Penny Dreadfuls, 1850 · page 140 of 396
The String of Pearls; or, The Barber of Fleet Street — page 140: what you’re looking at
A restored page from Penny Dreadfuls, 1850. Page through the whole issue in the reader above.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
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