CHRISTMAS SHOPPING IN LONDON 100 VEARS AGO

Otautau Standard and Wallace County Chronicle, Volume XI, Issue 553, 28 December 1915, Page 2

CHRISTMAS SHOPPING IN LONDON 100 YEARS AGO

London, with its present darkened streets and -its shop windows illuminated with homely red-shaded lights, is wondrously suggestive of the metropolis of 10 decades ago. In those days the spirit of Christmas was essentially a thing of the home, and save for a little extra bustle m the shops there was not much to show the festivity of the season until the rejoicers themselves brought Yuletidecheer and conviviality into the streets, with their carols, their cart loads of holly, and the "Christmassy aspect" of their very persons as they trudged along m the snow with their mysterious assortment of bundles — for m those times people carried their own purchases without demur ! Our great-grandmothers must have known Christmas shopping as something very different from present-buying m this 20th century. Not only were the shops of London bereft of the art which to-day illumines them both inside and out, but the comfort of the customer was m nowise considered important. The ladies of the late Georgian period and early 19th century, m spite of their proverbial delicacy, were not provided m even the largest and most magnificent of emporiums with anything approaching the restrooms of to-day; neither were the plainest of cane-bottomed chairs by any means a common provision. — Charms of Old-world Stores. — Yet, despite the hardships of the shopping itself, coupled with the inconvenience of ill-kept streets and shambling hackney coaches, there seems to have been a quaint and delicious charm about the predecessors of the modern "stores." A shopping expedition at the time when retail businesses were beginning to move from the I*heart1 * heart of tho city to the West End was quite a sociable and leisurely affair, family parties being the order of the day, and the whole performance being considered of the greatest possible importance. ' It is easy to see that m view of the lack of travelling conveniences it was only the actual town-dwellers who could shop as many of us do to-day, indiscriminately, and as the fancy takes us, crowding m a visit to the shops during the hour for luncheon or tea. Our great-grandmothers arranged the day trip or week-end m town many weeks m advance, and when the much-anticipated hour arrived their dainty little note-books were fully inscribed with personal needs and commissions from the country cousin. We can picture Ludgate Hill, the then famous shopping centre of the City, with its quaint old coaches rumbling along m, as we are told to believe, two or three inches of snow; its picturesque pedestrians m " smiles and ringlets and pink bonnets," or cravals and swallow-tails; and, lastly, but not least, the picturesque lamp-lit shops. Ludgate Hill was the home of the " first jewellers and goldsmiths m the world," and it was m this neighborhood that- ladies purchased their exquisite Indian shawls, much of their silk and cambric, their Brussels lace, and their dainty chintzes and prints; whilst their male companions passed the time m studying the famous street bookstalls of this period, which not infrequently were enriched with priceless literary treasures that the ignorant book hawkers had found among house-sweepings, and were willing to sell for the price of waste paper. In fact, scholars commonly traversed this district with the hope of hunting out first editions, choice Caxtons, unique works of Aldus or Stevens, degraded into wormeaten bindings, and foul with dust. —What Bond Street Was Like.— Arcades had already come into vogue m the early 19th century, and the Lowther Arcade m the Strand, the Burlington Arcade m Piccadilly, and the Pantechnicon m Pimlico, which may perhaps have been a kind of forerunner of the modern stores, were all m existence and' very popular — particularly with the ladies. W« also hear of a bazaar called the Western Exchange m Bond street, which consisted of one large room, well furnished with a variety of gay and attractive stalls. Bond street abounded m artists and picture-dealers, as well as music shops and embroidery-work, emporiums, and the richestof the Christmas shoppers thronged the narrow pavements. There would be an oil painting to buy for papa, an antimacassar for Aunt Dorothea, a new song or valse for tlie amiable Amelia, and lastly a visit to No. 116 New Bond street, where Miss Clark, the great-granddaughter of Theodore, King of Corsica, was established as a miniature painter, and would undertake to make a portrait of baby George to delight the heart of dear mamma. Then doubtless the aforesaid pet would have to be appeased after the ordeal of an interview by a visit- to a 1 neighboring muffin and crumpet shop of no little fame, where each afternoon one might see the liquid paste spread on the heated stove and baked into crumpets while the customers waited. The demand for this indigestible teadough was so immense that the street outsjde was invariably crowded with applicants and spectators, and one was fortunate to get served after an hour of pushing and gentle pummelling m the doorway. The shop had an ill-name besides, which very possibly made it more attractive. The neighbors said (though it might have been jealousy!) that it was a store for smuggled goods, and that a bottle of French brandy or a piece of real bandanna might be procured as easily (?) as crumpets. Not a great way from this highly important shop was Baldock's old china establishment, a receptacle for earthenware goblins and gnomes; strange, unearthlylooking horses and dragons ; and m contrast the daintiest of doll-sized tea-cups, and the most artistic of Greek curios and Etruscan vases. It was here that our great-grandmothers loved to buy their Yuletide gifts of china, which were all the vogue m those times, the rage for collecting works of art of every description having already set m with vigor. — Loungers m Pall Mall. — Some of the retail firms favored by our great-grandmothers are still extant, Meeking's m Holborn (now Wallis'6) and Swan and Edgar's being very well-known examples. But naturally these institutions were very different places m the early Victorian days. The daring innovation of carrying up the shop window to include the first floor had not yet been seen, and the shop owner literally lived upstairs on the profits he made beneath. Plate-glass was scarcely ever seen, and even the most extensive shops of this period were adorned with the small-paned windows which seem so quaint and therefore so pleasing to us to-day. Pall Mall was supposed to be a very fine street, but m reality it had littlo to distinguish' it from any other, save that it was the first thoroughfare to be lighted by gas. At any Tate it was "here that loungers found both room and opportunity for a gossip, and shop-tired pedestrians, we are told, would find their way here to indulge m a quiet stroll or to discuss their purchases together. In the early days of

Queen Victoria Pall Mall was as fashionable as when Gay apostrophised this particular street: — 0 bear me to the paths of fair Pall Mail. Safe are thy pavements, grateful is thy smell ! At distance rolls along the gilded coach, Nor sturdy carmen on thy walks encroach ; No lets would bar thy ways were chairs deny'd, The soft supports of laziness and pride ; Shops breathe perfumes, thro' sashes, ribbons, glow The mutual arms of ladies an dthe beau. But on reaching Pall Mall the business cf the day was over. So let us leave our' parcel-laden ancestors to hail a " low browed coach" and rumble away into the solitude of Norwood, Clapham, or Tooting,!