e was also represented by artillery
men, king's hussars, and a line regiment from Aldershot. This was called
"The Hill," where jovial rascaldom, usually swarmed, looking out for
stray overcoats and the lids of luncheon dishes left unprotected on
carriages. Yes, the pickpocket, the card-sharper, the "lumberer," the
confidence man, the blarneying beggar, and the fakir of every description
laid his snares on this holy spot. In fact, this is his Sanctuary and he
peddles under the eye of the police. "Holy Land?" Ha, ha! "All the
patriarchs out of the Bible here?" Oh, the vociferous gentlemen with
patriarchal names in velveteen coats under the banners and canvas
sign-boards--Moses, Aaron, and so forth? They were the "bookies,"
otherwise bookmakers, generally Jews and sometimes Welshers.

"Here, come along, some of you sportsmen! I ain't made the price of my
railway fare, s'elp me!" "It's a dead cert, gents." "Can't afford to buy
thick 'uns at four quid apiece!" "Five to one on the field!" "I lay on
the field!"

A "thick un?" Oh, that was a sovereign, half a thick un half a sovereign,
twenty-five pounds a "pony," five hundred a "monkey," flash notes were
"stumers," and a bookmaker who couldn't pay was "a Welsher." That? That
was "the great Brockton," gentleman and tipster. "Amusement enough!" Yes,
niggers, harpists, Christy Minstrels, strong men, acrobats, agile clowns
and girls on stilts, and all the ragamuffins from "the Burrer," bent on
"making a bit." African Jungle? A shooting gallery with model lions and
bears. Fine Art Exhibition? A picture of the hanging of recent murderers.
Boxing Ring? Yes, for women--they strip to the waist and fight like
fiends. Then look at the lady auctioneer selling brass sovereigns a penny
apiece.

"Buy one, gentlemen, and see what they're like, so as the 'bookies' can't
pawse 'em on ye unawares!"

"Food enough!" Yes, at Margett's, Patton's, Hatton's, and "The Three
Brooms," as well as the barrows for stewed eels, hard-boiled eggs,
trotters, coker-nuts, winkles, oysters, cockles, and all the luxuries of
the New Cut. Why were they calling that dog "Cookshop"? Because he was
pretty sure to go there in the end.

By this time they had ploughed over some quarter of a mile of the
hillside, fighting their way among the carriages that stood six deep
along the rails and through a seething mass of ruffianism, in a stifling
atmosphere polluted by the smell of ale and the reeking breath of tipsy
peop