robbed," but I imagine it was the poor miserable wretches who died of starvation and cold and exposure in the London streets that had the best right to complain.

The Lord Mayor's State Coach, which was built in 1757, is almost as magnificent as the Queen's, and is designed in fully as good or bad taste, I do not know which to call it.

To show how the people of England tolerate the most outrageous humbugs on the face of the earth, I will give some of the items in regard to the cost of the Lord Mayor's coach. When the coach was built, one hundred and thirteen years ago, each alderman in the city subscribed £60 towards its construction; then each alderman who was afterward sworn into office, was forced to contribute £60 on taking the oath. And each Lord Mayor also gave £100 on entering his office, to keep the coach in order. In 1768 the entire expense of keeping the coach fell on the Lord Mayor, who had to pay £300 during that year, and twenty years after its construction, the coach cost in 1787, £355 to keep it in order for that twelve months. During seven years of this present century, the cost for repairs was per annum-£115, and in 1812 it was newly lined and gilt for the benefit of the gaping London crowds, at an expense of £600, and a new seat cloth was furnished for £90; and again in 1821, this costly vehicle devoured the bread which ought to have been eaten by the starving poor, to the tune of £206 for another relining. In 1812 a carriage-making firm agreed to keep the coach in order for ten years at an expense to the city of £48 a year, which offer was accepted. The real amount of money swallowed up in this old lumbering vehicle is incalculable. Six horses are required to draw it, valued at £200 a piece, and the coach weighs 7,600 pounds. A Lord Mayor, when well fed and taken care of, weighs, I believe, about 312 pounds. The harnesses for each of the six horses weighs 106 pounds, or 636 pounds in all.

The State Coach belonging to the Speaker of the House of Commons, was built for Oliver Cromwell, and is drawn by two horses. The two sheriffs of London have also State Coaches, burnished and blazoned with gold, and hung with silks and vel

JONATHAN WILD'S SKELETON.

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vets, and although they only receive £1,000 for their year's services, the expense of state coaches, horses, liveries, and drivers, never falls below 2,500 guineas for their term. They are not allowed to serve if they swear themselves to be worth over £15,000, or $75,000.

The ceremony of installing a London sheriff I am afraid would make a New York Sheriff howl, and much profanity would result were the ancient ceremonies to become necessary at the City Hall of New York. I give the curious form of installation of a Sheriff of London.

The sheriffs are chosen by the Livery Companies or Trade Associations of London, on the morning of the Feast of St. Michael, and are presented in the Court of Exchequer, accompanied by the Lord Mayor and all the Aldermen, when the Recorder of London introduces the two sheriffs, one for London proper, and the other for Middlesex County, and the Chief Judge in his red robes, signifies the Queen's assent, handing the sheriff's" roll"a sheet of paper which has had the names of the sheriffs pricked in by the Queen's own hand, the writs and appliances are read and filed, and the sheriffs and senior under-sheriffs take the oaths; when the late sheriffs present their accounts. The crier of the court then makes proclamation for one who does homage for the sheriffs of London to "stand forth and do his duty;" when the senior alderman below the chair rises, the usher of the court hands him a bill-hook, and holds in both hands a small bundle of sticks, which the alderman cuts asunder, and then cuts another bundle with a hatchet. Similar procla

JONATHAN WILD'S SKELETON.

mation is then made for the sheriff of Middlesex, when the alderman counts six horse-shoes lying upon the table, and sixty-one hob-nails handed in a tray; and the numbers are declared twice.

The sticks are thin peeled twigs tied in a bundle at each end with red tape; the horse-shocs are of large size, and very old; the hob-nails are supplied fresh every year. By the first ceremony the alderman does suit and service for the tenants of a manor in Shropshire, the chopping of sticks betokening the custom of the tenants supplying their lord with fuel. The counting of the horse-shoes and nails is another suit and scrvice of the owners of a forge in St. Clement Danes, Strand, which formerly belonged to the city, but no longer exists. Sheriff Hoare, in his MS. journal of his shrievalty, 1740-41, says, "where the tenements and lands are situated no one knows, nor doth the city receive any rents or profits thereby."

In the Town Hall or Guildhall of London, some very strange relics are preserved, but none can be more strange than the yellow faded parchment shown me on which was written the humble petition of that notorious rascal and thief-taker, Jonathan Wild, who had first trained Jack Sheppard to thievery, after which he entrapped and hung him. Well, this very virtuous old gentleman had the audacity to send a petition to the Court of Aldermen in the year 1724, praying for the freedom of the City in view of the benefit he had conferred on it by the apprehension of so many thieves who had returned from transportation.

One day while paying a visit to a celebrated surgeon, whose residence is at Windsor, I was invited to look into his closets, in which were stored a number of curiosities. Suddenly a door in a recess of the chamber flew open, and out popped a skeleton on wires, with a ghastly, grinning jaw, and its ribs all open like the timbers of a wrecked ship.

"That's the skeleton of Jonathan Wild," said the surgeon, "It has been in our family for a hundred years, I believe.”

CHAPTER XXVI.

STREET SIGHTS OF LONDON.

ERY strange sights are seen in London. No city that I have ever visited will compare with London for the number of its street peddlers, hawkers, booth proprietors, open-air performers, ballad singers, mountebanks, and other street itir.erants.

From daybreak until dark, and long into the night, in the ramification of Strects and Lanes, Squares,

Mews, and Ovals, the ear of the stranger is saluted with the harshest and most discordant sounds which emanate from the throats of a street-selling population of both sexes, large enough alone to make the population of a fifth-rate city.

The London Cockney who has heard the same grating sounds from the days of his earliest childhood, never stops in his walk to listen to the cries, but the stranger in London is compelled by the very want of melody or intelligibility in the hawker's cries to listen, yet it is useless for him to attempt to solve the meaning of their uncouth and barbarous gibberage. For these seventy-five thousand men, women, and boys, as well as girls, many of a tender age-have their several dialects, and signals, and patois, which it would be madness to try to understand without a thorough schooling in the rudiments of their language and several occupations.

In another part of this work I have taken a glance at the London Costermongers and their habits and amusements, such as they are.

Beside this, the largest and most hard-working class of strect hawkers, there are a hundred other branches of street merchandise, and all these different branches have their followers, who navigate every quarter of the metropolis, trying to pick up a shilling here and there from the sale of their commodities, as luck or energy may chance to send the shilling their way.

It is calculated that the gross receipts of the street peddlers of London amount to as much as £5,000,000 a year. This would make an average of £70 a year, or nearly $500 for each person engaged in street peddling. Of course in this aggregate I must include all those who keep stands or booths of a greater or lesser magnitude.

Some of these poor wretches may earn in good weeks about fifteen to twenty shillings, while at other seasons when green stuff is scarce, it is rarely that they exceed more than eight shillings on an average for the same amount of labor and hawking.

Ten shillings, however, is a fair week's earning if that amount be realized during the current year. It may be calculated that the profits will average as high as £1,500,000 where the gross receipts for sales are as high as £5,000,000.

A bitter hostility exists between the tradesmen who occupy shops and pay what they consider to be exorbitant rents, and the street sellers. No sooner has a street seller made a round of custom for himself and advertised his wares sufficiently, than the blue-coated policeman is sure to appear, armed with the authority which cannot be disobeyed, and he is compelled to move his stand or barrow.

The hawker or peddler is forced to pay four or five pounds a year for a license to sell in this precarious way, and yet in London he has no legal right to occupy a stand or booth. He has always to move on, like the boy Joe in Bleak House.

It is more than wonderful to think of the shifts made by the poor classes of London to make a living.

The rich man passes by objects in the crowded streets every day with scorn or loathing, which serve to yield a sustenance