Market town

“ The weekly market is held in the open air at the edge of the town. The wares for sale are spread upon the ground, the people sitting behind them in some sort of order, but the crowd surges everywhere and the powdered dust rises in clouds. It is the most motley assembly we have seen. ”

“ A long row of substantial buildings once full of merchandize spreads along the river-bank, while a wide street runs inland up the hill slope bordered with houses, which speak eloquently, to any one who can read such messages, of the prosperous provincial merchant of the Jacobean and Georgian period, put to such humble modern uses as an insignificant agricultural market-town can find for them. ”

“ There are many of our modern 112 towns which have grown up in manufacturing districts, near great railway centres, or near docks and railway stations, which have no market. Nearly all of our old towns have, or at one time had, the right of holding markets.
Nobody can set up a stall in a market as he pleases. On the market-day you will see the beadle going about from stall to stall taking the toll from each stall-holder. In many cases he wears an old-fashioned dress trimmed with gold lace. He reminds us of the time when no one except a freeman of the town could trade freely. ”

“ Some places had, and still have, more than one market a week. In many places the market has quite died out now, but in the early days one of the first steps of a "tun" towards becoming a "town" was to obtain the right to hold a market. ”

“ In the market the town and the country meet. In these days, when the produce of the country can be quickly sent into the heart of the largest town, the country provision-markets are not of as much importance as they once were, but they are very useful and very popular still.
There are many places where the market beadle rings a hand-bell, or a bell in the clock-tower, to give notice of the opening and closing of the market. In former days, if a man dared to sell anything before the bell was rung in the morning, or after it had rung in the evening, he was very severely punished. ”

“ Proceeding onwards to the larger market town, which really is a town, perhaps a county town, or at least with a railway station, here one or two stationers may be found. One has a fair trade almost entirely with the middle-class people of the town; farmers when they drive in call for stationery, or for books if there is a circulating library, as there usually is. The villagers do not come to this shop; they feel that it is a little above them, and they are shy of asking for three pennyworth of writing-paper and envelopes. ”

“ In an old-fashioned provincial market-town, the market-day is still the one day in the week on which the streets are full of bustle and the shops of business, while on the other days of the week the town stagnates ”

“ In the central market-place the traveller found crowds of the country-people grouped round the market cross with their panniers of country produce, and the housekeepers of the town busily cheapening their goods. ”

“ While the town proper, with its population engaged in various trades, callings, and professions, and with a store or depôt in each ward, offers the most natural market to the people engaged on the agricultural estate, inasmuch as to the extent to which the townspeople demand their produce they escape altogether any railway rates and charges; yet the farmers and others are not by any means limited to the town as their only market, but have the fullest right to dispose of their produce to whomsoever they please. ”

“ Shops may be found in most quarters of the town furnished with all sorts of provisions, dried or otherwise; as bread, meat, butter, pastry, fruit, and vegetables. As there are no inns, travellers without acquaintance in the city have no other resource than to buy what they want at these shops, and to carry it to the mosque or to the fandac to eat.
A market is held every day; it is attended by a great concourse of strangers, who come from great distances to sell their commodities: great quantities of dates and tanned leather are brought to this market from Tafilet ”

“ The outer market is outside of the walls, under the shade of large trees, but when a town or city has two walls, the public market is held within the outer walls. This market is often attended by strangers from a great distance. The private market is invariably held within the walls ”

“ The old market stands where there always has been a market. Its upper stories used to be where the meetings of the Corporation of George Town were held.
At number 3300 was the home of Paymaster David Whann.
Midway between Market (33rd) and Frederick (34th) Streets, on the north side of Bridge (M) Street, General James Maccubbin Lingan had a large piece of property. I wonder if this advertisement inserted in a newspaper on April 22, 1801, describes this very place:
The subscriber offers for sale the houses and lots where he now resides. ”

“ The specialisation of certain districts within the town, though far less rigid than in the mediæval town, is very noticeable in the larger centres of industry. Natural causes often determine this division of localities, as in the case of the riverside industries, brick-making and market-gardening in the outer suburbs. Round the central station in every large town, for convenience of work and life, settle a number of industries related to the carrying trade. Every trade, market, or exchange is a centre of attraction. ”

“ In each town is a public magazine for provisions, to which every farmer brings whatever grain and produce he may have for sale, and where he is sure to find a market; and should there be a scarcity the ensuing year, it is retailed out to the inhabitants at a reasonable rate. To this place all the citizens of the town repair to purchase. ”

“ Having examined every land title from Wellingsley to Cold Spring, and found no mention of a market anywhere except under the town house, I am satisfied that the basement of both the old and new building contained a market from 1722 to the time of its comparatively recent abandonment in 1858. The tradition therefore concerning the change of the entrance to admit of the establishment of a market probably refers, not to the present building, but to the old one in which a change of plan may have been made to admit of the establishment of a market in 1722. ”

“ CHAS. BOSWELL, ESQ., MAYOR.
From the summit of the gate there is a fine view of Eastgate-street, within the walls, and Foregate, or Forest-street on the outside. On a market day it is truly spirit-stirring to observe the multitude beneath, and listen to the “busy hum of men,” citizens and country folks, engaged in buying and selling,—bringing in and p. 46carrying out,—the various commodities which furnish forth the provision market of a county town. ”

“ The Union Stock Yards make a complete town, with its own banks, hotels, Board of Trade, Post-office, town-hall, newspaper and special Fire Department. The extensive enclosure is entered by a modest, gray sandstone turreted gateway, surmounted by a carved bull's head, emblematic of its uses. The Horse Market is a large pavilion, seating four thousand people. ”

“ 4 Ah me, why did they build my house by the road to the market town? ”

“ The Market House is modern, but harmonizes pleasantly; there is a monumental drinking-fountain, and a mysterious old stone, known as “the coronation stone,” fenced carefully round. There is the old church and its churchyard just touching the street. One Sunday morning, when I was wandering here, there came across the old Market Place a small procession, the town clerk leading, his fellows behind, one bearing a mace, and behind the Mayor! ”

“ These markets are held in the open air, and almost everything that can be named is to be bought. Bread, meat, general provisions and stores, drugs, dyes, woollens, calicoes, and other stuffs of all kinds, pots, pans, and household implements, the stalls being all mixed up together, so that the market has a look as though the tradesmen of the town had emptied the contents of their shops out into the plaza. ”

“ This not only causes a certain amount of activity and trade, but also gives rise to such industries as saddlery, farm implements, etc. The town consists chiefly of two or three streets running parallel, the larger and more important being the High Street. In the middle of the High Street is a square or place, where once a week is held a market, at which all kinds of things are exposed for sale, from poultry to shoe laces. A corn exchange, a branch bank, the town hall, one or two shops, and the principal inn, fill up the square. ”

“ The markets and fairs for horses, cattle, and sheep continued, but clothing, groceries, &c., were purchased at the shops as now. Hence the increase in the population of the market towns, followed by an increase also in the larger villages where there was custom enough for more than one small shop. ”

“ Close to the gates is the weekly market-place, held under several large trees, which afford a grateful shade from the sun, as well as a temporary protection from the rain. In the whole of the Mahee country which I have yet visited, I find that the weekly markets are held without the walls, to prevent as much as possible strangers entering the town. The daily markets are seldom attended by any except their own people, principally for a mutual exchange of goods of native manufacture. ”

“ We find everywhere these country traders under various styles and with various privileges according to the town’s discretion and convenience. Sometimes the citizens sold rights of trade to cultivators of the surrounding lands and occasional visitors to fair or market, and nobles and landowners were ready to give large yearly payments for freedom of the market and for the right of having granaries in the town. ”

“ O, father's gone to market-town, he was up before the day, ”

“ Within the town there are several streets, some large open places, and a covered market-hall, where a brisk trade is daily carried on, large quantities of dates, small quantities of grain, cutlery—knives and daggers with roughly-hewn wooden sheaths—primitive musical instruments, embroidered leather caps, straps, tobacco-pouches, etc., being exposed in the various stalls. ”

“ What land is this? Yon pretty town Is Delft, with all its wares displayed; The pride, the market-place, the crown And centre of the Potter's trade. ”

“ The market is held down the one long street, where it opens on the small garden and esplanade by the shore. This is planted with magnificent plane-trees, and nothing can be more picturesque than the groups of peasant-women, with their bright-colored kerchiefs crossed over their shoulders, and their thick woollen skirts, sitting each at her little booth of cakes, or sweets, or household utensils, and especially the charming little crocks, pots, and pans of native manufacture. ”

“ The ordinary foodstuffs and materials, just as in the open market held at the present time in the long and broad Parliament Street, formed of Thursday Market and Pavement and the space formerly occupied by a compact mass of old houses between the two originally distinct squares, were the things sold and bought at the mediæval markets: such as butter, meat, fish, linen, leather, corn, poultry, herbs. Some, for example butchers' shops, kept open market every day. ”

“ This may be illustrated by a description of the markets in one Lithuanian neighborhood back of the stockyards, where men are working at low-grade labor in the yards, and the women are keeping lodgers, where few speak English and not many ever go more than a few blocks from home. The typical market in this neighborhood—and there are sometimes as many as ten in a block—is a combined meat market and grocery store. Such stores are found in the poorer neighborhoods of every settlement. ”

“ Here good Father Anselmo, of the Ursulines, pours out a benediction upon the market and the awaiting people. When the gates are opened the police take their stations and the market is ready to receive the buyers and sellers of the day. Through the open portals into the market flows a stream of laughing, singing men and women. ”

“ The Municipal Corporations Act of 1835 provided that 'every person in any borough may keep any shop for the sale of all lawful wares and merchandizes by wholesale or retail, and use every lawful trade, occupation, mystery, and handicraft, for hire, gain, sale, or otherwise, within any borough.' In a single town of England the Gild Merchant still subsists, but only as the shadow of its former self—a spectre from the distant past. ”

“ This market house, or place, as it is often called, was an open building, except one end enclosed by a meat-market, and was about forty by one hundred feet with benches on either side and one through the center for the convenience of those who walked, carrying their produce in a home-made basket. Those in vehicles backed to a line guarded by the city marshall, forming an alleyway the width of the market house for perhaps half a block, depending on how many farmers were on hand. There was always a rush to get nearest the market house ”

“ Most of the people lived in narrow quarters, dark and drafty, unsuited for good work places and unwholesome as habitations. Wares were exposed for sale either in the open market-places which are so common in European towns, or in little shops like pedlers’ booths at the front of the house. ”

“ Many more lots have been sold since. Before Mirror was a month old it had two banks, five stores, three lumber yards, one hotel, three restaurants, two pool rooms, a sash and door factory and a newspaper. When it reaches the mature age of one year it will be a wonder.
“The really important feature in all this town building is that conditions require it. The country is being thickly settled with prosperous farmers. Merchants, manufacturers, bankers, artisans, doctors, lawyers, ministers—all the factors in urban population—follow the trails the farmers blaze. It is their door of opportunity.” ”