and filagreed buttons, to that of the scrupulously inornate clergyman,
than which nothing could be less liable to suspicion. Still all were
distinguished by a certain sodden swarthiness of complexion, a filmy
dimness of eye, and pallor and compression of lip. There were two other
traits, moreover, by which I could always detect them; - a guarded lowness
of tone in conversation, and a more than ordinary extension of the thumb
in a direction at right angles with the fingers. - Very often, in company
with these sharpers, I observed an order of men somewhat different in
habits, but still birds of a kindred feather. They may be defined as the
gentlemen who live by their wits. They seem to prey upon the public in two
battalions - that of the dandies and that of the military men. Of the
first grade the leading features are long locks and smiles; of the second
frogged coats and frowns.

Descending in the scale of what is termed gentility, I found darker and
deeper themes for speculation. I saw Jew pedlars, with hawk eyes flashing
from countenances whose every other feature wore only an expression of
abject humility; sturdy professional street beggars scowling upon
mendicants of a better stamp, whom despair alone had driven forth into the
night for charity; feeble and ghastly invalids, upon whom death had placed
a sure hand, and who sidled and tottered through the mob, looking every
one beseechingly in the face, as if in search of some chance consolation,
some lost hope; modest young girls returning from long and late labor to a
cheerless home, and shrinking more tearfully than indignantly from the
glances of ruffians, whose direct contact, even, could not be avoided;
women of the town of all kinds and of all ages - the unequivocal beauty in
the prime of her womanhood, putting one in mind of the statue in Lucian,
with the surface of Parian marble, and the interior filled with filth -
the loathsome and utterly lost leper in rags - the wrinkled, bejewelled
and paint-begrimed beldame, making a last effort at youth - the mere child