LONDON SHOPPING, CARRIAGE HIRING, BUYING, &c. THE success of the lodging-house legislation in our last number induces us to try if we can be of any more service to our country friends in other matters appertaining to London life. There is, perhaps, no place in the world where people can get so much for their money as they can in London, provided they know how to go about it; but there is no place where the truth of the saying that there are "two ways of doing everything" is more frequently exemplified than in London. One person will buy the same article for half the money that another will give for it, and this more by dint of caution, and inquiring beforehand, than by any fortuitous circumstances of time, sacrifice meeting, or bargain-catching.

The rule holds good in small as well as in large purchases. We wanted a pair of soda-water nippers the other day, and the first shop we went to they asked us four-and-sixpence, at the next they were threeand-sixpence, the third eighteenpence, and we ultimately bought a pair for a shilling. The shilling ones were not so strong, or perhaps so highlyfinished as the four-and-sixpenny ones, but they were quite strong enough for the purpose to which they were to be applied; and, as they were not to be appended to a chatelaine, or worn on state occasions, the inferiority of finish was of little importance. So with razors; one gets a capital razor now-a-days for a shilling; but a scientific, plate-glass windowed cutler would argue, that you can get nothing fit to shave with under five. The fishmonger opposite will charge you twopence a pound for rough ice, while the confectioner further along will send it for a penny.

A stranger generally wants a map of London as soon as he gets to town. Well, if he goes into a bookseller's shop and asks for one over the counter, ten to one but he will have to give half-a-crown or three shillings for a great stiff-backed thing, full of advertisements and useless information, that will bulge out his pocket like a labourer's dinner wallet, while, if he had looked about him a little, he would have found plenty of sheet ones in the windows, labelled from sixpence down to a penny each, that will fold into a very small compass, and answer every purpose. If he goes to Mr. Wyld's model of the globe in Leicester-square he will have plenty pressed upon his attention-case and all-for a shilling. These sort of instances are within the limits of almost every one's experience.

Bargain-hunting, at sales, is more for regular London residents, who follow the thing up systematically, than for the mere chance visitor for a few weeks; we will, however, say a few passing words on the subject of

auctions.

It may appear superfluous to caution any but the veriest tiros against the seductions of the mock auctions-places where the parts of keen competitors, exulting purchasers, and disappointed bidders, are enacted in a way that would do honour to the stage. The poor smock-frocked countrymen are the parties generally imposed upon by these-people who cannot afford the luxury of the New Monthly Magazine to caution them against such deceptions, or rather robberies.

It may, however, be laid down as a general rule, that all sales by auction are dangerous; for if a man goes to one with the vain expectation of bidding and buying for himself, he will find himself opposed by a knot of brokers, united to resist all such intrusion; while if he gives one of them

a commission-especially if, in addition to a commission, he asks the broker's advice he will very likely find after the sale that he has given more for the article than he could have bought it for quietly in a respectable shop. The only way is, where a man has a knowledge of the value of the article, to tell a broker what he will give for it, who, of course, being paid by a percentage (five per cent. on the purchase), will take care not to let him get it for less than the sum named, while employing one of the fraternity will most likely protect the employer from the opposition of the rest. But the party must use his own head, not the broker's. Their idea of value, especially of pictures and articles of vertu, is greatly regulated by the appearance and apparent eagerness of the party. One broker will estimate his simplicity at fifty per cent. more than another. Although bargains undoubtedly are picked up at sales, we incline to think that, on the balance, the bad bargains will preponderate. We will now pass on to regular shopping, addressing ourselves principally to our fair friends, in whose province shopping undoubtedly is.

When country ladies resolve upon taking the town by storm, they generally overhaul their wardrobes, and then proceed to Mrs. Somebody in the High-street or the market-place to supply any deficiency they may happen to discover. The consequence is, that they arrive in town twelve months after date, as it were, and are very much surprised, indeed, to find that they are not dressed like other people. The wiser course, undoubtedly, is to wait till they get to London, where, in all probability, they will find as good an assortment in Wapping or Whitechapel as they would in the High-street or the market-place at home.

We believe it may be laid down as a rule that ladies, notwithstanding all their quickness and caution, rather like to be cheated than not; else how can we reconcile their patient submission to the impertinent parade by jackanape shop-lads of all sorts of frightful finery, under the appellation of "Very elegant!" "Very genteel!" "Become you amazingly, m'em!" "Won't you take two of them, m'em?" "What's the next article, m'em?" and so on.

Perhaps one of the most marvellous sights in nature is to hear a French milliner talking an English lady into an ugly fashion, the glib volubility and repetition upon repetition of the milliner completely talking the poor lady off the legs of any opinion she may have had of her own, who in vain comes limping along with her bad French, consoling herself with the reflection that, at all events, she is getting a lesson in the language. Then contrast the plausible subtleties and pleasantries of Madame with the bluff, independent manner of an English woman, who, perhaps, being disturbed over her early dinner, comes smelling of beef and cabbage, and appears determined to force the poor lady into buying, whether she will or no. We say poor lady," but she must be anything but poor if she employs one of the high-flown order in the millinery

line.

66

A great change, however, has come over public opinion within the last ten or a dozen years with regard to the possibility of buying good things at other than first-rate old-established and high-charging shops, the proprietors of which, with a convenient and well-affected dignity, look down with supreme contempt on everything that is cheap, or rather that is not of their production. "I dare say, m'em, you may meet with such an article, m'em, at some of the cheap-the inferior-shops, but we don't

1

supply it at any such price, m'em." And they don't supply it at any such price, simply because, being rich and independent, they can afford to lose a chance customer occasionally; while Mr. Somebody-else, with borrowed capital and a large family, perhaps cannot.

The high-priced shops will say their articles are better-and perhaps in some instances they may be-but there are many things required in a house where a low-priced article will do quite as well as a high-priced one-where the high-priced one, indeed, is only the low-priced one with a little higher polish or finish, the finish in no way contributing to its utility. Take a set of blacking-brushes, for instance: what better are they for being mahogany-backed, or varnish-backed, or even for having portraits of the Queen and Prince Albert upon them? But send a servant for a set, and see if he does not come back with the best-the dearest that is to say.

Between the very high-stiff-standing-out-for-price shops, and the very low, tricky, puffing, enormous sacrifice, and continually selling off, and disreputable ones, there has arisen a class of pushing, ready-money establishments, the owners of which make up by quick returns and small profits for the inordinate gains of the higher class. At many of these, purchasers-ladies in particular-will find a great choice of really good wearable articles, that will last quite as long as the fashion will allow anything to last. Sewell and Cross, in Compton-street, Soho, for instance, is a capital shop for household as well as for ladies' goods, and many of the high aristocracy have no objection to a quiet deal there incog.—that is to say, in the morning-when fashion supposes them to be invisible, and they pass their dear friends as if they didn't see them.

A lady's dress differs from a gentleman's dress, inasmuch as a lady's dress is nothing unless it is smart, new, and in the fashion; whereas a gentleman may wear his coat as long as it will last a well-made London coat, like a Turkey carpet, being respectable to the last. There is no economy in a cheap coat, or rather there is nothing more expensive than a cheap coat; they are only passable at the best, and after a shower of rain they are not passable at all. Nevertheless, an amazing number of people indulge in cheap clothes, and there are no more splendid or increasing establishments in London than the puffing advertising tailors. Not only are they in London, but most large towns, particularly manufacturing ones, have their "slop palaces" also. But to the ladies. Whatever we may think of milliners' bills, we cannot but admire their extraordinary ingenuity in inventing new styles, so that the fashion of this year shall be the fright of the next. An interesting department might have been fitted up at the Crystal Palace with dummies, showing the changes made in ladies' dress during the present century, from the time when they had their waists up to their shoulders and coal-scuttle bonnets on their heads, through the short petticoat and "kiss-me-quick" bonnet times, down to the present ground-sweeping days, and bonnets that look as if they had been encountering a gale of wind, and were just on the point of departure down the wearers' backs.

In conjunction with these should be a few first-rate fashionable London milliners' bills, exhibited as prodigies in the art of charging. It is marvellous how ladies, with their knowledge of the intrinsic value of the material, can be induced to pay such prices as they do for merely having it twisted into queer fantastic forms. First-rate dressmakers are quite as

bad, and it is impossible to bind some of them to terms; for if they agree to let a lady have a dress for a certain price, they will add some trifling looking article or other that will figure for perhaps half as much as the dress itself when the bill comes in. Bonnets are, perhaps, the most extraordinary things, for they assume every form, colour, look, feature, and variety, and yet there will not be a lady in Great Britain but will fancy the last fashion becomes her, though it may be as different to all its predecessors as possible.

Some of the first-rate (charging) west-end milliners have begun to mark the prices on their bonnets, either to show their own exorbitance, or the simplicity of their customers; but although it would not be prudent to mention the names of these conscientious parties, we may add that ladies travelling eastward, along much-derided Oxford-street, or even Bloomsbury wards, will get two bonnets, and nice ones too, for the price of one at the high-flown shops. For country people this is all that can be required-a London bonnet being a London bonnet when they get home, whether it comes from Whitechapel or the Edgeware-road; after all is said and done, it is the becomingness of the bonnet that is the question, not where it comes from.

Then some of the first-rate (charging) people are so unaccommodating. They grumble at being asked to cross the parks to a victim, and will not hear of making up a bonnet on approval. All this would be rectified, and patronage diverted into a much healthier and more meritorious channel, if name and imperious fashion did not exercise such important sway. What good does it do Mrs. Brown, Mrs. Widesleeves having her villa and equipage at Willesden? Poor Miss Garret is very likely stitching her fingers off to keep her own body and soul and Mrs. Widesleeves' equipage together.

Ticketed shops, which used to be held in abhorrence, are coming very much into favour; and a most convenient system it is for a customer, stamping as it were the price of the article to the whole world, and not leaving it to the genteel young people to charge Lady Flauntey twenty or five-and-twenty per cent. more for coming in her carriage with two powdered footmen than Mrs. Tramp, who arrives on foot. Some of the high ruination shops even have adopted the system. Apsley, Pellet, and Co., have as beautiful a collection of china and glass at the Bakerstreet Bazaar as it is possible to see, with the prices attached to everything. The curious in roguery will see some nice specimens of ticketing ingenuity in some cheap muslin dress shops at the Tottenham-court end of Oxford-street, and also in a furniture shop in Tottenham-courtroad. In the former, part of the price is printed so small as to be almost invisible; and in the latter, by inverting the ticket, the price is made quite different to what it at first appears.

We think we have now said all that can be usefully told with regard to the intricacies of shopping. Our advice is but the old doctrine of "caveat emptor" extended, and may be summed up in the old adage of "buy in haste, repent at leisure." As the present uncleanly practice of ladies sweeping the streets with their petticoats makes walking almost impossible, we will now devote a few words to the subject of getting about, and the means of locomotion generally.

The public vehicles of London, though still capable of great improvement, are a wonderful advance upon what they were fifteen or