ALARMING SACRIFICE
The modern draper's guide to wealth is a wonderful short cut. Perseverance, honesty, integrity, and such twaddle have got to be drugs in the market. To get on the highway of fortune, you must rush headlong down the Road to Ruin, continue straight on till you come to the Insolvent Court, and—there you are. Let business grow dull, and capital object—like a fat turtle—to be turned over and over, and the haberdashers have still the safe expedient left them of being ruined before taking in their spring goods. About six "fearful bankruptcies" will make an enterprising tradesman comfortable for life. There is nothing like "dreadful failure" for insuring complete success, and selling off at the most "frightful loss" is the cleverest way of getting the very handsomest profits. As for a shopkeeper writing up over his door "established these hundred years," it's sheer madness. He might as well say at once that he didn't intend selling off at 60 per cent. under prime cost. His father might have put up such a sign, but the nation has grown wiser.
A clever linendraper, who wishes to succeed in business, should look cautiously at the splendid establishments of his neighbours, and then try to eclipse them all. If his rival's shop-front reaches to the second floor, let his touch the third. Double the size of the plate-glass, have fifty times more brass, and a hundred times more gas, and he will take all their business away from them as easily as a watch in a crowd. Never mind the goods, but for heaven's sake look to the French polish! Remember this—A crust on silver is known to be better than venison on crockeryware. The "extensive alteration of premises," if well advertised, will fill the house like the first night of a new theatre; velvets with cotton backs, silks thin as tracing paper, calicoes half plaster of Paris, will fetch prices higher than a murderess's ringlets.
As soon as this novelty has died away, an enterprising tradesman should have a "disastrous fire," by way of a jolly, house-warming. Hang up a few scorched blankets outside the shop, with a placard stating that 20,000 are for sale, and down will rush the ladies like sparrows to a pea-sowing. Dresses soiled a little in one corner—so as not to show—by the water from the engines in the back scullery—will look dirt cheap at twice their original price.
ALARMING SACRIFICE
But the grand coup—the end and aim of a real downright spirited man of business—is his own ruin. For decency's sake he must defer this until he has been in business six months at least. With the first-rate poster of "Frightful Bankruptcy!" up come the ladies, each one with the week's housekeeping money, to pick up something from the most distressing wreck. The idea of such a vast concern going to pieces draws down the beauteous wreckers like an Indiaman on a rock. To keep up the excitement, issue every Monday morning a notice that the stock "must be sold in a week," and go on every month increasing the amount of loss from fifty until it reaches two hundred per cent. under prime cost. If the tickets to each article are well scratched through and marked anew, and marked again in red ink, the success is certain. Three ruins, and a spirited salesman may change his name, take a Clapham villa, and keep his nag like a gentleman.
It is a cruel thing, but such is the spirit of competition abroad, that defy it as you will, it is not to be intimidated. Like goose for dinner, there is no keeping it down. If Smith and Co. challenge Europe in shirtings, Jones and Co. challenge the world in sheetings. Get a good idea and all your rivals instantly seize upon it; it's positively disgusting.
The other day a genius in the silk trade hit upon so excellent a plan, that it is a positive disgrace to the nation he is not allowed to patent it. He was in the ruin line (his sixteenth), and wishing to go to the dogs in style, advertised in all the papers that, previous to the doors being opened, a grand scramble of bonnets would take place. Thirty thousand Dunstables would be positively thrown away into the gutter from the first floor. Of course the attendance was terrific. A band was engaged, and at night the shop was illuminated, and the word "ruin," in blood red lamps, appearing over the shop-door. With the first shower of bonnets the scene was exciting in the extreme, the music playing "Hurrah for the bonnets so new."
A most shameful piracy of this touch of mercantile genius has already taken place. The firm of Smith and Co. have advertised a grand scramble of left-handed gloves on Monday, and the right-handed ones on Tuesday. The house of Green and Co. have announced that, previous to their annual ruin, they intend to give a grand raffle for three hundred silk gowns, with leg-of-mutton sleeves and trimmings. Doubtless some firms will shortly imitate the plan of gambling-houses, and hand round wine and cakes to the customers, and by this manœuvre perhaps a lady might see double, and take six yards instead of twelve.
Moreover, why allow the ruin principle to rest with the mere announcement of the fact, why not act a little melodrama or so to make the destruction more real and palatable. Thus the enterprising tradesman might take a hint from the plague of London, and when a carriage rolled by, or a crowd collected at his shop front, he might throw up his window, wring his hands, and scream, instead of "death! death!"—as of old—"ruin! ruin! despair!" and then disappear suddenly. Or why not, when the shop was crowded, let the shop-walker (who might be a leading tragedian engaged for the express purpose) suddenly rush down the middle, with his shirt collar open, followed by six despairing clerks, and holding an empty pistol to his forehead, which, after a desperate struggle, he might allow them to wrest from him. This would certainly succeed. Again, what a grand effect would be produced by letting an advertising cart perambulate the streets, surmounted by a tableau vivant of the luckless linendraper, having his bed taken from under him by the sheriffs' officers, his wife and six interesting children weeping over him, and the whole surmounted by flags of posters announcing that the effects were selling off at desperate prices. In the evening there must be a transparency of "Despair seizing the till," and a grand display of fireworks from the attics on closing the shop at midnight previous.
After all, perhaps, the linendrapers are not more to blame than lovely woman. She drives them to the despair they glory in. Let the fond mother see her Tommy want shirts, and she will, like a prudent body, wait for the next bankruptcy rather than visit some house where honest prices prevent clap-trap trickery. But no! there is a moment's vain-glory to be had, a few words of praise to be earned, when, untying the brown paper parcel before the wondering husband, she can hold up the bargains that could "never have been made for the money."
MODERN BALLOONING,
OR THE NEWEST PHASE OF FOLLY.
Let us hope, however, we shall grow wiser, and that in a few years no housewife will believe in a draper's failure—that alarming sacrifices will sink down to the level of the Waterloo bullets; and a mercer's ruin, like the stucco ones at the Colosseum, be called a very good imitation that will not bear looking into too closely.