under
a bandage, chant their lying ditties. Men, who
could walk six miles an hour, il anything were
to be got by it, hobble about ON wooden legs, baw
ing ballads for sale by the yard, aud begging your
custom for an old tar, amed for life in n cruise
against the slave ships of the African coast
Wretched women, with halfclad infants ut the
breast-borrowed babes, which will have to be re-
turned in an hour or two-unito their squalng
voices 10 the general hubbub. Fictitious crpples
proof against any quantity of liquor and ste eped
ia fasehood to their lips are chanting pous hymns
to psalm tunes, and turning their bleared eyes to
heaven as though they had biddcn farewell to hope
upon earth Even children Of tender age trained
10 these ntrocious deceptions, exhibit themselves
upon the curb-stones, crying and moaning with
anguish, in the character Of desolate orphans
without food to eat shelter for the night These
vllainous deceptions all originate in the fact uni
yersally known, that the poor are ever ready to
help the distressed, and it is true beyond a doubt,
that the unsuspecting benevolence of the lower
and iaboring ranks has given rise to a thousand
devices Of unblushing fraud, which makes a prey