self and came down-stairs, all which operations being performed with true German deliberation, occasioned us a halt of half an hour. At length we set off again across the forest, the wind howling drearily through the old fir-trees, and at intervals bearing to our ears the mournful cry of the screech-owl. At certain spots the keeper, who was walking at the head of the party, addressed a few words in a low tone to the commissary of police.

At length we halted again, and scarcely had we done so when eleven o'clock chimed from the church

towers of Berlin. Unable to restrain my curiosity any longer, I asked one of the police agents who was walking beside me, what was the meaning of these mysterious perambulations.

As I ought to have expected, my question appeared strange, and greatly surprised the man to whom it was addressed. After an instant's reflection, however, he seemed to guess that it was by accident I had joined the party, and he made no scruple to answer my question.

"It is the custom in Prussia," said he, "once every year at the same hour, and on the same night, for the police of each district, town, and village, to make a simultaneous movement for the apprehension of malefactors and vagabonds. Letters fixing the night, and sealed by the minister of police, are sent beforehand to all the authorities of the kingdom, with orders only to open them upon a certain day."

Such was the kind of battue (somewhat similar to the measures taken with respect to the French conscripts in Napoleon's time) that was to take place this night. In every part of the Prussian territory, the police were on the alert, and the division to which I had accidentally attached myself, had its scene of action assigned to it in the neighbourhood of the royal residence.

After waiting about a quarter of an hour, several persons arrived bringing reports to the commissary, who, after perusing them, led the way to a vast corn-field, situated on the skirts of the forest. The field was surround. ed, lanterns produced, and by their light we distinguished a track where the corn was trampled down as though some one had passed through it. Fol

VOL. L. NO. CCCXII.

lowing this trail, we before long saw something moving in the thickest part of the wheat; the commissary pounced on it with all the eagerness of a bird of prey, and dragged out a man, whose wild scared look denoted his surprise at his sudden capture.

What are you doing here, you scoundrel? 'Twas only the day before yesterday you were let out of prison, and you have already got back to your old ways!"

"God forbid, Mr Commissary! I am perfectly innocent; but you always suspect me without cause.'

Where did you pick up that bundle that you have got under your coat?"

"I found it, sir; I can assure you I found it. You think, perhaps, I stole it? Oh! Mr Commissary, you are always thinking harm of me.'

"Well!" said the commissary, turning from his prisoner, "where the master is there will be the scholar. Hunt about, gendarmes; his nephew, Caroty Scopa, cannot be far off."

The conjecture was well founded; for, five minutes afterwards, a gawky red haired youth was brought in, who stared at the commissary with unparalleled effrontery.

"We shall find nothing more here to-night," said the latter; " I know my men. Our friend here does not like many companions; he prefers to live and rob alone.”

"Somebody must have been setting you against me, Mr Commissary; but I assure you I am innocent."

As

"Forward!" cried our leader, and we filed along the skirt of the forest in the direction of Reichsdorf. we passed near a thicket, the elder of the two robbers gave so shrill a whistle that I was fain to stop my

to a farm-house, which, as well as its out-buildings, was immediately surrounded. The farmer was awakened, and requested to open a barn, which he did; but it would be impossible to describe the astonishment of the worthy peasant, when he saw routed out from under the hay, six fellows rejoicing in the possession of most cut-throat physiognomies.

Another detachment of gendarmes soon afterwards arrived from Treptow, bringing with them nine or ten individuals, whom it would have been any thing but agreeable to meet on a dark night in a lonely country.

The commissary now started off in the direction of Brietz, accompanied by the soldiers, the forest keeper, and police agents; the gendarmes who had just arrived were left in charge of the prisoners. For my part, I began to have enough of rambling about, and I determined to remain and see what was going to be done with the captives. The night air had chilled me, however; and I began to look about the village in search of a schnapps of rum or brandy, to restore the circulation of my blood.

"Hallo, comrade! whither away?" cried a gruff voice as I left the party; "your road and ours lie together, I believe." And as I turned to see who it was that thus apostrophized me, a gendarme grasped me by the collar.

"Allow me to observe to you, worthy gendarme, that I do not belong to the party of gentlemen you have charge of; it is merely as an amateur that I accompanied the commissary to-night."

"Indeed! and you think that excuse will go down? It won't do, my fine fellow; so no more talk, but fall in with the rest of them."

And, at the same time, I felt a hard substance brought in contact with the small of my back, which mature reflection caused me to recognize as being the but-end of a musket. What was to be done? My friend

had gone to Brietz with the commissary; nobody in the neighbourhood knew me, or could testify to my respectability. I put as good a face on the matter as I could, and, trying to look as if I were delighted at the adventure, I marched off with the gendarmes and the robbers.

At length we arrived before the Cottbus gate, upon the very meadows which I had crossed a few hours previously. The moon was still shining brightly; but I would have preferred the light of a blazing wood fire, or even of the tin lantern at the Targethouse. The very fragrance of the dew-covered hedge-flowers, appeared to me far less agreeable than the close tobacco-scented atmosphere of the guard-room.

After a full hour's march, we entered the gloomy gateway of the prison.

I was installed in cell No. 13, and there I remained till the following day, when I was taken before the president of the council of police, who, after hearing my explanation, ordered me to be set at liberty. "You will remember, however," added he, as I was leaving the court, "that your presence at the capture of several criminals, renders it necessary you should attend their trials as witness to the truth of our official reports. Do not neglect this, or you will make yourself liable to a heavy fine and imprisonment, which I shall be compelled to inflict."

The trials lasted a fortnight, and, on the fifteenth day, as I was about to set off for Stuttgardt, a letter reached me, announcing my uncle's death. The old gentleman had been so vexed at my non-arrival, that, fortyeight hours before he died, he had cancelled my legacy.

Ever since this incident, the sight of a gendarme is as disagreeable to me as it can possibly be to Caroty Scopa himself."

THE intensity of the competitive principle of London life occupied our attention in the concluding paragraphs of our last number, and one or two illustrations of the energy and spirit with which the struggle of man against man is here carried on, were given. If, however, we were to take the trouble to illustrate the all-pervading power of commercial, professional, or fashionable rivalry in London, we should fill from beginning to ending the closely printed pages of Maga, and save our brother contributors the trouble of putting pen to paper, for this month at least.

In short, whichever way you turn, you find man wrestling with man in the hand-to-hand struggle for existence: you have a vessel ever full, into which pours from above successive drops of human existence, while a continual stream is forced over the sides, and a perpetual change, immigrative and emigrative, continuously goes on, leaving the capacious reservoir-ever receiving, ever dischar ging, and ever full.

The rivalry of quack doctors is not more ludicrous than that of contending tradesmen, who, having no established name or permanent connexion, are driven desperately to adopt the only other means of obtaining notice, namely, puffing. Take, for an illustration, the memorable affair of the four-and-ninepenny hat shops, or emporiums of that much worn and economical description of tile, called gossamer. There appeared, about the commencement of the age of gossamers, vast numbers of shops for the sale of that light and elegant article, the four-and-ninepenny hat. and-ninepence for a hat!-why, 'tis cheaper than going bareheaded. Fourand-ninepence!-who would wear a shocking hat? The reader will not fail to mark the supereminent depth and astuteness of the London trader in gossamers in affixing to his manufacture the economical figures of fourand-nine-close as the sum is related to the royal family-almost a crown -the odd threepence makes all the difference. Five shillings, a provin

Four

cial hat-maker would have put upon the article without ceremony: he would call it a fair price, and probably so it might be: it would, moreover, be a round sum, a simple multiple, a fixed coin, an easy figure: but your London tradesman knows a trick worth two of that, and the reduction of the odd threepence, if you take pains to analyse it, is not only a masterly stroke of commercial genius, but is based upon the most accurate and profound knowledge of human nature,

that knowledge, namely, which is derived, not from communion with books, but from the daily investigation, for the purposes of self-interest, of the passions, prejudices, likings and aversions of men. It would take a volume to illustrate fully the principle exemplified in the price put on a gossamer hat, and the illustration would be worth a volume, because the principle of a tentative price, as we may call it, regulates altogether the profits of the retailer in London, with the exception of those old-established and respectable houses, which have no need to do more than to dispose of to their customers, at the best price, the best article. Five shillings for a hat," says the knowing London trader; "it looks cheap enough to be sure, but it won't do: five shillings is a crown, and there is but another crown in half a sovereign: besides, it is sum gone, and nothing out of it: no, no, make it four-and-nine; give threepence change out of the five shillings, and though your customer spend said threepence immediately after in beer, he will be satisfied he has got a bargain, and wear his new gossamer with a difference."" We might enforce this doctrine of a tentative price, if we chose to enter into the philosophy of retail trading, by a thousand illustrations for example, a neighbourhood shall have purchased for centuries at the Magpie and Stump, or Cat and Bagpipes, beer at threepence- halfpenny per pot, with perfect satisfaction; when, lo and behold! a new house is licensed, which comes out with foaming stout at threepence farthing: the consequence of this revolu

tion is, that those who formerly drank a pint of beer at threepence-halfpenny, now, for cheapness, consume a quart at threepence farthing, and those who did not drink beer at all, because of the halfpenny, now imbibe it pleasantly on the strength of the farthing: the Magpie and Stump together, or the Cat and Bagpipes, are obliged to shut up, while the proprietor of the new establishment, having secured his monopoly, repays himself the loss by giving his customers worse beer than

ever.

In every article of dress, and indeed every thing else, the tentative price is the bait to catch gudgeons: the ticket in the windows hooks the flat-fish not by the jaws, but by the eye, which does the business equally well. When you enter the shop, to be sure, you discover, if you are not an ass, that the ticketed article is not only not worth the price ticketed, but to you, probably, not worth the ticket itself: however, you are now hooked, and in the landing net-that is to say, in the shop, and if some of the assistant anglers do not somehow or other get their digits into your gills, you must be a more seasoned bit of timber than we take you for!

There is a moral to be drawn from these cheap shops, ticket shops, bankrupt's stock shops, "great sacrifice" shops, burnt out shops, and the like, which we might descant upon at great length, and probably to some advantage. We have been long convin ced, however, in our own persons, that no absurdity is greater than that of wisdom teaching by precept; by far the best way for our young and inexperienced readers is, to deal at the cheap shops until they discover how shocking dear they are, when, your life for ours, they will, without referring to the book of Proverbs for an authority, pass by them to the natural end of their shop-hunting lives.

To return, however, to our illustration of the cheap hat shops. Among the multiplicity of candidates for the dispensation of hats to the uncovered multitude, two more especially at tracted public notice, by the marked and daring originality of their movements towards a flourishing business. While others, treading in the beaten track, announced themselves as the "Original Gossamers," the "Real Original Gossamers," or the

"Old Original Four-and-nines," the two establishments in question had themselves painted, like true Britons, one staring colour from bottom to top, not omitting roofs, chimney-pots, and gables.

One was the "Real Original Royal Sky-blue," the other the "Old Original Imperial Pea-green," gossamer warehouse: the former was patronized by the Royal Families of England and France; the latter, by the reigning despots of Austria and Russia. The proprietor of the "Real Original" had served twenty-five years with the first inventor of the redoubted gossamer hats; he of the opposite establishment had "visited the Continent," in his laudable exertions to bring this manufacture to the utmost pitch of perfection; in which, he took care to assure his customers and the public, he had fully and completely succeeded.

From bepraising themselves, the rival gossamers got, by an easy and natural transition, to abusing each other; the most palpable libels were printed and circulated, on both sides, through all parts of the metropolis. So obscured were the walls with enormous pea-green placards and skyblue bills, inviting customers to be covered at the respective warehouses, that you could not distinguish whether the structure of the wall was brick, stone, or timber: vehicles, in the shape of hats, painted the colour of their establishments, jostled each other in the public streets, to the imminent danger of the lieges. If you purchased at the "Real Original Royal Sky-blue," you were regaled, gratis, with a torrent of Billingsgate, showered upon the establishment of the "Old Original Imperial Pea green;" nor was the proprietor of the latter at all sparing in returning the compliments of his rival, with more than the legal rate of interest.

Talk of the feuds of the Feudalists! the wars of the Capulets and Montagues, Guelphs and Ghibellines, Campbells and Macgregors, were all boys' play compared with the contests of the rival kings of gossamer. The feud, which at first had been amusing, now became quite a nuisance, and the whole neighbourhood, adopting the words of poor Mercutio, were fain to cry out, "A plague o' both your houses!"

The

However, what was that to Sky blue and Pea-green? The humbug was clever, and crowds of customers, pouring into the rival establishments, sufficiently attested its success. best of the joke was, however, not discovered until long after, when upon some occasion it came out, that, in fact and in truth, the " Old Original Imperial Pea-green," and the "Real Original Royal Sky-blue," were one and the same establishment, the property of one and the same owner!

In another remarkable instance of the civilized ferocity of rivalry, universal throughout London, a tradesman made it the ambition of his life to ruin another in the same line, by opening an establishment in every respect precisely similar, and endeavouring by every possible trick, device, and lie, to destroy the identity of the shop of his rival, and to merge it in his own. The case became, at length, the subject of judicial enquiry, and in the course of evidence was elicited the fact, that, after all other attempts to appropriate to himself the fruits of the industry, good conduct, and perseverance of his victim, this unscrupulous personage actually set up, in large letters over his shop, the name of the party he wished to destroy, and justified himself by stating that he had given his infant son the name of his rival as a Christian name, (it ought to be remembered the worthy father was an Israelite!) and taken the baby into partnership!

This, however, was too much, even for the phlegmatic temper of the law, and the enterprising Mordecai was amerced in damages and costs, for his impudent attempt at piracy.

Another amusing instance of the intensity of rivalry in trade, was that of the ever-memorable and never-to-beforgotten contests of the genuine and spurious Dirty Dicks.

The neighbourhood of the India House and Leadenhall Street will understand perfectly to whom we allude; but for general readers a more particular account of this portentous event may be necessary.

Passing along the right side of Lea denhall Street, on your way to Whitechapel, you will observe a pot and pan shop of the olden time, filled with copper kettles, gridirons, and every variety of culinary implement. In the window may be observed a re

markable portrait of a very ugly man with a very dirty face: this is the original shop, that the original portrait, of the original Dirty Dick.

Dirty Dick was a sort of Jemmy Wood in hardware. From low beginnings, or rather from no beginnings at all, he contrived to scrape together, by intense industry and perseverance, one of the first, if not the very first, retail businesses in London. Nothing was good that did not come from Dirty Dick: all Dick's iron was Swedish, all his brass Corinthian! And although the old file was as great a savage in his way as Abernethy the surgeon, every body dealt with him, and would deal nowhere else, probably for that very reason.

Prosperous as was Dirty Dick, however, he was not permitted to remain on the sunny side of life. When in the fair way of converting his brass into gold, and just when he began to think of washing his face and retiring from business, the vision of a shop precisely similar to his own in every outward attribute, exactly opposite his door, struck his astonished view; but judge his amazement and despair when at the door appeared a man with a face at least as ugly, and much dirtier than his own, who, stepping across the way, put into his hands a staring bill, announcing himself as the "Real Original Dirty Dick,” and informing a discerning public that all others were spurious!

The little blackguard boys who were accustomed to infest the emporium of the genuine Dirty Dick, and who were as good to him as a thousand advertisements, were now cruelly seduced away by his dirtier rival. Customers were perplexed and con-founded; and as the business of a customer is to lay out his money to the best advantage, the public soon transferred their business to the dirtiest face. In vain the undoubted original Dirty Dick protested and paragraphed-in vain he applied his oil-rubber, and polished his face and hands up to the blackness of Erebus: impudence, novelty, and the carelessness of the public carried the day, and the spurious Dirty Dick transferred the business of his rival to his own side of the way.

Turn which way you will, piracy is the order of the day-so easy and pleasant to human nature is it to steal!