The poor beast, with an endeavour to escape if possible the cudgelling which awaited him, made a sudden turn round the post, rubbing his side against it as he went along, and thereby relieving himself of his load, which he safely deposited, with a cloud of brick-dust that almost blinded the old woman and those who were near her, in the basket of fish.

Neddy then made the best of his way towards Fleet-market, and an over-drove bullock, which had terrified many persons, issued almost at the same moment from Shoe Lane, and took the direction for Temple-bar.

The whistling, the hooting, the hallooing, and the running of the drovers in pursuit--men, women, and children, scampering to get out of the way of the infuriated beast--the noise and rattling of carriages, the lamentations of the poor fish-fag, and the vociferations of the donkey-driver to recover his neddy--together with a combination of undistinguishable sounds from a variety of voices, crying their articles for sale, or announcing their several occupations--formed a contrast of characters, situations, and circumstances, not easily to be described.

Here, a poor half-starved and almost frightened-to-death brat of a Chimney-sweeper, in haste to escape, had run against a lady whose garments were as white as snow--there, a Barber had run against a Parson, and falling along with him, had dropped a pot of pomatum from his apron-pocket on the reverend gentleman's eye, and left a mark in perfect unison with the colour of his garments before the disaster, but which were now of a piebald nature, neither black nor white.

A barrow of nuts, overturned in one place, afforded fine amusement for the scrambling boys and girls--a Jew old clothes-man swore upon his conscience he had losht the pest pargain vhat he ever had offered to him in all his lifetime, by dem tam'd bears of bull-drivers--a Sailor called him a gallows _half-hung ould crimp_,{1} d----d his 1 Crimp--Kidnappers, Trappers, or Procurers of men for the Merchant Service; and the East-India company contract with them for a supply of sailors to navigate their ships out and home.