is always much that is extravagant, and much that is vague. I never
yet knew it fail, that, if there was success at all, it arose from
different sources from those which had been most securely calculated
upon as likely to produce it. Suppose it is a business for the supply
of some ordinary necessary of life: the novice reckons up almost all
the people he knows in different parts of the town, as sure to become
his customers; he expects, indeed, hardly any other kind of support. It
is found, however, when he commences, that one friend is engaged in one
way, and another in another, so that, with the exception, perhaps, of
some benevolent old lady, who sends occasionally to buy a few trifles
from him _upon principle_, all is waste and barren where he expected to
reap a plentiful harvest. He finds, however, on the other hand, that
he gets customers where he did not expect them. People seem to rise
out of the earth, like the men of Cadmus, to buy from him. The truth
is, he is resorted to by those who are disengaged at the time, and to
whom his shop is convenient; and all the good-will of all the friends
in the world will not get over, for his sake, the difficulty of some
engagement elsewhere, or the inconvenience of distance.
It is also a very remarkable thing of people about to enter upon such
an enterprise as we are now describing, that they often overlook the
most important considerations of all and pay a very minute attention
to trifles and things by the by. They perhaps fail to observe that
there is not nearly enough of population around them to justify their
setting up a particular business; but they fully appreciate and lay
great stress upon the circumstance of having a water-pipe in the back
room, by which they may be enabled to wash their hands at any time of
the day. They may neither have capital nor range of intellect for the
business; but they are top-sure that the woman who sells small wares in
the area will supply them with a light for the fire every morning. The
shop may be unsuitable in many important respects; but nothing could be
better in its way than the place for a sign above the door. Even where
every matter of real consequence is well weighed and found answerable,
there is generally a fussy and festering anxiety about details,
accompanied, in the sensations of the principal party, by peculiar
dryness of mouth and excoriation of thought-chewed lip. Matters may
be such that a confessor, with all the evil-foreboding qualities of a
stormy-peterel, could not see a single flaw in the prospect; yet it
is amusing in such cases to hear the intending trader laying as much
stress upon the peculiar situation of a fire-place in the back room, or
the willingness of the landlord to supply a padlock to the door, as if
in these things, and in nothing else, lay all his hopes of profit and
eventual respectability in life.
Suppose, however, that, after all kinds of fond and dreamy
calculations, the shop has been taken and opened. I think there can
hardly, for some time, be a more interesting sight to a benevolent
on-looker, than the young and anxious trader. The shop almost throws
itself out at the windows to attract the observation of the passer by.
The youth himself stands prompt and alert behind his counter, never
idling for a moment, nor permitting his shopboy to idle, but both busy,
cutting, and brushing, and bustling about, whether there be any thing
to do or not. If but an old lady be seen looking up at the window, or
glancing in through the avenue of cheap prints that forms the doorway,
what an angler-like eagerness in the mind of the trader that she would
but _walk in_!—nothing more required—were she once within the shop,
no fear but she is well done for. And when any body does go in to buy
any thing, what a readiness to fly upon the article wanted—with what
serviceable rapidity of finger is the parcel unbound—how polite and
_impressé_ the manner in which the object is presented and laid out for
inspection—what intense gratitude for the money wherewith it is paid!
With what a solicitous air is a card finally put into your hand as a
memorandum of the place!—a proceeding only the more eloquent when not
accompanied by an actual request for your farther custom.
In a large city, advertising is necessarily resorted to as one of
the modes, if not almost the only mode, of forming a business. Here
it is obvious that a mere modest statement of the case will not do.
Something must be said, to make the setting up of the new shop appear
in the character of an _event_. The public attention must be arrested
to the circumstance, as if it were a matter of public concernment. It
must appear as if the interest of the community, and the interest of
the shopman, were identified. No good bargains, no certainty of good
articles, no safety of any kind, any where else. Such is the strain
of his advertisements, which, though they make the judicious grieve,
make a vast number of other people, and even some of the judicious,
buy. The secret is this: A warm and highly coloured style is necessary
with a new shopkeeper, to meet and counteract the indifference of
the public towards his concerns. If he put forth a cool schedule of
his goods and chattels, it does nothing for him, because it does not
single him out from the great herd. But if he uses a striking and
emphatic phraseology, and even mixes a little extravagance in the
composition, it is apt to fix attention to him and his shop; and the
people, being so warmly solicited, go to try. Again (and here, perhaps,
lies the better part of the thing), the frequency and fervour of his
advertisements at least convey the impression that he is anxious for
business, and ready and willing to execute it; and as people like to
deal with such persons, he is apt to be resorted to on that account,
if upon no other. Frequent advertising is, upon the whole, a mark
rather of a want of business, than of that kind of respectability which
consists in the enjoyment of a concern already in full operation and
productiveness; but with beginners, it is quite indispensable.
The difficulty of establishing a new business is fortunately got over
in a small degree by a certain benevolent principle in human nature—a
disposition to encourage the efforts of the young. Some people act so
much under this sentiment, or have such an appetite for the sincere
thanks of the needy, that they go to hardly any shops but those of
new beginners. The sight of a haberdasher’s shop, in its first and
many-coloured dawn, with prints, and ribands, and shop-bills, flying
in all directions—or of a provision shop, where hams project their
noses into the very teeth, almost, of the passer by, and cheeses lie
gaping with a quarter cut out, as if ready to eat rather than to be
eaten—or of a bookseller’s shop, where every fresh and trig volume
upon the counter seems as if it would take the slightest hint of your
will, and, starting up, pack itself off, without any human intervention
whatsoever, to your lodgings—is irresistible to these people. They
must go in, whether they want any thing or not, and, after buying
some trifle as an earnest of future custom, get themselves delighted
with a full recital of all the young trader’s feelings, and prospects,
and capabilities, which he is ready to disclose to any one that will
lay out sixpence, and appear to take an interest in his undertaking.
If the customer be an old lady, she is interested in his youth, and
inquires whether he be married or not. If not, then she wants him to
get on well, so that he may soon be able to have a wife; if he be, and
have children, then she sympathises but the more keenly; she thinks
how much human happiness depends upon the success or failure of his
undertaking—how one fond soul will watch with intense anxiety the daily
progress of the business, taking an interest in almost every penny that
comes in, and how many little mouths unconsciously depend upon what is
done _here_, for the fare which childhood so much requires and so truly
enjoys. She goes away, resolved to speak of the shop to all she knows,
and perhaps in two or three days she is able to bring in a flock of
young ladies who want various articles, and who, recommending the new
beginner to others, aid materially in making up the steady business,
which, with economy, perseverance, and suitable personal qualities, he
at length acquires.
FOOTNOTES:
[7] Bosom friend.
CONSULS.
The population of a large town is perpetually receiving accessions
from the country—not for the purpose of increasing the aggregate of
inhabitants, but to supply the waste of existence which takes place
in such a scene, and to furnish a better selection for the peculiar
offices and business of a city than what could be obtained from the
successive generations of the ordinary inhabitants. Nothing can be
more clear than that the youths born and bred in a large city have
a less chance to establish themselves in its first-rate lines of
business, than the lads who come in from the country as adventurers;
the fact being, that the latter are a selection of stirring clever
spirits from a large mass, while only the same proportion of the
former are likely to possess the proper merit or aptitude. Besides,
the town-bred lad is apt to have some points of silly pride about his
status in society; he cannot do this and he cannot do that, for fear
of the sneers of the numerous contemporaries under whose eyes he is
always walking. But the gilly, hot from Banff or Inverness, who comes
into the town, “with bright and flowing hair,” rugging and riving for
a place in some writer’s office, or elsewhere—why, the fellow would
push into the most sacred parts of a man’s house, like Roderick Random,
and at the most unconscionable hours, in search of some prospective
situation; and when he has got it, what cares he about what he does
(within honesty) in order to advance himself, seeing that all whoever
knew him before are on the other side of the Grampians. Thus, the sons
of the respectable people of large cities are constantly retiring
from the field—some to the East Indies, some to the West—some evanish
nobody knows how—while their places are taken by settlers from all
parts of the country, whose children, in their turn, give way to fresh
importations. Then, there is a constant tide towards the capital, of
all kinds of rural people, who, having failed to improve their fortunes
in the country, are obliged to try what may be done in the town. A
broken-down country merchant sets up a grocery shop in some suburb—a
farmer who has been obliged to relinquish his _dulcia arva_, sets up an
hostelry for carriers, and so forth. Every recurrence of Whitsunday and
Martinmas sends in large droves of people on the tops of heavy carts,
to pitch their camps in Edinburgh; many of them with but very uncertain
prospects of making a livelihood when they get there, but yet the most
of them astonished a year or two after to find that they are still
living, with the children all at the school as formerly, although,
to be sure, the “reeky toun” can never be like the green meadows and
dear blue hills which they have left behind in Menteith, or Ayrshire,
or Tweeddale. What change, to be sure, to these good people, is the
close alley of the Old Town of Edinburgh, the changeless prospect of
house tops and chimneys, and the black wall opposite to their windows,
ever casting its dark shade into their little apartments, for the
pleasant open fields in which they have sown and reaped for half a
lifetime, and where every little rustic locality is endeared to them by
a thousand delightful recollections! But yet it is amazing how habit
and necessity will reconcile the mind to the most alien novelties.
And, even here, there are some blessings. The place of worship (always
an important matter to decent country people in Scotland) is perhaps
nearer than it used to be. Mr Simpson’s chapel in the Potterrow is
amazingly convenient. Education for the children, though dearer, is
better and more varied. There is also a better chance of employment
for the youngsters when they grow up. Then Sandy Fletcher, the ——
carrier, goes past the door every Wednesday, with a cart-load of home
reminiscences, and occasionally a letter or a parcel from some friend
left at the place which they have deserted. By means of this excellent
specimen of corduroyed honesty and worth, they still get all their
butter and cheese from the sweet pastures of their own country side,
so that every meal almost brings forward some agreeable association of
what, from feeling as well as habit, they cannot help still calling
_home_. Then it is always made a point with them to plant themselves
in an outskirt of the town, corresponding to the part of the country
from which they come, and where they think they will have at least a
specimen of the fresh air. A Clydesdale family, for instance, hardly
ever thinks of taking a house (at least for the first year or two) any
where but in the Grassmarket, or about Lauriston, or the Canal Basin.
People from East Lothian harbour about the Canongate. Bristo Street
and the Causewayside are appropriated indefeasibly to settlers from
Selkirkshire and Peeblesshire. Poll the people thereabouts, and you
will find a third of them natives of those two counties. In fact, the
New Town, or any thing beyond the Cowgate, is a kind of _terra borealis
incognita_ to folk from the south of Scotland. They positively don’t
know any thing about those places, except, perhaps, by report. Well, it
must certainly be agreeable, if one is banished from the country into a
town, at least to dwell in one of the outlets towards _that part of the
country_; so that the exile may now and then cast his thoughts and his
feelings straight along the highway towards the place endeared to him;
and if he does not see the hills which overlook the home of his heart,
at least, perhaps, hills from which he knows he can see other hills,
from which the spot is visible—the long stages of fancy in straining
back to the place
“——He ne’er forgets, though there he is forgot.”
There is one other grand source of comfort—in fact, an indispensable
convenience—to people from the country living in a large city, namely,
CONSULS. Every person in the circumstances described must be familiar
with the character and uses of a CONSUL, though perhaps they never
heard the _name_ before. The truth is, as from every district of broad
Scotland there are less or more settlers of all kinds of ranks and
orders, so among these there is always one family or person who serves
to the occasional visitors from that part of the country, as well as to
the regular settlers, all the purposes which a commercial Consul serves
in a foreign port. The house of this person is a _howff_, or place
of especial resort, to all and sundry connected with that particular
locality. It is, in fact, the Consul-house of the district. Sometimes,
when there is a considerable influx from a particular place, there is
a Consul for almost every order of persons connected with that place,
from the highest to the lowest. The Consul is a person—generally an
old lady—of great kindliness of disposition, and who never can be put
about by a visit at any time upon the most vaguely general invitation.
Generally, a kind of open table—a tea-table it is—is kept every Sunday
night, which is resorted to by all and sundry, like an “at home” in
high life; and though the Consul herself and some of her family sit
on certain defined and particular chairs during the whole evening,
the rest are tenanted by relays of fresh visitors almost every hour,
who pay their respects, take a cup, and, after a little conversation,
depart. In general, the individuals resorting to these houses are as
familiar with every particular of the system of the tea-table—yea,
with every cracked cup, and all the initials upon the silver spoons—as
the honest Consul herself. Community of nativity is the sole bond of
this association, but hardly any could be stronger. A person from the
country takes little interest in the gossip of the city, important
as it may sometimes be. He likes to hear of all that is going on in
the little village or parish from which he has been transplanted. All
this, and more, he hears at the house of the Consul for that village,
or parish, the same as you will be sure to find a London newspaper
in the house of the British resident at Lisbon. Any death that may
have happened there since his last visit—any birth—any marriage—any
anything—he gets all in right trim at the Consul-house, with all the
proper remarks, the whole having been imported on Thursday in the most
regular manner by the carrier, or else on some other day by a visitant,
who, though only a few hours in town, was sure to call _there_. At the
Consul-house you will hear how the minister is now liked—who is likely
to get most votes in the coming election—from whom Mrs —— bought her
china when she was about to be married—and the promise of the crops,
almost to a sheaf or a potato. But the topics are of endless variety.
One thing is remarkable. The most determined scandal is bandied about
respecting their ancient neighbours; and yet they all conspire to
think that there is no sort of people to be compared with them in the
mass. They will let nobody talk ill of them but themselves. There is
sometimes a considerable difference in the characters and ranks of
the individuals who frequent a Consul-house. Perhaps you find, among
persons of higher degree and more dignified age, apprentice lads, who,
being the children of old acquaintances of the Consul, are recommended
by their mothers to spend their Sunday evenings here, as under a
vicarial eye of supervision, and being sure to be out of harm’s way in
the house of so respectable a person. These stolid youths, with their
raw untamed faces, form a curious contrast, occasionally, to the more
polished individuals who have been longer about town, such as writers’
clerks or licentiates of the church. Possibly they will sit you out
five mortal hours in a Consul-house, without ever speaking a word, or
even shifting their position on their chairs, staring with unvaried
eyes, and hands compressed between knees, right into the centre of the
room, and hearing all that is going on as if they heard not. At length
the young cub rises to go away, and the only remark is, “Well, Willie,
are you going home? Good-night.” After which, the Consul only remarks
to the adults around her, “That’s ane o’ John Anderson’s laddies—a
fine quiet callant.” But this holds good only respecting Consuls in
a certain walk of life. There are houses where people of very high
_style_, from a particular district, are wont to call and converse;
and there are dens in the inferior parts of the town, to which only
serving girls or boys (there is no rank among boys) resort. Every
place, every rank, has its Consul. And not only is the Consul valuable
as an individual who keeps a Sunday evening conversazione. She actually
does a great deal of business for the particular district which she
represents. If a townswoman wants a gown dyed, or to obtain _swatches_
of some new prints, or to purchase any peculiar article which requires
some address in the purchasing, then is the Consul resorted to. A
little square inexplicable epistle, with not nearly enough of fold to
admit a wafer, and the phrase “for goods” on the corner, supposed
to be a kind of shibboleth that exempts letters from the laws of
the Post-office, comes in with the carrier, requesting that Mrs ——
will be so good as go to this or that shop, and do this and that and
t’other thing, and send the whole out by return of Pate Fairgrieve,
and the payment will be rendered at next visit to town. Thus the
Consul is a vast commission-agent, with only this difference, that she
makes nothing by it to compensate her immense outlay of capital. The
duties, however, of the Consulate are their own reward; and we doubt
if Brutus, who first assumed the office, bore it with a prouder head
or more satisfied heart, than many individuals whom we could point
out. Henceforth, we do not doubt, people will refer to the days when
such and such a person was Consul for their native village, in a style
similar to the ancient chronology of Rome; and “Consule Tullo” itself
will not be more familiar or more memorable language, than “in the
Consulate [shall we so suppose?] of Mrs Bathgate!”
COUNTRY AND TOWN ACQUAINTANCES.
The exact balance of favours in ordinary acquaintanceship is a matter
very difficult to be adjusted. Sometimes people think they are giving
more entertainments than they get, and on other occasions you would
suppose that they are mortally offended at their friends for not coming
oftener to eat of their meat and drink of their cup. It is hard to say
whether a desire of reserving or of squandering victuals predominates;
for though one would argue that it is more natural to keep what one has
than to give it away for nothing, yet, to judge by the common talk of
the world, you are far more likely to give offence by coming too seldom
than by coming too often to the tables of your friends. From this
cause, I have often been amused to hear people, about whose company I
was not very solicitous, making the most abject apologies for having
visited me so seldom of late, but promising to behave a great deal
better for the future—that is to say, to give me henceforward much more
of what I never desired before, even in the smallest portions.