olar, a man of wit, of
high sentiment, of refinement, and a good fortune withal--now by a
sudden "turn of law" bereft of the last only, and finding that none of
the rest, for which (having his fortune) he had been so much admired,
enabled him to gain a livelihood. His title deeds had been lost or
stolen, and so he was bereft of every thing he possessed. He had
talents, and such as would have been profitably available had he known
how to use them for this new purpose; but he did not; he was
misdirected; he made fruitless efforts, in his want of experience; and
he was now starving. As he passed the great dust-heap, he gave one
vague, melancholy gaze that way, and then looked wistfully into the
canal. And he continued to look into the canal as he slowly moved along,
till he was out of sight.

A dust-heap of this kind is often worth thousands of pounds. The present
one was very large and very valuable. It was in fact a large hill, and
being in the vicinity of small suburb cottages, it rose above them like
a great black mountain. Thistles, groundsel, and rank grass grew in
knots on small parts which had remained for a long time undisturbed;
crows often alighted on its top, and seemed to put on their spectacles
and become very busy and serious; flocks of sparrows often made
predatory descents upon it; an old goose and gander might sometimes be
seen following each other up its side, nearly midway; pigs rooted round
its base, and, now and then, one bolder than the rest would venture some
way up, attracted by the mixed odors of some hidden marrow-bone
enveloped in a decayed cabbage leaf--a rare event, both of these
articles being unusual oversights of the searchers below.

The principal ingredient of all these dust-heaps is fine cinders and
ashes; but as they are accumulated from the contents of all the
dust-holes and bins of the vicinity, and as many more as possible, the
fresh arrivals in their original state present very heterogeneous
materials. We can not better describe them, than by presenting a brief
sketch of the different departments of the searchers and sorters, who
are assembled below to busy themselves upon the mass of original matters
which are shot out from the carts of the dustmen.

The bits of coal, the pretty numerous results of accident and servants'
carelessness, are picked out, to be sold forthwith; the largest and best
of the cinders are also selected, by another party, who sell them to
laundresses, or to