Page:The London Guide and Stranger's Safeguard.djvu/205

Rh sums. He was committed specifically for thus taking in a bookseller in Paternoster row; but was let off at the sessions following, through a mistaken act of lenity.

Women, and costermongers, who hawk about poultry, apples, butter, meat, &c. when they find trade rather slack, will at times make a finish of their day's work by pretending they have been ordered to call with their wares. Such as these seldom impose as to prices; but generally put off aged poultry, or meat that died by the hand of its maker. Plated butter—(i. e. fresh on the outside, tallow in the middle) and such other impositions as may suggest themselves to their ingenuity. Most costermongers are thieves, smashers, and the like. We might have said all of them; but choose to leave a hole for some one to creep out at.

Hay and straw salesmen are done out of a load or two occasionally, by a clumsy fellow, whom it is a disgrace not to have detected for a villain at his very first appearance, in this manner. He orders the hay to be sent to a respectable name, at a respectable mews, or a livery suible; where the driver is of course to be paid on delivery, but he retires into a neighbouring house to