It is most imprudent to ride in an omnibus with much money in your purse. Pickpockets of genteel appearance are too frequently among the passengers. We know a gentleman who in this way lost a pocket-book containing eighty dollars; and various ladies have had their purses taken from them, by well-dressed passengers. If you are obliged to have money of any consequence about you, keep your hand all the time in that pocket.
If the driver allows a drunken man to come into an omnibus, the ladies will find it best to get out; at least those whose seats are near his. It is, however, the duty of the gentlemen to insist on such fellows being refused admittance where there are ladies.
No lady should venture to ride in an omnibus after dark, unless she is escorted by a gentleman whom she knows. She had better walk home, even under the protection of a servant. If alone in an omnibus at night, she is liable to meet with improper company, and perhaps be insulted.
CHAPTER VII.
SHOPPING.
When you go out shopping, it is well to take with you some written cards, inscribed with your residence as well as your name. For this purpose to use engraved visiting-cards is an unnecessary expense. That there may be no mistake, let your shopping-cards contain not only your street and number, but the side of the way, and between what streets your house is situated. This minuteness is particularly useful in Philadelphia, where the plan and aspect of the streets is so similar. Much inconvenience, disappointment, and delay have resulted from parcels being left at wrong places. If you are staying at a hotel, give also the number of your chamber, otherwise the package may be carried in mistake to the apartment of some other lady; the servants always knowing the number of the rooms, but not always remembering the names of the occupants; usually speaking of the ladies and gentlemen as No. 25, No. 42, &c.
There is another advantage in having cards with you when you go out shopping: if you should chance to forget your reticule, or handkerchief, and leave it on the counter, the shopkeeper will know exactly by the card where to send it, or for whom to keep it till called for.
If you intend to purchase none but small articles, take but little money in your purse, so that if you chance to lose it, the loss may not be great.[7] When you buy articles of any consequence, they will always be sent home at your request—and (unless you keep a standing account at that store) desire the bill to be sent along; and sent at an hour when you will certainly be at hand to pay it. Be careful to take receipts for the payment; and keep the receipts on a file or wire. We have known instances when, from the clerk or storekeeper neglecting or delaying to cross out an account as soon as paid, the same bill was inadvertently sent twice over; and then by having the receipt to show, the necessity of paying it twice over was obviated. Look carefully at every item of the bill, and see that all is correct. Sometimes (though these oversights are of rare occurrence) the same article may accidentally be set down twice in the same bill. But this is easily rectified by taking the bill to the storekeeper, and showing it to him.
In subscribing for a magazine or newspaper, and paying in advance, (as you always should,) be especially careful of the receipts given to you at paying. So many persons are in the habit of allowing these accounts to run on for years, that if you neglect preserving your receipts, and cannot produce them afterward, you may be unintentionally classed among the delinquents, and have no means of proving satisfactorily that you have really paid.