are so very loud in the Sale of these trifling Manufactures, that an honest Splenetick Gentleman of my Acquaintance bargained with one of them never to come into the Street where he lived:  But what was the Effect of this Contract?  Why, the whole Tribe of Card-match-makers which frequent that Quarter, passed by his Door the very next Day, in hopes of being bought off after the same manner.

It is another great Imperfection in our London Cries, that there is no just Time nor Measure observed in them.  Our News should indeed be published in a very quick Time, because it is a Commodity that will not keep cold.  It should not, however, be cried with the same Precipitation as Fire:  Yet this is generally the Case.  A Bloody Battle alarms the Town from one End to another in an Instant.  Every Motion of the French is Published in so great a Hurry, that one would think the Enemy were at our Gates.  This likewise I would take upon me to regulate in such a manner, that there should be some Distinction made between the spreading of a Victory, a March, or an Incampment, a Dutch, a Portugal or a Spanish Mail.  Nor must I omit under this Head, those excessive Alarms with which several boisterous Rusticks infest our Streets in Turnip Season; and which are more inexcusable, because these are Wares which are in no Danger of Cooling upon their Hands.

There are others who affect a very slow Time, and are, in my Opinion, much more tuneable than the former; the Cooper in particular swells his last Note in an hollow Voice, that is not without its Harmony; nor can I forbear being inspired with a most agreeable Melancholy, when I hear that sad and solemn Air with which the Public are very often asked, if they have any Chairs to mend?  Your own Memory may suggest to you many other lamentable Ditties of the same Nature, in which the Musick is wonderfully languishing and melodious.

I am always pleased with that particular Time of the Year which is proper for the pickling of Dill and Cucumbers; but alas, this Cry, like the Song of the [Nightingale [5]], is not heard above two Months.  It would therefore be worth while to consider, whether the same Air might not in some Cases be adapted to other Words.

It might likewise deserve our most serious Consideration, how far, in a well-regulated City, those Humourists are to be tolerated, who, not contented with the traditional Cries of their Forefathers, have invented particular Songs and Tunes of their own:  Such as was, not many Years since, the Pastryman, commonly known by the Name of the Colly-Molly-Puff; and such as is at this Day the Vender of Powder and Wash-balls, who, if I am rightly informed, goes under the Name of Powder-Watt.

I must not here omit one particular Absurdity which runs through this whole vociferous Generation, and which renders their Cries very often not only