Any of your readers who may have visited the capital of British India will recollect the native kitaub-wallahs, or booksellers, who drive a good trade in the streets of Calcutta by thrusting their second-hand literature into the palanquins of the passers, and their pertinacity and success in fixing master with a bargain. For the information of the untravelled, I may further remark that these flying bibliopoles draw their supplies from
the daily auctions arising out of the migratory habits or the mortality to which the residents in that city are subject; and it would somewhat astonish our Sothebys and Putticks to see the extent of these sales of literary property, and derange their tympanums to hear the clamorous competition among the aforesaid half-naked dealers for lots not catalogued with their bibliographical precision. The books thus purchased, I may further observe, are subject to the overhaul of the better-informed of the tribe before they make their appearance in the streets; when deficiencies are made good, bindings vamped, and lettering attempted: finally, they are placed in the hands of the hawkers, when the following peculiarities are detectable:—where a title or last leaf may have been wanting, these Calcutta editions occasionally display a prophane book with a sacred title; or a pious treatise, for the sake of the word "Finis," made complete by affixing the last leaf of Tristram Shandy or the Devil on Two Sticks! Less intelligent jobbers will open their book, and, finding the first word "Preface," clap it incontinently in gilt letters on the back! I leave the imagination of the reader to fill up the cross-readings which would likely result from such practices, and revert to my anecdote, which I had almost lost sight of.
Some twenty years ago, then, the dingy tribes were startled, and the auctioneer gratified by the appearance of a new face in the bidders' box—a brisk little European, who contested every lot, aiming, apparently, at a monopoly in the second-hand book trade. Shortly thereafter, this individual, having located himself in a commanding position, came forth in the daily papers as a candidate for public favour; and, in allusion to the reformation he contemplated, and his sovereign contempt for his black brethren, headed his address, to the no small amusement of the lieges, in the Falstoffian vein:
"... No eyes hath seen such scarecrows.
I'll not march thro' Coventry with them, that's flat!"
This joke was no doubt thrown away upon his Hindoo and Mussulman rivals, but, alas for the reformer! he little knew the cold indifference of the Anglo-Indian about such matters, and, as might have been expected, he failed in establishing himself in business, and ultimately fell a victim to the climate. Of the previous history of this one, among ten thousand, who have left their bones in the land of cholera, I know nothing beyond the fact that he was a son of Thomas Holcroft, a dramatist of repute in his day.
J. O.
FOLK LORE.
Subterranean Bells (Vol. vii., p. 128.).—The tower and nave of Tunstall Church, Norfolk, are in ruins; the chancel alone being used for divine service. The village tradition says, that this calamity was caused by fire; and that the parson and churchwardens quarreled for the possession of the bells which were uninjured. During their altercation, the arch-fiend walked off with the subjects of dispute; but being pursued, and overtaken by the parson—who began to exorcise in Latin—he made a way through the earth to his appointed dwelling-place, taking them with him. The spot where this took place is now a boggy pool of water, called Hell Hole; and an adjoining clump of alder-trees is called Hell Carr. In summer time, a succession of bubbles—doubtless caused by marsh gas—keep constantly appearing on the surface. Those who believe in the tradition, find in this circumstance a strong confirmation. For, as it is the entrance to the bottomless pit, the bells must be descending still; and the bubbles would necessarily be caused by bells sinking in water.