A man with a carpetbag and an umbrella enters a lodging house and asks for a room, but the landlady rejects his request, thinking that his carpetbag identifies him with a man who had defrauded other lodging houses. Wood engraving after Phiz. (Hablot K. Browne).

A man with a carpetbag had been reported to the police for taking a room in a lodging house and using the carpetbag to conceal the contents of his room, which he had stolen. In the bottom left, a notice advertises the play A new way to pay old debts by Philip Massinger at the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden, London. The play was performed there in 1828 and possibly other seasons