PETTICOAT LANE.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXXIII, Issue 15862, 27 February 1912, Page 2

PETTICOAT LANE.

(By C. EDWARDS in “ Chambers’s Journal.”) Petticoat Lane, in London, on a Sunday morning is wonderful! Its old name has goiio, like the low-gabled dwellings which doubtless flanked it in Queen Elizabeth’s time. You must ask for Middlesex Street if you wish to give it its modern directory dignity. But its character has not changed with its name. It is the same bewildering and amusing market for all kinds and conditions of all such things that it has been for a century or two, with the samo predominant nation crying ‘‘Buy! buy!” in many keys—goodhumoured always, as. becomes tlie astuto trader. There is nothing to interest the eye in its tall warehouse fronts and commonplaco shops with

Jewish and other names to them. When it rains,-• as it often does on Sunday mornings for the Lane’s umbrella merchants/ tho mere setting of the sceno is dismal; but on the level, there is moro colour, incident and human nature than you will find in the average stago-piav. Shakespeare would have rejoiced ‘in it. Unfortunately, the humours of the Lane as we know it wore not for him. . ' From Edward I. s time until Cromwell’s TIIS JEWS IN ENGLAND WERE UNDER A BAN

which neither their thrift nor their admirable contentment with small profits and moro or less quick returns could surmount. Tho important Bablii Man-asseh-Bcn-Israel of Amsterdam, in 1655, petitioned His Most Serene Highness tho Protector (whom God make prosperous) on behalf of his nation, reouosting among other comforts that <*• they might be allowed to traffic freeiy in all sorts of merchandise.” The petition was not formally granted, and Prynne, among others,’ thundered against it; but, tile Jews came in quietly without being opposed, and soon mado themselves useful. The Great Fire helped to establish them, and they have been lords in the Lane now r for generations. It is London’s great bazaar ' and market-place for the poor, Jew and Gentile alike. Clothes and fal-lals abound; but here and in the crossstreets there aro also furlongs of booths of. fruit, vegetables, bread, pastries and sweetmeats.

Nor must it be tastily assumed that the Lane’s goods aro all of indifferent quality, deceits for the eys and disappointment for the stomach. Its oranges at fiiye for a penny and bananas at three for lid are as good as tho oranges and bananas half a mile away at double tho cost. The same may be said of the grapes at 2d a pound and the sweetstuffs. The collars .of the latest mode at 2d apiece seem just as good as those for which you pay 6d or 8d to the polite'hosier in Cheapside. BARGAINS. Four now full-sized white linen handkerchiefs for, Cd is a typical bargain. They appear to be faultless, as well as linen, and what more can be desired in a ljd handkerchief? And so on, up and down the list of the Lane’s articles of merchandise. From collar studs with detachable heads at three for Id, and new silk neckties in tasteful colours at 2d instead of the 6id (or three for Is 6d) commonly demanded in an important street, to silver lever watches (new and second-hand) of unquestionable workmanship at ss, the mystery of it all grows as one pushes through the crowd from Whitechapel to “ Dirty Dick’s ” famous tavern in Bishopsgato. Strangers to tho Lane ask how it can be done. They notioe the various couples of constables who leaven tho crowd and draw conclusions. They feel pretty' sure that professional thieves arid “ fences ” between them provide the Lane’s Sunday market with its valuables. As there aro more ways of stealing than by direot picking of a man’s pocket, the comestibles may quite easily be bracketed with tho watches and' chains as stolen stuff. It is a distressing inference, but, however keenly they may feel it, tho Lane’s chief merchants themselves will fly no public tempers if you make that suggestion to them. “Lumme! What if it is? What have you got to complain about, ehP” retorts a long-established and very racy seller of watches. “ But you’ve got an innocent mind, you have, and you’re, welcome to the blessin’ I” Ho has a heap of. watches on his table, an assistant flanking him on either side ready to screen his greatness from draughts, too much rain or sunshine, or the attacks of evil-doers, and ho SELLS FIVE WATCHES IN ABOUT FIVE MINUTES. Then a man sidles up to his ear (no small thing,' by the way), produces a watch, gets 4s for it, slips away, and tho heap of other watches receives a recruit. • Presently it is offered to the public in its turn. This gives the riierry trader a chance for a sermon. “ Pinched from a. Duke —this was, and I’m offerin’ it to you for 6s 1. . ; . Como now. I’ll toll you what I’ll do. You shall have it for 4s 6d. Your uncle will lend you that on it. My profit on this deal is a tanner, and I don’t care a curso whether I sell it or not!” He sells it, .pf oourse, and smiles .with the crowd ns he wonders what a curate would say about a transaction like that; This old-established merchant’s tongue hits the Gentiles hard.

Our old friend, tho quack, rattles it here on a Sunday morning as eloquently as his predecessors of Chaucer’s time. His neighbour sells you a 7s 6d “ gold ” ring for Id, or .a stamped “ gold ” chain for 2sd; he, out of his deep love for suffering humanity, gives away for 2d a healing mystery, the secret of which Harley Street would sacrifice a year’s income to get at. So he says. You are exhorted to accept it reverently, play no tricks with it, but administer it only and exactly in the doses prescribed on the green wrapper outside. It is an unfailing pain-killer. Proof of its quality is given on the spot. A woman with a swelled face consents to be treated coram populo; she smells the vial, seems to swoon promptly, reoovers, and mutters dazedly that tlie pain has gone. “It really ’as; leastways for the time it ’as,” she adds for the special information of her nearest bystander. “ For all time, lady l’ f shouts the quack. He bids hor hurry home lest she take a chill, and for several seconds does a brisk trade in his bottled ammonia. You are to be careful, he

INSTRUCTS TOU, HOW YOU ADMINISTER IT. Another quack proclaims a newlydiscovered powder for the teeth. He seizes a boy who has never known a toothbrush, polishes him for half a

minute, and then holds him before tho public with lips drawn up and down until the urchin breaks away. Sound teeth or rotten teeth, hi 3 nostrum will make them all whito as snow.

So goes on the diverting and tumultuous traffic with man’s hopes and credulities, to tho satisfaction (temporary or lasting) of buyers and sellers alike. One breathes and moves freely only when the “Dirty Dick” end "of the lane is reached. A little way on here, toward Bethnal Green, are two other Sunday morning markets of . a very different kind. If you have lost your dog, this is the place to come for it. Bulldogs, collies, terriers, poms, poodles and toys nre here in scores. This trade is in the hands of Gentiles, and coarselooking specimens they are—tho Gentiles, not the dogs. The dogs all seem in a dreadful state of depression, their masters for tho moment scarcely less so, although quiclc to brighten toward any well-dressed person who shows an interest in their quadrupeds. Their communications about price, pedigree, etc., aro almost sure to be whispered, and if you were born yesterday you may believe them ; otherwise, scarcely. A step farther and you are in Sclater Street, the place of execution of myriads of England’s sweet little songbirds.- The dealers here also are Gentiles. Linnets at 2d a pair are tho chief commodity on the' market this Sunday niorning, and the -way their doomsters grab them forth from their prisons, stretch out their feathers, and then toss them into paper bags like bits of gingerbread, and exchange them for : '2d is not good to see. , The Jew mart of Petticoat Lane' need be nothing worse than amusing. These other two- markets of the Gentiles are sinister and disgusting.