THE LAST OF THE PEDLARS.

The whole framework of society has been so much altered within these last sixty years, that a person who has been born within that period, unless from tradition, must remain entirely ignorant of the manners and habits of his immediate predecessors. Now, highroads, carriages by land and water, with all manner of facilities of intercourse, have brought every part of the country, even the most remote corners, into contact, as it were, with every other part. Any great or engrossing fact or feeling flies immediately, on wings of paper, and in characters of ink, from land's-end to land's-end. But, formerly, this was very far from being the case. The press, as a vehicle of public news, was altogether in its infancy. Roads were not, or they were all but impassable; and the one end of the island might be sunk into the sea, without the other extremity having any immediate perception of the loss. But we must not conclude, on this account, that our forefathers were without curiosity, or without the means of gratifying that passion for news which is deeply seated in our nature. Not at all; the very inconveniences of their position produced, in a great measure, the means of reciprocal intelligence.

There were the tailor and the trogger, but, above and beyond all, the pedlar, the most respected and interesting of all walking and migrating gazettes, who, in the non-existence of woollen-drapers and haberdashers, nailed, like bad silver, to a locality, wandered from Dan to Beersheba—in other words, from Glasgow to Manchester, and vice versa—carrying all manner of fashionable clothing on their backs, and a vast assortment of fore-night gabble in their heads. As these itinerant merchants behoved to be young and strong, so they were generally unmarried, and kept up a kind of running fire with the lasses. Their opportunities of observing the characteristics of the farmer's fireside were unbounded, as they not unfrequently remained stationary for two or three days in one place. After several years of laborious travel, and enormous profits, at little or no expense in point of diet, such individuals generally purchased a stout horse, to carry the increased load of goods. The horse, again, was ultimately attached to a waggon, and the waggon, at last, stuck in the midst of some flourishing village or town, and became a regular haberdashery shop. Thus, through industry, all but dishonest parsimony, prudence, and perseverance, a comfortable independence often crowned the old age of the packman; and he was not unfrequently found with a fishing-rod by the mountain-stream, or with a book in the corner of his snug little garden, towards the close of his varied and eventful history. It was but the other day that we attended the sale of an old bachelor of this description—the last, we believe, of the race—and that, amidst a parcel of old books and papers, which we purchased en masse, we discovered a well written and somewhat extended manuscript, from which we intend to cull a few chapters for the amusement of our readers.