Page:The London Guide and Stranger's Safeguard.djvu/159

Rh you half a mile, though his person is in the rear: latterly, however, the nimbler of foot, supplied with religious books, forces his wares upon your attention, which is first arrested on the olfactory nerve, and claiming, by a greasy effluvia, your subscription towards a replenishment of the nauseous olfertory. Under other circumstances, they will creep into the premises of persons who carelessly leave open their fore doors, to pilfer whatever they can lay hands on. Gentlemens' kitchens, back doors, shops and warehouses they enter softly with imploring air: if discovered, they beg; if not, they steal. A gentleman, of some spirit in the city, relates, that he was in the habit daily of reading the newspaper seated in the dado of his shop, while his people were getting ready to attend to their duty: he almost invariably found some of this species of rogues enter in the way we have described. He adds, that one day transacting business with a silk mercer, his neighbour, his face being towards the door, though at the whole distance of the warehouse, he saw enter one of those religious tract venders, who imagining he was unseen, shut up his book-shop and set off with a piece of silk: when overtaken and examined, he maintained stoutly that he was employed to carry it; but