hooker-in

These gentlemen are Hookers-in; or, as they more euphoniously style themselves, Commercial Solicitors. Their employers are the country trade merchants of Manchester; their duty is to stand at the door of their respective warehouses "from morn till dewy eve," there to take forcible possession of each and every passenger who may have the outward semblance of a country draper, or other consumer of Manchester goods, and to drag him into the establishment whose interest they have the honour to represent. […] Let it not be imagined that a hooker-in is a disreputable character—generally speaking he is quite the reverse.