The Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1877-1885, 1878-11-12
The 99ailg Argas.
ROCK rsLAHD, .1LLrEo1s
Concluded from second page.

Concluded from second page.
them alter marriage, seeing that she pos
sesses the inestima6le advantage of being
too old to be anybodys mother-ln-law. |
freely grant that the enviable position
which | have sketched is the lot only of a
limited number Of French old women
They outlive frequently kith and kip.
friends. hope, pleasure, utterly, and sink
into condition of the wretchedest poverty;
yet still does the French old woman con-
tinue the struggle, still does she decline
to throw up the sponge, and still, even in
in her most debilitated condition, she
has definite place, ascertained in
Huence, and some power, and constitutes
cog wheel in the complicated machine of
French society. Were there a poor law In
France, she would think a great MANY
times before retiring to the seclusion of the
poor house. In the provinces the old
woman is frequently charming-ber sixty,
seventy, or eighty years to the contrary
notwithstanding. Her cap and apron are
so white and pink, her garrulty is so
gracefully genial that you forget all her
wrinkles and grizzled locks; and you need
do no great violence to your imagination
in assuming her to he pretty. But 10
Paris 1t must be candidly admitted the old
woman is, as rule. frightfully ugly, and
her manners are the reverse of agreeable.
Unfortunately me.aphorically. although
not botanicaIly. there is no rose without a
thorn. Cupidity, rapacity, and francs and
a hak Al IL Il
cluster most thickly about the stalk of the
shining French virtue of thrift, and which
make the French old woman an extremely
uDlovely and repulsive parsonage. Thrift
is almost to as great an extent the leading
characteristic of the shopkeeping classes,
but with them it is not associated with
parsimony. The Partisan boutiquter is no
niggard, no miserly curmudgeon, like the
cattlUdteur of the provinces. The shop
keeper and bis wife are on the contrary
genial, free-handed, self-indulgent people,
within certain recognized limits. They
are fond OF cheap amusements. They pre-
fer the feasts which do not cost much; and
it is principle never departed from that
the expenses OF their menus pldisirS must
not in any way interfere with the
sum of the profits which they think
they ought to derive from their trade.
Strict adherence to this principle makes
them about the most grasping and over
reaching tradespeople that | have ever
met with in the course of q tolerably ex-
tensive preambulation of the civilized
world. The principle of realizing SO much
6enettce, by whatever means the profit is
to be effected. has another and very IN
pleasant result. 1t leads to very inferior
articles being sold for very extortionate
prices. and to no department of trade will
this remark apply more closely than to the
article of gloves. You may give FIVE
and six francs pair in Paris, and in the
most fashionable shops In Paris, for
gloves with two buttons and from eight to
twelve francs for ladies' gloves With from
three to six buttons. In Piccadllly or in
Regent street about the same prices
might be charged, but the difference is
simply this that in London at well-knoWn
shop you always obtain for a frst-rate
price first-rate article. 10 Paris you pay
| the high price, and you very often get in
return nothing but publishing article
which splits up the back as soon rs you
draw it on. As for the three trauc fifty
gloves which are sold in the passages,
which are wretchedly cut, which are of
miserably uusound skins, which are made
without gussets, and which are often
soiled, / should advise you to have nothing
to do with them. You may buy better in
Tottenham- court road fer eighteen pence.
From the last three-franc fifty gloves l
Ventured upon-a pair at five francs sew
eny-fve having turned out lamentable
failure the LETT thumb came off bodily
ere | had got the dipits we'll "home I"
This is rendered all the more exasperating
by the remembrance that about the best
gloves 10 Europe are made at Grenoble and
that the very best of the Grenoble gloves
are sent to England simply because the
English customer will not pay a large
price for an inferior article. But the for
eign visitor to Paris is con- pletely at the
mercy of the shopkeeper, and is tain to
take upon trust any article which the
shopkeeper desires to sell him and at
whatever rate he chooses to ask for it. The
bowtiQuier on his side is so remarkably
frugal, SO exemplarily thrifty, that he for
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