The finest apples in Covent-garden market come from Kent. Growers in that county, by leaving only a few branches upon the tree, produce the most delicious kinds, of a surprisingly large size. For these they demand and obtain very high prices; but instead of London in general being supplied, as it was formerly, with the best apples, little else is seen except swine-feed, or French, or American apples. The importations of this fruit are very large, and under the almost total disappearance of some of our finest sorts, very thankful we are to get inferior ones of foreign growth. Really good English apples are scarcely within the purchase of persons of moderate means.
“Women’s Blacks.”
This is the name of the common black worsted stockings, formerly an article of extensive consumption; they are now little made, because little worn. One of the greatest wholesale dealers in “women’s blacks,” in a manufacturing town, was celebrated for the largeness of his stock; his means enabled him to purchase all that were offered to him for sale, and it was his favourite article. He was an old-fashioned man, and while the servant-maids were leaving them off, he was unconscious of the change, because he could not believe it; he insisted it was impossible that household work could be done in “white cottons.” Offers of quantities were made to him at reduced prices, which he bought; his immense capital became locked up in his favourite “women’s blacks;” whenever their price in the market lowered, he could not make his mind up to be quite low enough; his warehouses were filled with them; when he determined to sell, the demand had wholly ceased; he could effect no sales; and, becoming bankrupt, he literally died of a broken heart—from an excessive and unrequited attachment to “women’s blacks.”
[207] Naogeorgus by Googe.
July 5.
St. Peter, of Luxemburg, Card. A. D. 1387. St. Modwena, 9th Cent. St. Edana, of Elphim and Tuam.