THE BUTCHER.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19584, 14 September 1925, Page 9

THE BUTCHER.

What is it about a butcher that inspires such deference and timidity in all but the most temerarious of his customers (I had almost written ’’subjects ")? Most of us can hold our own with milkmen and bakers and even grocers; while drapers and milliners and costumiers are, as a rule, people of considerable grace and amiability. But butchers seem to be a race apart, before whom we become nervous and servile (says a writer in the Manchester Guardian). They are, I suppose, still drunk with the power that was theirs during the grim war days before the coming of the ration card; days when they had us entirely at their mercy, and could glance indifferently through their windows at a miserable, humiliated queue waiting to be let in in batches of half a dozen to receive humbly and gratefully what portion of broken meats might be vouchsafed to them. The status of customer and retailer has gradually righted itself to a becoming equality in most other lines. But butchers are such sensitive plants! How grievpd they are when any reflection is cast on the quality of the joint or any timid doubt expressed as to the country in which the said joint was reared! Of course butchers (properly) regard their calling as an art. Who would buy a length of silk without searching- inquiries into prices and qualities? In a grocer’s shop practically everything is ticketed. Even the bacon is rigorously divided into clearly marked and priced piles of Danish and Irish and Wiltshire. The day’s price of butter can be ascertained at a glance. At the greengrocer’s we rarely need to inquire the price of our apples and onions and potatoes. But in the suburban butcher’s shop there is hardly ever a ticket to be seen. Why cannot a daily price-list of the different outs be hung up in a prominent place for us to scan as we wait our turn ?