TRANSVAAL SHOPS.

Mataura Ensign, Issue 716, 27 March 1900, Page 4

TRANSVAAL SHOPS.

SCOTCHMEN AND GERMANS SELL PILLS AND SWEETS. The pencofu] pursuits of commerce are apt to be so disregarded id the time of war that no one has puused to consider what effect the present conflict in South Africa will have on the traders in the Transvaal who run what are called the stores. In the opinion of the authority whom an English paper consulted on this subject, the struggle, however it ends, « t?£ d ' sa . s ? r ? u s thing for the storekeepers. If theßntish win," hesajs, ■• the country will at once be opened up, and as settlers from Europe would not tolerate the oldfashioned stores dotted all over the Hooge \eld, they would have to make way for the up-to-date shopman from Britain. It is remarkablo how various countries get nccustomed to certain manufactures and modes of buying. The power of custom and habit is wonderful. Go where you will it is same. When I was in India the brandy was Exshaws'. Coward supplied the tinned provisions, and AUsopps the ale. Just as no shop in India is considered properly stocked without a good supply of Macassar oil, tapes and seidlitz powders, so in the Transvaal the first thought of the storekeeper is to sco that he does nut run short of sweets. As a rule, great smokers are not partial to sweets, but the Beers, being unlike any other people in the world, simply adore them. Nothing can be more ludicrous than to see a big yellow-bearded fellow, looking for all the woild like a great schoolboy in his short jacket, standing in front of twenty glass jars full of his favorite dainties, anxiously considering which of tho varied assortment he shall partake of to-day. At last, having purchased a pound, made up of ounce packets, the massive fellow with the self-same expression you see on the face of an English urchin when making himself sticky, will go to where his horse is standing, and demolish the lot. To describe one Transvaal store is to describe the lot. Their owners, besides supplying the wants of the people, are expected to buy from them all the wool in the district, and any tobacco the farmers do not require for their own growiug. Transvaal stores are always well provided with jams, olive oil, and small basins. The people prefer drinking their coffee from small basins instead of cups, and a basin is also necessary for ablutions, which in a Boer household take place once a day. Just before dinner a basin containing a little hot water is handed round, and all present having dipped their hands in it, proceed to dry these members by waving them about for a few minutes. N.B. No soap is used. The fidelity with which the Boers cling to articles the outside world discarded years ago helps to swell tho stores profits. Dynasties have come and gone, but the Boer saddle remains. The best description I can give of a Boer saddle is that were they in use in England, horse exercise would go out of favor. All storekeepers when stocking lay in plenty of bamboos for whip handles, and a^ curious sort of basket made by the Kaflirs to carry the native beer. Although Boers profess to regard their medical men with great veneration, still their mode of life, monotony of diet, and a baneful habit of closing tightly the windows and doors of their sleeping apartments, which are always overcrowded, produces such general bad health, that they patronise patent medicines as much as they do sweets. The busiest times for the stores is during Church festivals, of which there are seven annually. To attend these the Boers travel in their waggons with their families from all the surrounding districts. In the intervals of worship, Mr and Mrs Boer and family visit the store, their purchases being so heavy that the homeward journey is hard work Eor the oxen. In the eastern districts of Natal the stores arc mostly run by Germans, who do 11 good trade with the Zulus in gaudy clothes. Some of these German traders are very enterprising, still for sheer commercial aptitude they are not in it with the Scotch. There are a dozen Scotch storekeepers in the Transvaal, each owning a dozen waggons, which traverse the whole country all the year round. Ido not know of any Boer running a store. His management of a bullock team is wonderful, but nature has not endowed him with commercial instincts."