len into error here. The place is scarcely
fenced in; and here and there you come to a hoarding, in the inside of
which are some stalls and benches, scarce covered from the rain--others
not so. Some of these benches, all looking very dirty and greasy, are
ranged back to back, and here sit the sellers of old clothes, with their
unsightly and unsavoury store of garments strewn or piled on the ground
at their feet, while between the rows of petty dealers pass the merchant
buyers on the look-out for bargains, or the workman, equally inclined to
get as much as possible for his penny. But the curious spectator must
not stop here. Near is the "City Clothes Emporium," and all the streets
and alleys in the neighbourhood are similarly occupied. The place has
the appearance of a foreign colony. They are not Saxon names you see,
nor Saxon eyes that look wistfully at you, nor Saxon dialects you hear,
but Hebrew. Every street around is part and parcel of the fair, the
bazaar is but one section of the immense market which is here carried on;
but let the anxious inquirer not be too curious or too lost in wonder,
else some prying hand may be inserted into his pocket, and the loss of a
handkerchief, or even of something else more valuable, may be the result
of a visit to Rag Fair, a place unparalleled in this vast city for rags,
and dirt, and seeming wretchedness. It is true that part of the nuisance
is done away with. The police keep a close look-out on a Sunday, and a
great portion of the traffic on that day is very properly stopped. But
there are greater nuisances in the neighbourhood on the Sabbath which the
police do not look after, but which they might.

THE COMMERCIAL ROAD
AND THE COAL-WHIPPERS.

The Commercial Road, abutting on the Docks and Whitechapel, is the
residence of the London coal whippers--a race of men singularly
unfortunate--the complete slaves of the publicans of that quarter, and
deserving universal sympathy. I have been down in their wretched homes;
I have seen father, mother, children all sleeping, eating, living in one
small apartment, ill-ventilated, inconvenient, and unhealthy; and I
believe no class of labourers in this great metropolis, where so many
thousands are ill-paid and hard-worked, and are reduced almost to the
condition of brutes, suffer more than the coal-whippers you meet in that
busy street of traffic and toil--the Commercial Road.

The coal-whippers are men employed to _whip_