I saw one old man with a long, white beard, clad in the gaberdine⁠—a long, black coat⁠—typical of the Ghettos of Eastern Europe⁠—and presently there emerged into the street a fine-looking old woman, of about seventy, draped in a red shawl, heavily embroidered. I have seen such a figure very often in the Jewish quarter of Warsaw. It was not only the shawl that was symbolic; this mother in Israel belonged to the old order, under the dispensation of which a married woman always shaved her head, no matter how young or beautiful she might be. The theory was, that as a wife she must no longer appear beautiful in the eyes of any man, though it seems hard her husband was not the exception. In Warsaw you continually meet an old Jewess with an ill-fitting wig that does not cover her bald head, and it came on me as a startling surprise that I should find such an one in Whitechapel.

Trucks of newly-baked bread, rolls and French twists, and delicious little brioche were wheeled about the streets and a stall was already busy with the morning coffee.