Shopton

“ Sometimes, indeed, the revenue men themselves had lapses and “ran” goods in on their own account! In 1816, however, following the conclusion of the great peace, the Government instituted a regular system of smuggling prevention. Kent and Sussex having been the favourite playground of the smugglers, the coasts of these two counties were blockaded. A man-o’-war, the Hyperion, was stationed at Newhaven, in Sussex, and the Ramilles in the Downs, off Kent; and the martello towers which had been erected along the coasts against the coming of Napoleon’s armies were used to house their crews. ”

“ The red-faced shopman regarded him with an eye of menace; but he continued gaily, swinging his cane, "Why," he pursued, "why are two tickets wrongly placed in a greengrocer's shop like a shovel hat that has come to London for a holiday? Or, in case I do not make myself clear, what is the mystical association which connects the idea of nuts marked as oranges with the idea of two clergymen, one tall and the other short?"
The eyes of the tradesman stood out of his head like a snail's; he really seemed for an instant likely to fling himself upon the stranger. ”

“ Kent and the south-east coast generally, were the favourite resorts for smugglers, owing to their proximity to France, and smuggling was a regularly organized business in which much capital was embarked. Every one on the coast knew something about contraband trade, and, if they did not openly aid in it, they certainly did nothing to aid in capturing smugglers. ”

“ For opportunity knocks vainly upon the door of him who is flat broke. In fact, Mr. Costigan was seriously considering the advisability of letting financial bygones be bygones by the simple method of putting a thousand or so miles between him and Falls City. He was ready to take a chance on making money, but the announcement of Butch and Chuck that they desired to exchange blows for currency left him cold. ”

“ An important feature of the proceedings in Kent and Sussex was the sympathy of other classes with the demands of the labourers. The success of the movement in Kent and Sussex, and especially of the rising that began at Brede, was due partly, no doubt, to the fact that smuggling was still a common practice in those counties, and that the agricultural labourers thus found their natural leaders among men who had learnt audacity, resourcefulness, and a habit of common action in that school of danger. ”

“ But the Scotch are not one-eyed practical men, though their best friends must admit that they are occasionally business-like. They are, quite fundamentally, romantic and sentimental, and this is proved by the very economic argument that is used to prove their harshness and hunger for the material. The mass of Scots have accepted the industrial civilisation, with its factory chimneys and its famine prices, with its steam and smoke and steel-- and strikes. ”

“ Her agriculture, her manufactures, her trade and her commerce were advancing by leaps and bounds. There was a great stir of life and energy. Into such a world the young Scotchmen entered with no slight advantages. In their common schools everywhere an education was given such as in England was only to be had in a few highly favoured spots. In their universities even the neediest scholar had a share. ”

“ The Scotch were tempted by the enormous but unequal opportunities of industrialism, because the Scotch are romantic. The Irish refused those enormous and unequal opportunities, because the Irish are clear-sighted. They would not need very clear sight by this time to see that in England and Scotland the temptation has been a betrayal. The industrial system has failed. ”

“ Francis admitted.
“A leaning towards melodrama, admirable in its way, needs the leaven of a well-balanced discretion and a sense of humour,” Sir Timothy observed. “The latter quality is as a rule singularly absent amongst the myrmidons of Scotland Yard. I do not think that Mr. Shopland will catch even fish in the neighbourhood of The Walled House. As regards your matrimonial proposal, let us waive that until my daughter returns.” ”

“ A far better cast-iron emblem stands over a handsome shop in the place hard by—a plough namely, which figures over the factory of Mr. Shekelton, whose industry and skill seem to have brought the greatest benefit to his fellow-townsmen, of whom he employs numbers in his foundries and workshops. ”

“ The bulk of the Comstocks' business was always carried on in rural areas—in "the back-woods." Specifically, the best sales territory consisted of the Middle West—what was then regarded as "The West"—of the United States and of Canada West, i.e., the present province of Ontario. A surviving ledger of all of the customers of Comstock & Brother in 1857 supplies a complete geographic distribution. ”

“ Barstow or Mr. Goodman. My name is Clemens, and I've come to write for the paper."
It was the master of the world's widest estate come to claim his kingdom!
XXI. THE TERRITORIAL ENTERPRISE In 1852 Virginia City, Nevada, was the most flourishing of mining towns. A half-crazy miner, named Comstock, had discovered there a vein of such richness that the "Comstock Lode" was presently glutting the mineral markets of the world. Comstock himself got very little out of it, but those who followed him made millions. Miners, speculators, adventurers swarmed in. Every one seemed to have money. ”

“ The produce of such labour comes frequently cheaper to market than would otherwise be suitable to its nature. Stockings, in many parts of Scotland, are knit much cheaper than they can anywhere be wrought upon the loom. They are the work of servants and labourers who derive the principal part of their subsistence from some other employment. More than a thousand pair of Shetland stockings are annually imported into Leith, of which the price is from fivepence to seven-pence a pair. ”

“ Schofield's harsh voice sounded suddenly—but again to Maschka, not to me.
"Ye might remind Mr. Harrison that others have capabilities in business besides himself. Beyond a doubt our sales will be comparatively small, but they'll be to such as have not made the great refusal." ”

“ Farmers and market gardeners can send their produce quickly and cheaply to the great markets of Stockport and Birkenhead. Coals and salt, machinery and manufactured goods, can be distributed easily from the great towns that produce them. Moreover, many people whose daily life is spent in the crowded cities are able to live away from their places of business and, for a portion of the day at least, breathe the purer air of the country.
Two residential districts of Cheshire are supported mainly by the merchants and manufacturers of Manchester and Liverpool. ”

“ Yet in the modern mode of industrialism, it is more and more taken in a manner at once lonely and light. Any corporate social system built upon it would seem as much of a joke as the joke about Christian names with which I began. If it would seem odd to require a Thomas to make friends with any other Thomas, it would appear almost as perplexing to insist that any Thompson must love any other Thompson. It may be that Sir Edward Henry, late of the Police Force, does not wish to be confined to the society of Mr. ”

“ Comstock, when he had business in New York City, could linger in his factory until the evening train paused at the station to load the afternoon's outpouring of pills and almanacs, swing aboard the waiting Pullman, and ensconce himself comfortably in his berth, to awaken in the morning within the cavernous precincts of Grand Central Station—an ease and convenience of travel which residents of the North Country in the 1970s cannot help but envy. ”

“ A shopman was just in the act of removing them for the night, when the patriot called out, ‘Halt!’ and the shopman halted.
‘Why do you bring those foreign boys here? There are plenty of little English boys to do that job. Do you call yourself an Englishman?’ The shopman said it was ‘the governor’s business,’ and he could please himself whether he had English boys or nigger boys. This answer did not please, so, cursing the shopman, he rushed up to the dummies, smote each of them, and kicked them into the mud of the gutter, and rushed into the shop. ”

“ You don’t look like men who had been in the habit of herding stock.”
And they didn’t, either. One of them, as we have said, was Harding, and the other was Ainsworth, and they looked just what they were—regular squawmen. Claude had been long enough on the plains to tell a stockman when he saw him.
“Perhaps we don’t,” said Harding, “but we have been used to the business all our lives. Is old man Preston out this way? Then we will ride with you until we find him.” ”

“ The Scotchmen of the Northwest Company being sub.iects of Great Britain, the British privateer could not take their property. So that the Northwest Company was put to the test of making such an offer to the Astorians as they would accept c|uiekly, or see a British privateer captiire the post and get the Astoria plunder for nothing. Nothing worries the real genuine Scotch trader so much as to have a chance to make a profit and then see another step in and take it. Every time he will take a small profit on a stire thing rather than run the risk of gaining a large profit on a gamble. ”

“ D. C. I suppose you have had heaps of People. What a pity Max cannot draw!
Shopman. Yes; it is a great pity.
D. C. (examines drawing; after a pause) . But he can draw. Look at that one of Althorp.
p. 195Shopman (trying to look intelligent) : Yes; that certainly is well drawn.
D. C. (pointing to photograph of Paris inserted in Mr. Claude Lowther’s caricature) . And how extraordinary that is. It is like one of Muirhead Bone’s street scenes. He does street scenes, doesn’t he?
Shopman. Yes; or one of Mr. Joseph Pennell’s.
D. C. (after a pause) . What a pity he never gets the likeness. ”

“ He need not aim solely and directly at the good of the shop; for the simple reason that the shop is not aiming solely and directly at the good of the nation. The shopman is, under decent restraints, let us hope, trying to get what he can out of the nation; the shop assistant may, under the same decent restraints, get what he can out of the shopkeeper. ”

“ Well, the Scotch have managed to apply something of this fierce romanticism even to the lowest of all lordships and serfdoms; the proletarian inequality of today. You do meet now and then, in Scotland, the man you never meet anywhere else but in novels; I mean the self-made man; the hard, insatiable man, merciless to himself as well as to others. ”

“ When a house becomes so old as to be uutenantable, it is rebuilt, and the new one is fashioned like the old, so far as regards the walk running through its front. Many of the shops are very good, and even elegant, and these Rows are the favorite places of business in Chester. Indeed, they have many advantages, the passengers being sheltered from the rain, and there being within the shops that dimmer light by which tradesmen like to exhibit their wares. ”

“ Stockport (70) , a cotton town of East Cheshire; occupies a site on the slopes of a narrow gorge overlooking the confluence of the Thame and Goyt (forming the Mersey) , 37 m. E. of Liverpool; a handsome viaduct spans the river; has an old grammar-school, free library, technical school, &c.; during the present century has grown to be a busy centre of cotton manufactures, and has besides flourishing iron and brass foundries, machine-shops, breweries, &c. ”

“ He could do his shopping during shop hours, and ‘blow out’ with his purchases at any hour of the day or night the School rules permitted. They couldn’t undertake to provide a banqueting hall for their customers.”
“But,” urged the committee, “if you have a shopman, why not get your money’s worth out of him?”
“Why waste our money on a shopman at all?” propounded Mr Stratton to his astounded fellow-directors. “Why not take turns behind the counter ourselves; say one of the Wheatfields and Cash one week, and Cottle and Ashby the next, and so on? ”

“ Of course Suchet’s active brain had planned his complete destruction. He tells us in his defence [699] that he asked himself whether it was probable that an officer of the Marshal’s activity and reputation would have left a man more than he could help in Valencia. ‘Was it the character of a French general to act with inadequate means when ample means were within his reach? Was it probable that he would have brought a small force only from the Xucar by the fatiguing march to Tortosa? Would he have left a man idle in the south when in danger of losing his communication with France? ”

“ Mrs. Sparflight betrayed agitation. A hunted, troubled look came into her eyes.
"I—I don't quite understand," she stammered. "Who—who did you say you were?"
"My name is Chambers, Alfred Chambers, Scotland Yard. In the event that you are ignorant of the character of the place called Scotland Yard, I may explain that—"
"I know what it is," she interrupted hastily. "What is it that you want of me, Mr. Chambers?" She was rapidly gaining control of her wits.
"Very little, madam. I should very much like to know whose car took you away from Sprinkler's last night." ”

“ It is probable that the population did not then exceed twelve thousand; yet the seeds of that wonderful system of industry, which now makes Glasgow so interesting a study to every liberal onlooker, were already sown, and, even before the extension of English mercantile privileges to Scotland at the Union, there was a face of business about the place—a preparation of power and aptitude for what was in time to come. This cannot be better illustrated than by a few entries in the Privy Council Record regarding the fresh industrial enterprises which were from time to time arising in the west. ”

“ It was unreasonable to expect the rapt, dreamy, romantic Scot to stand still in such a whirl of wizardry to ask whether he, the ordinary Scot, would be any the richer.
He, the ordinary Scot, is very much the poorer. Glasgow is not a rich city. It is a particularly poor city ruled by a few particularly rich men. ”