“SHEAP CLODINK!”
Under this head I might ring in Hamlet’s soliloquy about the dust of great men stopping cracks, and preach a very pretty sermon on the mutability of human affairs, but I won’t. Petticoat Lane is not exactly the place for philosophizing, nor will it be for me till I get its smell out of my nostrils. Visiting Petticoat Lane is very much like eating onions—you carry the taste with you a long time, which is a blessing—for those who like onions. The onion is an economical vegetable at any price. It may come high to begin with, but it lasts a long time.
I saw General’s uniforms, American sack-coats, trowsers that may have graced the legs of royalty, and a great many that had not, there not being many of the royalty. There were French blouses, police uniforms, Irish knee-breeches, everything. One coat I saw sold for a penny, the vender originally asking two shillings for it.
Next to this merchant was a man who had an assortment of sewing machines—Wheeler & Wilson, Wilcox & Gibbs, the Domestic, Singer—all the American machines were represented, and he sold them, too. People come there to buy these things. They went as low as three dollars, and as high as five. One bloated aristocrat, who was particular as to appearances, actually paid seven dollars for a Wheeler & Wilson, and was not above carrying it off himself.
In Petticoat Lane they don’t have wagons to deliver your purchases as they do in Regent street and elsewhere, nor do they sell on time. You buy, and pay for what you buy, and to prevent mistakes you pay for your goods just before you get them. It’s a habit they have.
The furniture stores—all on the sidewalk—are curiosities. It would delight a gatherer-up of unconsidered trifles to see one of them. I did not notice a whole piece of furniture in the lot. There was either a leg gone, or two legs, or the top, or the side, something must be gone. But the dealer didn’t mind that. “You see, ma teer, all you hef to do ish to get dot leg put on, and its shoost ash goot as new, efery bit.” Bureaus with missing drawers, tables with three legs where four were essential, chairs with the top, bottom and legs gone; in short, everything that was broken and condemned as useless by everybody finds its last resting-place here. Surely there can be no lower depth for the disabled.
A MOTLEY MASS.
As I gazed in wonder upon some of the articles I saw, and noticed how little of the original article could be sold, I bethought myself of the cooper who was brought a bung hole, with the request that he build a barrel about it.