i 7 8 
‘ T AMR ACE'S ' 
of the docks, have given a rich mellow colour both 
to frame and contents, in curious contrast to the 
brilliant hues of the parrots and lories which fill the 
cages in the adjacent window. In the little office 
at the back the steady traffic in wild beasts has gone 
on for a hundred years, between the Jamrachs and 
the ship-captains in the first instance, and later with 
the buyers employed by Zoological Gardens and 
menageries. Frank Buckland, Van Ambrugh, and 
Mr. Bartlett, and most of the great circus and 
menagerie proprietors, have sat in the old Windsor 
chairs, and discussed the merits of new purchases, 
or schemes for the capture of rare and valuable 
animals. 
Few even of the most ancient business houses 
of that most picturesque and characteristic part of 
London, the City, and the eastern wards which cluster 
round the Tower, have retained their old form so 
entirely as this. Some of the old back parlours 
and lobbies are still provided with the racks of 
blunderbusses and bayonets, which the traditions 
of the Gordon Riots suggested as a terror to daylight 
robbers, and a guarantee of security to timid deposi- 
tors. Others keep upon their walls the charters and 
firmans granted to adventurous merchants by sultans 
and chieftains whose territories are now well-regulated 
provinces of the British Empire. But the trade of 
Jamrach’s has this peculiarity, that it always deals 
in commodities which as a rule disappear before 
advancing civilization, and must be drawn from 
