Draper's shop

“ Thus even in a shop assistant does the warmth of manhood assert itself, and drive him against all the conditions of his calling, against the counsels of prudence and the restrictions of his means, to seek the wholesome delights of exertion and danger and pain. And our first examination of the draper reveals beneath his draperies—the man! ”

“ Their women go to linen-draper's shops, where the goods hang up at the door, and one standing behind the other, draws under the arm of the front one, whatever she may have fixed her mind upon: if it does not slide off readily, she cuts as much as she can reach. ”

“ Most of the leading shops are here, and the decorous draper ventures a few yards from the pavement to scan the sky, or note the effect of his new arrangement in scarves. Planted against his door is the butcher, Henders Todd, white-aproned, and with a knife in his hand, gazing interestedly at the draper, for a mere man may look at an elder. ”

“ The waiting dames carry those dinky little brown-paper bags, stamped with the name of some Oxford Street draper, at whose contents the idler may amuse himself by guessing—a ribbon, a camisole, a flower-spray for a hat, gloves, or those odd lengths of cloth and linen which women will buy—though Lord knows to what esoteric use they put them. Hither come, too, those lonely people who, through the medium of "Companionship" columns or Correspondence Circles, have found a congenial soul. ”

“ The "extensive alteration of premises," if well advertised, will fill the house like the first night of a new theatre; velvets with cotton backs, silks thin as tracing paper, calicoes half plaster of Paris, will fetch prices higher than a murderess's ringlets.
As soon as this novelty has died away, an enterprising tradesman should have a "disastrous fire," by way of a jolly, house-warming. Hang up a few scorched blankets outside the shop, with a placard stating that 20,000 are for sale, and down will rush the ladies like sparrows to a pea-sowing. ”

“ DRAPER, one who deals in cloth or textiles generally. The Fr. drap, cloth, from which drapier and Eng. “draper” are derived, is of obscure origin. It is possible that the Low Lat. drappus or trappus (the last form giving the Eng. “trappings”) may be connected with words such as “drub,” Ger. treffen, beat; the original sense would be fulled cloth. “Drab,” dull, pale, brown, is also connected, its first meaning being a cloth of a natural undyed colour. The Drapers’ Company is one of the great livery companies of the city of London. The fraternity is of very early origin. ”

“ The drapery is a light Florentine silk, green in hue, trimmed with cords and tassels and fringe of white, green and pink.
The bed on Plate XLV. is from a water-colour design by Rousseau de la Rottière.
The window-curtains and draperies have also changed, to be in sympathy with the furniture. They are far more studied than ever before, and it is the cutter whose 271abilities are required rather than the graceful draper. Every bit of material must count, and the shape is determined upon by the scissors. ”

“ At last I reached the object of my quest, a dirty fly-blown little shop in a byway near Drury Lane, with a window full of tinsel robes, sham jewels, wigs, slippers, dominoes and theatrical photographs. The shop was old-fashioned and low and dark, and the house rose above it for four storeys, dark and dismal. ”

“ The little shops pull at one's heart, so simple is their merchandise. A little window beckons us through which we peer with misted eyes. For narrow shops are often kind to tiny folk scarce counter-high. Above a shop, behind a blind, I've heard a little baby cry. Above a shop, I've often seen a mother's anxious face appear. How many customers have been? The closing hour is drawing near. Great shops, like temples dedicate to merchandise from every mart, are over-lords of their own fate—but little shops tug at the heart! ”

“ The shops, with the exception of the Louvre, the Bon Marché, and one or two of the large department stores of similar scope, are all small—tiny, in fact, and exploit but one or two things. A little shop for fans will be next to a milliner who makes a specialty of nothing but gauze theatre bonnets. Perhaps next will come a linen store, where the windows will have nothing but the most fascinating embroidery, handkerchiefs, and neckware. Then comes the man who sells belts of every description, and parasol handles. ”

“ Clothing stores, or more exactly, cloth-shops, are perhaps most numerous, countless useless duplications of the selfsame stock, with hundreds of bolts of as many different weaves piled high in the open doorways. Every merchant, however meager his supplies, announces himself an “importer and exporter,” and after morning mass manto-wrapped women wander for hours from shop to shop, haggling for a fancied difference of a half cent in some purchase which, in the end, is more apt than not to be abandoned. ”

“ An old dry-goods merchant of London, now nearly ninety, and long ago retired from business with a large fortune, has given his recollections of [Pg 393] business in the good old times. There is a periodical, called the "Draper's Magazine," devoted to the dry-goods business, and it is in this that some months ago he told his story.
When he was a few months past thirteen, being stout and large for his age, he was placed in a London dry-goods store, as boy of all work. No wages were given him. At that time the clerks in stores usually boarded with their employer. ”

“ Closely confined to the counter, with a needle in their hand, they are continually throwing their eyes towards the street. Not a passenger escapes their notice. The place the nearest to the window is in the greatest request, as being most favourable for catching the transient homages of the crowds of men continually passing and repassing. It is generally occupied by the beauty of the magazin or warehouse; for it would be resented as an almost unpardonable offence to term this emporium of taste a boutique or shop. ”

“ In front is the brick sidewalk, the cobbled street, the bit of open space with Harrier's junk-shop on the right corner; and then the warehouses on either side, all leading down to the slip, Doty's Slip, which is flanked by noble wharves, with huge piles leaning awry and very slippery. The warehouses are roomy and full of queer smells, as if the varied merchandize of fifty years had left something for its old friends, the warehouses, to remember it by. ”

“ The plate glass windows of every store lay in thousands of pieces below their sashes, and the entire stock of merchandise whether furniture or drapery, groceries or dairy products, had been hurled through them into the middle of the thoroughfare. Above these were piled pell-mell bedding and chairs, wardrobes and wash basins, all splintered and broken—the whole making the most pitiable conglomeration I ever hope to witness. ”

“ Besides the cheap outfitters in the towns, the pack-drapers come round visiting every cottage. Such drapers have no shop-window, and make no display, but employ several men carrying packs, who work through the villages on foot and range over a wide stretch of country. ”

“ Boppert when I saw her, I followed the woman into the most crowded room I ever entered. The shop was nothing to it; there you could move without hitting anything; here you could not. There were tables against every wall, and chairs where there were no tables. Opposite me was a window-ledge filled with flowering plants, and at my right a grate and mantel-piece covered, that is the latter, with innumerable small articles which had evidently passed a long and forlorn probation on the shop shelves before being brought in here. ”

“ But so it is; and to walk the streets and gaze in at the shop windows would turn the head of any but the strongest-minded woman. Two or three addresses had been given us of manufactories where we could be served at more reasonable rates than at the grand shops. We climbed flight after flight of dingy stone stairs, in dingier buildings, to reach them, and found ourselves at last in little dark rooms, almost filled by a counter, a desk, and a safe or two. Certainly no one would think of looking for beautiful things here! ”

“ Having occasion to make a few purchases in the linen drapery line, I entered a good establishment in Collins Street for that purpose. It was before noon, for later in the day the shops are so full that to get a trifling order attended to would be almost a miracle. There was only one customer in the shop, who was standing beside the counter, gazing with extreme dissatisfaction upon a quantity of goods of various colours and materials that lay there for his inspection. ”

“ An art store shows two etchings, and a vase. A jeweler's window holds square blobs of emeralds, on velvet, and perhaps a gold mesh bag, sprawling limp and invertebrate, or a diamond and platinum la valliere, chastely barbaric. Past these windows, from Randolph to Twelfth surges the crowd: matinee girls, all white fox, and giggles and orchids; wise-eyed saleswomen from the smart specialty shops, dressed in next week's mode; art students, hugging their precious flat packages under their arms; immigrants, in corduroys and shawls, just landed at the Twelfth street station ”

“ The forlorn aspect of the ruined shop told the gloomy facts with unmistakable clearness. So few assistants, so pitiably few customers, such a beggarly array of goods! Those shelves have all been dressed with dummies; those rolls of rich silk are composed of a wooden block, some paper, and half a yard of soiled material; within those huge presses you will find only darkness. Emptiness, desolation, death! ”

“ A considerable flow of daylight thus diverted, The Convenience Merchandise Corner, even of early afternoon, fades out into half-discernible corners; a rear-wall display of overalls and striped denim coats crowded back into indefinitude, the haberdashery counter, with a giant gilt shirt-stud suspended above, hardly more outstanding.
Even the notions and dry-goods, flanking the right wall in stacks and bolts, merge into blur, the outline of a white-sateen and corseted woman's torso surmounting the top-most of the shelves with bold curvature. ”

“ The best stores here have very little appearance, from the outside, of being stores at all. Perhaps, as a sign, there is one elegant vase, or a choice piece of drapery in the window; but upon stepping within, room after room filled with exquisite goods surprises you—rare laces, china, furniture, antiques, and everything else beautiful to tempt one to buy. ”

“ It was a small shop but so stuffed and crammed with garments of all kinds that they had overflowed into the street, for the narrow doorway was draped, choked and festooned with coats, breeches, pantaloons, shirts, waistcoats, stockings, boots, shoes, a riotous and apparently inextricable tangle. ”

“ The huge shop, glittering with varnish, mirrors, and brass rods, the penetrating odour of leather, the saleswoman silently copying the figures into the book, and the misshapen hunchback kneeling before her and looking up into her face with his restless grey eyes, grown suddenly steady, that asked one question and sought another. ”

“ I'm a dress-goods man myself, only I've grown up under Kendrick & Company's roof and I've been watching other lines than my own. It interests me—the possibilities of that store. Why, the man ought not to fail! He has the best location in town, the biggest windows, the best fixtures, judging by the outside of the places I saw as I came along. I looked at the blanket-window place. That's a dark store when you get back a dozen feet. Benson's, being on the corner, is fairly light to the back door. That counts more than any other thing about the building itself. ”

“ While the little old man who kept the quaint curiosity-shop down on Linden Street seemed to have few or no friends, he was blessed with a great many acquaintances, especially among the people of the better class, for whom it was quite a fad to visit the dingy, shabby little store, with its assortment of bric-a-brac, mouldy books, articles of virtu, and antiques, genuine or spurious, valuable or worthless, all heaped about in promiscuous confusion. ”

“ Yes, the fifth story of that old warehouse asserts itself like a diamond pin in a soiled and rumpled scarf, for the mansard roof with its galvanized-iron trimmings, which once [Pg 4] made it appear no more respectable than it ought to be, has given place to a long, well-glazed, dormer window, finished on the outside with heavy timbering and rough plaster work, and fitted with swinging sashes through whose many panes the southern sun may shine without let or hinderance, save when, in summer months, a wide, striped awning parries the hottest rays. ”

“ The old counter, shelves, and other fixtures of the little shop remained just as he had left them. It used to be affirmed, that the dead shop-keeper, in a white wig, a faded velvet coat, an apron at his waist, and his ruffles carefully turned back from his wrists, might be seen through the chinks of the shutters, any night of the year, ransacking his till, or poring over the dingy pages of his day-book. ”

“ The cheap colours of the shoddy open-air clothing-house, the blank faded green of the coster's cart; the dark bluish-red of the butcher's stall—they all take on a value not their own in the garish lights flaring down the markets of the dusk. ”