Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 434. Various
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do. cost 28s. 6d., to be sold at 7s. 6d.
Newest dresses, of fashionable materials, worth 35s., to be sold for 9s. 9d.
Splendid Paisley shawls, worth 2½ guineas, for 16s.
Cashmere shawls (perfect gems), cost 4 guineas, to be sold for 35s.'
A long list of similar bargains closes with a declaration that, although these prices are mentioned, a clearance of the premises, rather than a compensation for the value of the goods, is the great object in view; that the articles will be got rid of regardless of price; and that 'the disposal will assume the character of a gratuitous distribution, rather than of an actual sale.' This is pretty well for the first hap-hazard plunge into the half-bushel piled upon our table. Mr Gobblemadam may go down. Let us see what the next will produce.
The second is addressed thus: 'To be opened within two hours after delivery.—special commission.—Final Audit, 30th October 1851.' The contents are a closely-printed extra-royal folio broadside, issued by the firm of Messrs Shavelass and Swallowher, of Tottering Terrace West. It contains a voluminous list of useful domestic goods, presenting the most enormous bargains, in the way of sheetings, shirtings, flannels, diapers, damasks, dimities, table-cloths, &c. &c. The economical housewife is cautioned by this generous firm, that to disregard the present opportunity would be the utmost excess of folly, as the whole stock is to be peremptorily sold considerably under half the cost price. The following are a few of the items:
'Irish lines, warranted genuine, 9-1/2d. per yard.
Fine cambric handkerchiefs, 2s. 6d. per dozen.
Curtain damask, in all colours, 6-1/2d. per yard.
Swiss curtains, elegantly embroidered, four yards long, for 6s. 9d. a pair—cost 17s. 6d.
Drawing-room curtains, elaborately wrought, at 8s. 6d. a pair—cost 21s.'
The bargains, in short, as Messrs Shavelass and Swallowher observe, are of such an astounding description, as 'to strike all who witness them with wonder, amazement, and surprise;' and 'demand inspection from every lady who desires to unite superiority of taste with genuine quality and economy.'
The next is a remarkably neat envelope, with a handsomely embossed border, bearing the words, 'on especial service' under the address, and winged with a two-penny stamp. The enclosure is a specimen of fine printing on smooth, thin vellum, in the form of a quarto catalogue, with a deep, black-bordered title-page, emanating from the dreary establishment of Messrs Moan and Groan, of Cypress Row. Here commerce condescends to sympathy, and measures forth to bereaved and afflicted humanity the outward and visible symbols of their hidden griefs. Here, when you enter his gloomy penetralia, and invoke his services, the sable-clad and cadaverous-featured shopman asks you, in a sepulchral voice—we are not writing romance, but simple fact—whether you are to be suited for inextinguishable sorrow, or for mere passing grief; and if you are at all in doubt upon the subject, he can solve the problem for you, if you lend him your confidence for the occasion. He knows from long and melancholy experience the agonising intensity of wo expressed by bombazine, crape, and Paramatta; can tell to a sigh the precise amount of regret that resides in a black bonnet; and can match any degree of internal anguish with its corresponding shade of colour, from the utter desolation and inconsolable wretchedness of dead and dismal black, to the transient sentiment of sorrowful remembrance so appropriately symbolised by the faintest shade of lavender or French gray. Messrs Moan and Groan know well enough, that when the heart is burdened with sorrow, considerations of economy are likely to be banished from the mind as out of place, and disrespectful to the memory of the departed; and, therefore, they do not affront their sorrowing patrons with the sublunary details of pounds, shillings, and pence. They speed on the wings of the post to the house of mourning, with the benevolent purpose of comforting the afflicted household. They are the first, after the stroke of calamity has fallen, to mingle the business of life with its regrets; and to cover the woes of the past with the allowable vanities of the present. Step by step, they lead their melancholy patrons along the meandering margin of their flowing pages—from the very borders of the tomb, through all the intermediate changes by which sorrow publishes to the world its gradual subsidence, and land them at last in the sixteenth page, restored to themselves and to society, in the frontbox of the Opera, glittering in 'splendid head-dresses in pearl,' in 'fashionably elegant turbans,' and in 'dress-caps trimmed with blonde and Brussels lace.' For such benefactors to womankind—the dears—of course no reward can be too great; and, therefore, Messrs Moan and Groan, strong in their modest sense of merit, make no parade of prices. They offer you all that in circumstances of mourning you can possibly want; they scorn to do you the disgrace of imagining that you would drive a bargain on the very brink of the grave; and you are of course obliged to them for the delicacy of their reserve on so commonplace a subject, and you pay their bill in decorous disregard of the amount. It is true, that certain envious rivals have compared them to birds of prey, scenting mortality from afar, and hovering like vultures on the trail of death, in order to profit by his dart; but such 'caparisons,' as Mrs Malaprop says, 'are odorous,' and we will have nothing to do with them.
The next, and the last we shall examine ere Betty claims the whole mass to kindle her fires, is a somewhat bulky envelope, addressed in a neat hand: To the Lady of the House. It contains a couple of very voluminous papers, almost as large as the broad page of The Times, one of which adverts mysteriously to some appalling calamity, which has resulted in a 'most disastrous failure, productive of the most intense excitement in the commercial world.' We learn further on, that from various conflicting circumstances, which the writer does not condescend to explain, above L.150,000 worth of property has come into the hands of Messrs Grabble and Grab, of Smash Place, 'which they are resolute in summarily disposing of on principles commensurate with the honourable position they hold in the metropolis.' Then follows a list of tempting bargains, completely filling both the broad sheets. Here are a few samples:
'Costly magnificent long shawls, manufactured at L.6, to be sold for 18s. 6d.
Fur victorines, usually charged 18s. 6d., to sell at 1s. 3d.
2500 shawls (Barège), worth 21s. each, to sell at 5s.
Embroidered satin shawls (magnificent), value 20 guineas each, to be sold for 3 guineas.'
The reader is probably satisfied by this time of the extraordinary cheapness of these inexhaustible wares, which thus go begging for purchasers in the bosoms of families. It is hardly necessary to inform him, that all these enormous pretensions are so many lying delusions, intended only to bring people in crowds to the shop, where they are effectually fleeced by the jackals in attendance. If the lady reader doubt the truth of our assertion, let her go for once to the establishment of Messrs Grabble and Grab last named. An omnibus from any part of the city or suburbs will, as the circular informs you, set you down at the door. Upon entering the shop, you are received by a polite inquiry from the 'walker' as to the purpose of your visit. You must say something in answer to his torrent of civility, and you probably name the thing you want, or at least which you are willing to have at the price named in the sheet transmitted to you through the post. Suppose you utter the word 'shawl.' 'This way, madam,' says he; and forthwith leads you a long dance to the end of the counter, where he consigns you over to the management of a plausible genius invested with the control of the shawl department. You have perhaps the list of prices in your hand, and you point out the article you wish to see. The fellow shews you fifty things for which you have no occasion, in spite of your reiterated request for the article in the list. He states his conviction, in a flattering tone, that that article would not become you, and recommends those he offers as incomparably superior. If you insist, which you rarely can, he is at length sorry to inform you that the article is unfortunately just now out of stock, depreciating it at the same time as altogether beneath your notice; and in the end succeeds in cramming you with something which you don't want, and for which you pay from 15 to 20 per cent. more than your own draper would have charged you for it.
The above extracts are given in illustration of the last new discovery in the science of puffing—a discovery by which, through the agency of the press, the penny-post, and the last new London Directory, the greatest rogues are enabled to practise upon the simplicity of our better-halves, while we think them secure