Charity bazaar

“ Ogilvie motioned with his hand as he spoke in the direction of the crowd of people, the marquee, and the band. The music of the band seemed to get on his brain and hurt him.
“What is all this?” he repeated.
“My dear Phil, my dear unpractical husband, this is a bazaar! Have you never heard of a bazaar before? A bazaar for the Cottage Hospital at Watleigh, the Home for Incurables; such a useful charity, Phil, and so much needed. The poor things are wanting funds dreadfully ”

“ The ladies of the French aristocracy were holding a bazaar for charity, in a building which had been roughly and carelessly constructed, and lined with booths in which many prominent society women sold wares donated for the purpose. ”

“ It is not the ordinary way; but instead of passing by the broad European thoroughfare, Park street, we shall turn aside into the dark and winding passages of an Indian bazaar. A bazaar is a multitude of lanes, exclusively composed of miserable huts, and blocked up with all sorts of merchandise. You rarely meet any one there but men; the shop-girl and the "young lady" of the store are equally unknown here; but in it is found every form of misery.
See there below that beggar of eighteen or twenty years, scarce half covered, and without even a rudiment, a shadow, of an arm. ”

“ But the native is the joy, and the never-ceasing delight. For his benefit is the wide, glittering, colourful, insanitary bazaar, with its dozens of little open-air veranda shops, its "hotels" where he can sit in a real chair and drink real tea, its cafes, and the dark mysteries of its more doubtful amusements. The bazaar is right in the middle of town, just where it ought not to be, and it is constantly being quarantined, and threatened with removal. ”

“ The bazaars are always a refuge from the heat, a never-failing entertainment. We spend hours in lounging through them. We lunch at the shops of the sweatmeat makers, on bread, pistachio-nuts, conserve of roses, I know not what, and Nile-water, with fingans of coffee fetched hot and creamy from the shop near by. We give a copper to an occasional beggar: for beggars are few in the street, and these are either blind or very poor, or derweeshes; and to all these, being regarded as Allah’s poor, the Moslems give cheerfully, for charity is a part of their religion. ”

“ The bazaars are of all sorts: the leather-sellers have one, the carpet-dealers another, silk-merchants another, and everywhere purchaser and buyer seem to spend a great deal of time in smoking cigarettes. The gold bazaar is so narrow that three persons can scarcely pass; there, and at the silver bazaar, you see the artificers constantly at work. Coptic churches and mosques you meet everywhere. There is a good attendance at the English Church; there are also a Presbyterian Church, and two Roman Catholic churches. ”

“ What is a bazaar in India? It is, first of all, the quarter where the shopkeepers are gathered together, where the tiny shops stand in close-packed rows on either side of the narrow ways, and whither all who have money flock to spend it. But it is more than that. It is the place to which those who have no money resort just as freely, for here ebbs and flows in one unending flood the news, the rumours, the gossip of the town and country. ”

“ There is relief, too, from the burning sunshine in the cool, lofty passages: shady, thronged and tortuous they extend in endless succession for mile after mile. The roof of the bazaar is a rude contrivance of undressed beams upon which there is a covering of beaten clay. Behind each stall is an alcove in the wall serving as home and office to the keen-visaged merchant who presides. In this little recess, piled upon innumerable shelves, rammed into little niches or strewn upon the floor, are the different articles which his trade requires. ”

“ A bazaar is a cosey corner gone wrong. If you will take the long corridor of an American second-class hotel, tear off the roof and substitute a canopy of tattered rag carpets, cover the walls with the imitation merchandise of a five and ten cent store, kick up a choking dust, turn loose twenty or thirty ripe odours and then have one hundred and fifty coffee-coloured lunatics all begin talking at the same time, you will have a rather tame imitation of the genuine Oriental bazaar as made famous in song and story. ”

“ Beyond it, in sharpest contrast, rise the bare, fawn-coloured mountains, savage, intractable, desolate; away to the west, the snow-crowned bulk of Hermon; away to the east, the low-rolling hills and slumbrous haze of the desert. Under these flat roofs and white domes and long black archways of bazaars three hundred thousand folk are swarming. And there, half emerging from the huddle of decrepit modern buildings and partly hidden by the rounded shed of a bazaar, is the ruined top of a Roman arch of triumph, battered, proud, and indomitable. ”

“ I lived with him in all delight and happiness for a month, at the end of which time I asked his leave to go to the bazaar to buy certain stuffs that I wanted, and he gave me leave. So I veiled myself and taking with me the old woman and a serving-maid, went to the bazaar, where I sat down in the shop of a young merchant, whom the old woman knew and had recommended to me, saying, “The father of this young man died, when he was a boy, and left him great wealth: he has great store of goods, and thou wilt find what thou seekest with him, for none in the bazaar has finer stuffs than he.” ”

“ Superb is the vision of the bazaar, where, on all the counters, in the many stories, everything is sold, not only as in reality objects in common use, but, in a loftier symbolism, ethical values as well: convictions and opinions, fame and name, honour and power, all the laws of life. But all this fiery blood of money flows together in the great heart of the city, flows into the Exchange, that greedy maw that swallows all the gold and spits it out again, which smelts all this hectic fever and then pours it flaming into all the veins of the city. ”

“ At various times of the day groups of priests and novices move up and down the market collecting offerings from the people, while some "original" or buffoon gives the scene its touch of humour.
At sunset, when the bazaar is closed, long lines of people, some on foot, some in hooded carts, wend their ways towards their distant homes; and long after darkness has fallen on the land may still be heard the faint creaking of some laden cart as it slowly disappears along its lonely forest path. ”

“ Separated, market-like, into stalls, it is so arranged and confusing as to make a labyrinth of avenues and divisions. Here are such things as old hardware, boots and shoes,—some as poor and valueless as we throw away, some better and newly blacked,—clothing for both sexes, crockery,—and we might continue the list. The Bazaar is managed by women, and the place and its commodities are as indescribable as the nationality of the Man in the Moon. ”

“ All sorts of things are incorporated in this bazaar: old dwelling-houses; columns of old temples; stairways beginning anywhere, leading nowhere; mosques—the limitless roof of merchandise has stretched out and enveloped these things. To attempt a detailed description of the place would be unwisdom. One may only generalize this vast hive of tiny tradesmen and tiny trades. All the curious merchants and wares we have seen pictured for a lifetime are gathered here. It is indeed the Grande Bazaar—the emporium of the East. ”

“ Strolling through the bazaar is an endless amusement. It is slow work, for the streets are as crowded as a church-aisle after service; and, pushed aside one moment by a bevy of Turkish ladies, shuffling along in their yellow slippers, muffled to the eyes, the next by a fat slave carrying a child, again by a kervas armed to the teeth, and clearing the way for some coming dignitary, you find your only policy is to draw in your elbows, and suffer the motley crowd to shove you about at their pleasure. ”

“ They have a small commission on the price of everything sold, and assuredly they earn their wage. In contrast with the attitudes of both shopkeepers and auctioneers, the general public is inclined to regard the bazaar as a place of entertainment. Beggar lads, whose scanty rags constitute their sole possession, chaff the excited dilals, keeping carefully out of harm's way the while. Three-fourths of the people present are there to idle the afternoon hours, with no intention of making a purchase unless some unexpected bargain crosses their path. ”

“ Listen, John. Life to me is a series of glistening bazaars with a merchant in front of each one rubbing his hands together and saying 'Patronize this place here. Best bazaar in the world.' So I go in with my purse full of beauty and money and youth, all prepared to buy. ”

“ The dusky, luminous-eyed people seemed to move, and breathe, and hold a constant bazaar in the lane-like streets filled with everything known and unknown in merchandise, or leaning out from the windows of the tottering houses, their arms crossed over the sill, to dream away a lifetime. ”

“ In the course of the weeks and months the articles are stored up, and periodically a bazaar is held, at which they are displayed for inspection and sale, and a remarkably good and enchanting display they make. Not only do the lads and girls receive the money realised by their own labour, but prizes are also given to those who excel in the different branches of industry; and in connection with all the work engaged in, the minds of the young people are persistently, and in all interesting ways, imbued with religious and temperance principles. ”

“ Each kind of business, or trade, has its own bazaar. There is a shoemaker’s bazaar where scores of cobblers are working. At the entrance to each cavelike shop two shoemakers sit sewing away with untanned calfskin aprons tight about them. Between them on a block of wood, an olive tree stump it may be, rests a slab of white marble. ”

“ I am told that a bazaar is contemplated and asked if I will assist. Very well, I send my cushion. That is quite good enough; no one would expect me to do more. Then I go, on the appointed day, buy the cushion, and walk out with an enormous parcel for all the world to see that I have done my duty. Then it goes back in its box. The only bazaars that I am unable to assist are those which occur (as they sometimes do) when my cushion happens to be out. ”

“ Sometimes three or four persons will crowd into this box called a shop. The bazaar is a noisy as well as a crowded place, for to the buzz of talk and the cries of the itinerant venders is added the clang of the goldsmiths' hammers; it winds down into the recesses of decaying houses and emerges in another direction. ”

“ Even after the bazaar was decided on, the peace was threatened by dissension as to where the bazaar should be held. The more sophisticated and worldly-minded favored the Majestic Theater, and this brought the spare little woman to her feet again, trembling with moral indignation. To her the idea of a bazaar in a theater was even more sacrilegious than a ball. But Mrs. Russell saved the day by a final sacrifice--she offered her residence for the bazaar.
"It was beautiful in you!" Elizabeth exclaimed as they drove homeward together in the graying afternoon of the November day. ”

“ There are bazaars where they sell pipes of all kinds, and where you buy all kinds of tin-ware. There are book bazaars, seed bazaars, glass bazaars, and so on through a long list. And there is a second-hand bazaar, where you can buy anything from a set of false teeth to a suit of clothes. It is a wonderful mass of stuff, not altogether inviting; as you walk around, you have suspicions of plague, cholera, and other diseases of the Orient, and are not altogether sorry to get away. ”

“ It is the grouping of wares, the mode of sale, and, above all, the salesmen and buyers that make a bazaar—the old bearded Persian sitting cross-legged in his booth, the motley crowd jostling through the narrow, vaulted passageway, the veiled women, the hawk-featured, turbaned men, the Jews, the Chaldeans, the Arabs, the Armenians, the stalwart Kurds, and through it all a leaven of khaki-clad Indians, purchasing for the regimental mess. All these and an ever-present exotic, intangible something are what the bazaar means. ”

“ No bazaar can be organised without her and as a stall-holder she is absolutely unrivalled. Missions, teas, treats, penny dinners, sea-side excursions, the building of halls, the endowment of a bishopric, the foundation of a flannel club, all depend upon her inexhaustible energy in begging. ”

“ The village was crowded with houses, yet there was not a man to be seen. Line upon line of shops in the bazaar, row upon row of booths in the mart, hundreds of earthen houses interspersed with stone mansions high and low in every quarter. But today all was silent. In the bazaar the shops are closed, and where the shopkeeper has fled no man can tell. It is market day today, but in the mart there is no buying and selling. It is the beggars' day but the beggars are not out. ”

“ But it owns a real bazaar and a large market-place. The bazaar is winding and irregular, shaded here and there by coarse canvas, or matting, stretched on ropes and bars of wood. Canvas of every shade of brown and ochre hangs flapping idly in the breeze over the square, cavernous shops, where, amongst strange, untempting wares, the owners sit motionless, only their eyes awake and on the watch. In other shops men work tirelessly at many trades. Colour exists only in the vividly blue sky, in the palms, and in a few scarlet handkerchiefs. ”

“ It was her rule to open two bazaars regularly each summer, to lay the foundation-stones of three churches, orphanages, or hospitals (whichever happened to require the greatest amount of money for their completion) , to attend the prize-giving at the most ancient of the national charity schools, and every winter, when distress and unemployment were at their worst, to go down to the Humanitarian Army's soup-kitchen, and there taste, from a tin mug with a common pewter spoon, the soup which was made for the poor and destitute. ”