HOW ENGLISHWOMEN SHOP.

Marlborough Express, Volume XLIII, Issue 140, 11 June 1909, Page 6

HOW ENGLISHWOMEN SHOP.

(By an American Woman.)

When the Englishwoman starts out to shop iii London, she has a definite idea in her mind of something she intends to buy. She goes into a draper s shop in precisely the same way that she visits her greengrocer. On entering the draper's shop she knows she goes for a pair of gloves, just as on confronting the greengrocer she is convinced that she is requiring a head of lettuce or some nice fresh tomatoes. The American woman is not nearly so definite when she would a-shopping go. Mother says to daughter, sister to sister, friend to friend, "Let's go out shopping!" in the manner of saying "Let's go for a walk." In New York "going shopping" more frequently than not means going out to "look around." I have one delightful New York friend who often calls to me over the telephone, "Nothing to do for the next two hours, so let's go out and steal styles!" This is her own original expression for going shopping. It so happens that her financial position makes it necessary for her to manufacture many of her own gowns and hats, to say nothing of the lingerie she needs, so she goes out shopping to see what are the latest styles, to stand admiringly before them, to Slave a dozen gowns paraded before her, to try on seven or eight hats, in order to discover which particular fashion is most becoming to her, and then she goes home to copy the styles in re-modelling her old costumes and headgear. New York shopkeepers know that this is done again and again, and they do not attempt to protect themselves from it. They have a way of appearing iiot to mind whether one buys anything or not. They say, "Come in and look around, rest yourself, write your letters on our stationery, rock on our rocking chairs, make yourself perfectly at home. We do not ask you to buy!" THE REST-ROOM ROCKINGCHAIR. I never sit down in a rest-room shop rocking-chair without being fully aware that the chair is placed just in that comfortable angle to tempt me to make myself at home. I know full well the seduction that lies in the cup of free afternoon tea offered me by the American shopkeeper. I chuckle over his devices, and sometimes I vow I will never, no never, buy one solitary bit of his goods, but only rest in the rocker all the livelong afternoon, but I never do stop in the chair long. I am bound to get up and wander about, and sometimes I stumble over something spread out on a table that I never dreamed of wanting or needing, that I canno* spare the money to buy, that may force me to simply devastating economies in other directions if Ido buy it; but such considerations make me all the more determined to buy it. Here is a newshaped collar. Now,- I never knew that shape was the fashion until this very minute. I have an abundance of collars of various designs at home. Ido not need another collar. It costs a wickedly high price—three and a half dollars. The wonders one may do with fourteen shillings in London! No, I will not buy that collar! Stay. I am feeling so refreshed, so beautifully rested, having rocked in the rocking-chair for half an hour, that I just try the collar on, without the slightest intention, of really .buying it. The saleswoman says it is no trouble to try it on. She says,_ "You needn't buy it, you know, but only try it on for the fun of the thing!" I try it on. Now, who would suppose that that particular shape in collars ■would make me lose eight years in two minutes and give an absolutely "fascinating and fetching twist to my chin? "Send it to number nine thousand and sixty-nine/ West One Thousand and Oneth Street," I say, emptying my purse of all but a fivecent piece which will carry me home on the "trolly." In New York shopping is an all-day affair with perhaps the larger crowd out between the hours of three and seven, when Englishwomen would be paying their afternoon calls or entertaining their friends at tea. The New York woman begins hor w shopping earlierln tke morning, and keeps! it up Jater in the afternoon. Most or -the good New York shops now open- at 8.30 iii the morning, while the.London: one 3 open at nine. Ten years ago the New York shops opened at eight. Your average London woman of social duties has most of her shopping done before three in the afternoon. In New York shopping late in the afternoon is very common. Your London woman views shopping in the light of a duty. To the New York woman it is somewhat of an entertainment. THE. LONDON SALESWOMAN. Certainly no one can come to London after a time spent in New York without enjoying the delightful manners of the London salesmen and saleswomen.*, At first in New York the foseign visitor is shocked by the ab-

sence of respect of the saleswoman for the shopper. Only occasionally does one hear a "madam" or a "sir." A few^ months ago I was buying some "cheese in a New York department store. I carried a library book under my arm. "What's that book you've got there?" asked the young woman who was slicing t-foe cheese. I gave her the title. "Is it worth reading?" asked she. I assured her that I found it exceedingly interesting. "I'll get- it if you advise me to read it," she said, and now she was wrapping the cheese and tying the string. I told her I did advise her to read it.

"I always ask intelligent-looking ladies who come in to shop what the books are they have with them," she said. "I'm trying to improve. I don't intend to sell cheese all my lire."

And now, coming to London, I find I love the manner of the English saleswoman^ I like the deference, the quiet voice, the attentive manner with which she looks after my wants. "It is very becoming, is it not, madam?" asks the solicitous saleswoman in Regent Street, as I try on a hat or gown. "It's a perfectly grand thing, and you look a dandy in it!" somehow does not seem quite the thing these days; yet this precise expression was used to me in one of the principal New York shops two months ago as I tried on a blouse.

Leaving out of the question the very wealthy women, New York woman all take the street cars for shopping. They prefer them to the subway or the elevated trains, because they may looS out of the windows of the cars into the windows of the shops to note what is being shown. The New York woman shops all over the shopping district, and it would cost her a fortune did she aspire to hansoms. Your London woman usually has her own favorite shop for buying goods. I know London women who visit only one draper's shop from one year's end to the other. It is not often one finds New York women faithful to any particular shop. Do they desire belts? Ah, yes, the belts exhibited at Messrs Sales and Bales are very pretty and very cheap indeed, but they . may be selling them still prettier and moi^e cheaply round the corner at Wales and Males', so off- they go to see. In a word, the New York woman is a flighty shopper, a creature of whims and caprices. The London woman shops with forethought, good judgment, and in a businesslike way. Most thoroughly does she know what she wants, and with practical straightforwardness she gets it.—Daily Mail.