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conceivable pawnbroking want appealed to. We
can have, for one shilling, post free, "A table
of the rates of profits allowed to be taken by
pawnbrokers on intermediate sums;" for five
shillings, " A statistical account of the operations
in the Monts de Piété of France, Belgium,
and Ireland, and of pawnbroking in England,
with suggestions for its improvement."

If we be of an antiquarian turn, a barrister-
at-law has prepared for us "The Law of
Pawns:" which is not a work on chess, but a
collection of adjudged cases, together with
some historical account of the system of lending
money on pawns, as practised by tradesmen,
companies, and governments. Again, if we
be a buyer, as well as a mortgagee, of
miscellaneous property, three firms of auctioneers
announce sales of unredeemed pledges, on every
day in the ensuing week. Pawnbroking
businesses to be disposed of; pawnbroking tickets
for the "sale trade," "boldly written, at from
ninepence the gross;"pawnbroking duplicate
tickets, of "a firmness and substance hitherto
unsurpassed," numbered consecutively from
one to ten thousand, no two tickets in the
same month to bear a similar number, and no
two tickets to be alike for two years; pawn-
brokers' assistants who want places; and
pawnbrokers who want assistants; are all headings
to the advertisements. Youths, sharp active
youths, young men, respectable young men,
men of experience, men of from six to seventeen
years' experience in the taking of pledges,
countermen, salesmen innumerable, are open to
engagements. The respectable young men mostly
aspire to "a situation as third," whatever that
may be; the youths are able to write tickets as
well as serve at the counter; while the salesmen
and men of experience can, as a rule, "mark
for the window," and take the management in
the absence of the principal.

Of the other journal we had indirectly heard.
For in the Newgate Calendar are there not
constant references to the Bow-street Runners'
organ, the Hue and Cry? The Bow-street
Runners are gone, it is years since we read the
Newgate Calendar, and now we find that the
Hue and Cry has given up that thrilling title,
and calls itself the Police Gazette.

It is published by authority, and is of similar
size and shape to the journal just described. It
is, however, very different in style and tone,
presenting neither leading article, answers to
correspondents, reports of public meetings, or
advertisements proper. We say advertisements
proper, because the whole paper is filled with
advertisements of a kind, but they are inserted
free of charge, and were never liable to duty.
The "wants," which occupy its columns, are
wants of criminals still at large. The paper
before us is thus subdivided. Four pages are
taken up with "Informations," and four with
the names of deserters from her Majesty's
service. The "Informations" are subdivided into
"Murder and Maliciously Wounding;" "Rob-
bery and Larceny from the Person;" "Burglary
and Housebreaking;" " Horse and Cattle Stealing;"
"Larceny and Embezzlement;" "Frauds
and Aggravated Misdemeanors;" "Miscellaneous;"
"Property Stolen;" and "Property
Found by Police Officers" (on the persons of
prisoners and elsewhere). The style of this
journal is of the closest, for it merely gives, as
it professes, " the substance of all informations
received in cases of felony, and of misdemeanors
of an aggravated nature, and against receivers
of stolen goods, reputed thieves and offenders
escaped from custody, with the time, the place,
and the circumstance of the offence. The names
of persons charged with offences, who are known,
but not in custody, and a description of those who
are not known, their appearance, dress, and other
marks of identity. The names of accomplices
and accessories, with every particular which may
lead to their apprehension. A description, as
accurate as possible, of property that has been
stolen, and a minute description of stolen horses,
for the purpose of tracing and recovering them." .
The facility of mental metempsychosis which
made us a pawnbroker just now, converts us
into a police constable while reading this statement
of the scope and bearing of the Police
Gazette. We open it at our provincial stationhouse,
and, conning over the descriptions to see
whether any of them apply to the two suspicious-
looking tramps we saw lurking about the manor-
house yesterday when we were on duty, fail in
this, but in one of the advertisements we recognise
the plausible talkative man we met at the
cross-roads on Sunday, who seemed for all his
talkativeness to shun our eye, and whom we heard
of afterwards as inquiring the way to the next
town. We report our discovery, a message is sent
to the police superintendent of that town, and we
have the satisfaction of knowing that the Blucher
boots with a small hole in one toe, will shortly
carry their owner into Stamford jail. The
extreme particularity of these descriptive
"informations," is carried down to scars on the thumb,
to peculiar modes of pressing the lips when
speaking, to the accent of the voice, and to the
expression of the eye. The dress in which
"wanted" persons were last seen, down to the
patches on their trousers, the cut and material
of their coats, the amount of wear had out of
their hats and boots, the size of the plaits in
their shirts, and the colour of their stockings, is
faithfully reproduced; and we rise from the
perusal of this portion of the news from Bow-
street, convinced that we shall soon hear of a
large proportion of the one hundred and ten
"informations" it contains, resulting in the
apprehension of the persons described.
Subsequently we turn to the list of deserters, the
reward for whose apprehension has, since 1857,
been twenty shillings instead of ten. We
carefully note the tabulated columns, headed
respectively, name, number of regiment, corps, where
born, trade, age, size, hair, eyes, face, coat, trousers,
date of desertion, marks, and remarks.
Upwards of a thousand deserters from the militia
and line are here described; the sea-service,
including the marines, does not furnish a fourth of
that number.