The Portland daily press., 1866-06-16
The Clothing Trade of New York.
The Leading Houses-Large Months Bust
= ness-Sugar Refnery-High Church Ser
uices, &c.

LUG LeUuJUg HOuSeS-lUTye MOnLnS buSl-
ness-Sugar Refnery-High Church Ser
Uices, &c.
NEW YORK, June II, 1866.
IT. the Editor Of the Press
The trade in ready made clothing is a COM
paratively new one, but in single generation
it has grown to large dimensions. Our fathers,
when they treated themselves to new gar
ment, bought the cloth at clothiers-such of
them as did not weave it in their own house.
holds-took it to the tailor's, were ''measured,"
and in due time, (the tailor's view of due
tine generally varying somewhat from that
of his customers,) the garment was COM
pleted. We have changed all that. Nine
tenths Of the male population of the United
States buy their clothing "ready made" guess
ing at fit, or trying it on the spot-going in
to clothing house, making the selections &C
cording to purse or fancy, and coming out
new clad from top to toe, changed as the cat
erpillar into butterfly, in the twinkling of a
roll of greenbacks. 1t may be, however, that
this custom of purchasing clothing ready
made is but revival, instead of an invention
of our own, as is the case of many of the So
pronounced discoveries of our rather selfas-
sorting nineteenth century. For we read in
Hamlet where the young Dane, Laertes, about
setting out On his foreign travels, takes advice
from his father, who at the time, (sOme five
centuries at least since,) was acting as Secre-
tary of State In Denmark. The father, it will
be remembered, communicated to the youth
some observations on the subject of dress, and
was no doubt competent to do SO, as Mr.. Sew
ards hints to a young man on the same sub
ject would be valuable to-day, though the last
named gentleman would generally rather adj
wise upon than illustrate the subject, as we
recollect that he some years ago made an ex-
cursion through your State, wearing suit,
the cash value Of which entire, one OF your
citizens put at three dollars coin. But to the
text. Polonius says to his son:
Costly thy habit as thy purse can BUY,
For no. not expressed in fancy; rich, not gaudy;
Ard nv apparel Oft proclaIms the man;
ny sney IN France of the best rank and station,
Aio '''''' select and generous, chief in that"
Inc inference must be drawn from this that
Laertes would buy his clothing instead of hay
ing it made to measure. and this ;nternroto.
ton is strengthened by the suggestion that If
tailors' bills had existed in those d.us .on.
rate nom the purchase of the cloth po,ov;r,.
would not have failed to have given III. .or
advice upon the specific point of his tre.,r,on. ~.
of the tailor-a subject of such moment Will
the general run of fashionable young men
inasmuch ss in the very next sentence he pro.
ceeds to remark upon the subject of borrow
ed money:
"Neither borrower nor q lender be:
For loan OFT loses both itself and friend
And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandrv'
would not pronounce an absolute conclu-
sion on the point have made, but suggest
that when Richard Grant White and Rev.
Henry Hudson, our Shakespeare commenta-
tors, have nothing else to do, they seek to
evolve an exegesis in the premises that will be