Fifty years ago the appearance of the street-Jews, engaged in the
purchase of second-hand clothes, was different to what it is at the
present time. The Jew then had far more of the distinctive garb and
aspect of a foreigner. He not unfrequently wore the gabardine, which is
never seen now in the streets, but some of the long loose frock coats
worn by the Jew clothes’ buyers resemble it. At that period, too, the
Jew’s long beard was far more distinctive than it is in this hirsute
generation.
In other respects the street-Jew is unchanged. Now, as during the
last century, he traverses every street, square, and road, with the
monotonous cry, sometimes like a bleat, of “Clo’! Clo’!” On this head,
however, I have previously remarked, when describing the street Jew of
a hundred years ago.
[Illustration: THE JEW OLD-CLOTHES MAN.