Year: 1873

With Portraits of Few Specimens.


Shopping would be divested of half


its horrors if dry goods clerks would be


kind. Is it too much to ask? They
| have all the advantage of situation.


They are familiar with the locality.


They know exactly where the black
| silks are to be found, what is the lurk-
ing-place of the sheetings, what corner
! is haunted by the hosiery. The quality,
the price, the style of goods, they have
it all at their fingers ends. They are
barricaded by the counters and sup
ported by ranks of acqualntances. You,
constitutionally tfmid, full of misgiving
concerning your own skill and taste,
with but vague idea of what you ought
to want, enter palace of splendor and
confusion, to encounter single-handed,
these veterans of the yardstick. If they
are civil, friendly, reassuring, it is as
much as you can do to keep your wits
we'll in hand, and choose from the dis
tracting variety the one little supply
that you demand. If they are insolent,
curt, Indifferent, what remains but re-
treat q?


There are different species of obiec-
tionable clerks. One is valuable, fa-
miliar, and altogether abominable. You
never willingly approach him, but, ac-
costing him unawares, you feel as if you
were instinctively and constantly hold
ing him by a tight rein to keep him from
open impertinence, and not always sue
cessfully. To the severest simplicity
of address he will sometimes respond
rudely. In novels, ladies are majestic,
impressive, all-powerful. They repress
manifestations of ill-breeding in others
by the overpowering grandeur of their
own ladyhood. But in real life real la
dies are quite as likely to be modest,
shrinking, easily subdued by brutality,
and capable of offering to aggression no
resistance but flight. Such swiftly sue
cumb to the bold and blatant clerk
succumb by flying, not buying. There
is the teasing clerk, who leaves you no
quiet for reflection and no space for
comparison, but imagines the way to
secure your custom is to urge you with
out intermission. There is the indiffer-
ent clerk, who says he has not the goods
you want before you know yourself
what you do want who throws the par
Gel down on the counter as if it were to
take or to leave, but manifests not the
slightest interest in ascertaining your
wish or accommodating or assisting you.
There is the snapping-turtle clerk, who
brings you to the point, re-adjusts your
somewhat incoherent question, and an
swers you with a quick, impatient di-
rectness that quite humiliates you. Him,
though some condemn unmeasuredly,
I can tolerate.


Honest human petulance, born of fa-
tigue, is the least pardonable of mercan-
tile i'll manners. / can consider that
the man has been the target for all sorts
of questions, wise and foolish, through
long hours. If I had been in his place
I doubt not that by this time I should
greet an angel with a growl. But re-
member this, o suffering dry
goods man you have made your bed,
and you must lie in it. You are tied
by the tape measure of your own free
will. 1t is your business to answer
questions. You are paid to display
goods. Doubtless there may often be
before the counter stupidity, selfish
ness, unreasonableness, lack of princi-
pie but these do not justify or excuse
the display of such traits behind the
counter. Still less do they excuse their
outlay upon the modest. the moderate,
the upright. When clerks have been
teasedsby women who do not examine
goods with frank intent, but simply to
idle away a superhous hour, to crafty
a morbid and frivolous taste, to bear
off surreptitiously some imported idea
for domestic manufacture, it is not alb
solutely unnatural or impossible that
they should be betrayed into irritation;
but it is unbusiness-like and unwise.
They will never thus repress the idle,
or the curious, but they will often Of
fend the unoffending. Let them re-
member that the shopping as we'll as
the selling world is a much tried and
long-suffering world. Does the woman,
under pretence of buying a gown, mere
ly take note of its style that she may
make her own founces after the same
pattern? Be not too harsh upon her,
outraged dry goods clerk, who will have
no percentage from your sales to her
Doubtless she would be only too glad
to buy your robes outright, but her hus-
band cannot or will not furnish the
means, and she is forced to use her own
fingers. Do not begrudge her the small
help Of your lay figure. It would be,
indeed, far better that she should be
honest and frank, and express her in
tention, not to attempt to carry it out
by deceit. I am glad to avow that
never asked permission to examine goods
without receiving a courteous and
prompt assent. But the poor thing is
not unused t. brutality, and has unhap-
PLY learned too much indirection.
You, dry gods clerks, are young and
strong, and a man. Do you, by kind
ness and helpfulness, further her aims,
and so win her over to confidence, ease
and outrightness, not repel, frighten,
and wound her by your demeanor.-
Gail Hamilton