The public crier, then, was the chief organ by which the mediæval shopkeeper, in the absence of what we now know as “advertising mediums,” obtained publicity: it was also customary for most traders to have touters at their doors, who did duty as living advertisements. In low neighbourhoods this system still obtains, especially in connection with cheap photographic establishments, whose “doorsmen” select as a rule the most improbable people for their attentions, but compensate for this by their pertinacity and glibness. Possibly the triumph is the greater when the customer has been persuaded quite out of his or her original intentions. Most trades, in early times, were almost exclusively confined to certain streets, and as all the shops were alike unpretending, and open to the gaze—in fact, were stalls or booths—it behoved the shopkeeper to