The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1838-12-25 00:00:00

THE MERCHANTS' TEA COMPANY,
87, LATE 44, GREAT GEORGE-STREET,
LIVERPOOL.
EDWARD GILBERT & CO. respectfully lsolicit the
attention of the public to their present well-selected
stock of Teas, Coffees, &c. which they 9,0 with confidence
recommend as being of a quality rfiting the strictest
economy in price, with the great #it utility in strength,
and unexceptionable delicacy of fl our. 'r hey request a
trial of their justly estimated and highly approved " HONG
MIXTURE," composed of several sorts of the finest Black
Tea, and prepared solely at the Merchants' Tea Company's
Warehouse as above,, which is pronounced by competent
judges to be an article particularly deserving of the notice of
consumers generally.
This Tea is sold in pound and half-pound, (Leaden
packages), at 6s. per pound.
E. Gilbert & Co. have always on hand the best Jamaica
Coffee fresh roasted, which for strength and richness of
flavour cannot be excelled.
EDWARD GILBERT & CO,

PROPRIETORS,
WARRHOUSE 87, LATE 44, GREAT GEORGE-STREET,
Near St. James's Maiket, Liverpool.

TO THE LIVERPOOL PUBLIC.
BY an almost simultaneous movement, the Shopkeepers
in London, and the leading provincial towns, have re-
cently associated themselves for the purpose of bringing about
a curtailment of the hitherto unreasonable hours of business;
and their efforts, for the attainment of that object, have been
attended with unexampled success. Some of the leading
tradesmen of this town, being also fully aware orlhe comfort
which not only their assistants, but themselvet, would derive
from following so good an example, (atditimulated by the
successful efforts of the Drapers,) couvrted a general meet-
ing of their body to take into consideration the propriety of
establishing an earlier and uniform hour of closing. At that
meeting, which was very numerously and respectably at-
tended, resolutions to the effect that it would be advisable to
close their places of business at eight o'clock, (luring the
winter six 11-inths, and at nine o'clock, during the summer
portion of the year, were unanimously adopted. A committee
was at the same time appointed, for the purpose of ascertain•
ing, by personal canvass, the opinion of each individual; by
great attention and labour, that Committee have waited upon
upwards of eighteen hundred Shopkeepers, and it is to them
a matter of warm congratulation that a very large majority
cheerfully and promptly acceded to the time proposed. The
greater portion of persons objecting did so with regret, the
nature of their business unavoidably requiring their attend-
ance till a later hour than that named in the resolution ; the
others are a class of small shopkeepers, who, being supported
by the lower portion of the community, are unfortunately
hostile to a regulation based on that system and order which
is always found to be the characteristic of the truly respect.
able tradesman. It is to be much regretted that a few of
the Shopkeepers in the leading streets have refused to com-
ply with this beneficial regulation ; it is, however, confidently
expected, that, on seeing the all hut unanimous feeling of
the public upon the question, deference to the wishes of their
neighbours, and a desire fo avoid the affectation of singu-
larity, will induce them very shortly to follow the general
example.
It has hitherto been a serious evil, prejudicial to the
health, as well as to the mental and social condition of
the middle classes of our large towns, that the whole of
their time is allowed to be engrossed by their attention
to business, to the total neglect of the blessings of do-
mestic quiet, and the advantages arising from the ra-
tional employment of periods of leisure. That such a course
is prejudicial to the health, undermining the constitution,
and bringing on premature decay, has been noticed by all
writers who have directed their attention to the causes of
disease existing in large communities. It becomes, then, an
imperative duty on all to curtail as much as practicable (hut
still with due regard to the objects of trade) the present pro-
tracted hours to which tradesmen have hitherto been the
voluntary slaves. Of how many hours' enjoyment, in the
society of his children, is the father of a family deprived ?
How many engagements of social and happy intercourse
with esteemed friends, must the industrious Shopkeeper
forego? How much knowledge is being acquired by other
portions of the people, who, availing themselves of more
rational hours of occupation, are rapidly outstepping those
who have hitherto made no effort to free themselves from
those injurious systems which tend to keep them in ignorance,
and to prevent those relaxations which are required both fur
the health of the body and the energy of the mind ?
To recapitulate all the evils attendant upon late hours of
business, would extend this address to an unnecessary length ;
it may be permitted, however, here to call the attention of
parents to an obligation imposed upon them with regard to
the health and morals of their children, and exhort them to
give their best support to the new regulation, and thus the
dangers to which their constitutions have been exposed,
would be averted, and the choice of companions, from the
moral part of the community, brought within their reach.
The Committee, therefore, earnestly call upon those who
have conformed to the resolutions of the Public Meeting,
steadily to adhere to the regulation, and to exert their friendly
influence in inducing others to comply with the arrangement,
. that it may be generally encouraged and permanently esta-
blished—en arrangement which, if strictly persevered in,
must, without injury to the interests of any, add to the health
and happiness of all.
By order of the Committee of the
Shopkeepers' Association.
JAMES WILLACY, Jun, Secretary.
20th December. 1838.