Point viii.

MISERIES OF BORROWING.

"Who lives where hang three golden balls,
Where Dick's poor mother often calls,
And leaves her trinkets, gowns, and shawls?

MY UNCLE.

Who, when misfortunes on your head
Bring sickly want, and cares o'erspread,
Who'll take your last resource-your bed?

MY UNCLE."

AN unconscionable pawnbroker (for there are conscionable dealers in that way, that are a relief and comfort to the poor; and those are not concerned in this character:) an unconscionable pawnbroker, I say, is Pluto's factor, old Nick's warehouse-keeper, an English Jew, that lives and grows fat on fraud and oppression, as toads on filth and venom; whose practice outvies usury, as much as incest simple fornication; and to call him a tradesman, must be by the same figure that pickpockets style their legerdemain an art and mystery. His shop, like hell gates, is always open, where he sits at the receipt of custom, like Cacus in his den, ready to devour all that is brought him; and, having gotten your spoils, hangs them up in rank and file, as so many trophies of victory. Hither all sorts of garments resort in pilgrimage, whilst he, playing the pimp, lodges the tabby-petticoat and russet-breeches together in the same bed of lavender. He is the treasurer of the thieves' exchequer, the common fender of all bulkers and shoplifts in the town. To this purpose he keeps a private warehouse, and ships away the ill-gotten goods by wholesale: dreading nothing so much as that a convict should

honestly confess how he disposed of the moveables. He is a kind of disease quite contrary to the gout; for, as that haunts the rich, so this mainly torments the poor, and scarce leaves them so much as a primitive fig-leaf to cover their nakedness.-Harleian Miscellany.

It is from the weekly and daily pledges that the pawnbrokers derive such immense profits. An anecdote has been related of a single FLAT IRON, which, in a lodginghouse, was allowed for the general use of its inmates, and was actually pawned and redeemed nine times within the week, and sometimes twice a day: the sum generally lent upon it was sixpence, and if the interest is calculated it will be found that for the use of so small a sum, at a halfpenny each time, allowing it to be pawned four times per week, it will amount to eight shillings and eightpence per year.-Life in London.

Thus the indigent are imposed upon, till every vestige of their little property and necessaries disappears one by one. Then pallid sickness and rude want plunge the unhappy sufferer into a gaol, where he is left to starve, or, in the phraseology of the day, is fairly

Point ix.

MISERIES OF LIVING TOO FAST.

"Let's talk of duns, attorneys, bailiffs, writs,
And such like things as scare a debtor's wits;
Detainers, declarations, prisons, keys,
Cognovits, executions, costs and fees."

TOM TICK;

OR,

THE MODERN RAKE'S PROGRESS.

Toм was a tailor's heir,

A dashing blade,

Whose sire in trade

Enough had made,

By cribbage, short skirts, and little capes,
Long bills, and items for buckram, tapes,
Buttons, twist, and small ware,

Which swell a bill out so delightfully,
Or perhaps I should say frightfully,
That is, if it related to myself:

Suffice it to be told

In wealth he roll'd,