THE ECCENTRICITIES OF TRADE

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XVIII, Issue XII, 20 March 1897, Page 361

THE ECCENTRICITIES OF TRADE

Everybody knows that millions of English money are often affected by mere rumour at home and abroad, but there are many less obvious trifles that affeet trade in the most curious manner. Nothing is more susceptible to trivial influences of all kinds than English commerce. Many branches of trade are dependent entirely on the fashions, a change in which frequently revives one industry at the cost of another’s depression. At a royal draw-ing-room recently a feature of the dresses was a perceptible improvement in the staple trade of the lace-making towns. A similar effect is produced by the adoption of new fashions by royalty. If the Princess of Wales, for instance, appeared at the theatre in a new opera cloak there would immediately be a * run * on that particular kind of eloak. There was a marked illustration of this on the occasion of the Queen’s wedding. Her Majesty wore a veil andgown made of Honiton lace, which was said to have cost a thousand pounds. Honiton lace quickly became fashionable, and the manufacturers reaped a rich harvest in the few months following the wedding. An inquest was held in London a week or two ago which indirectly caused serious injury to a certain class of trade. The subject of the inquest had died after eating a rabbit pie, and some alarming medical statements were made as to the consumption of rabbits, which, it was stated, were often unwholesome. The rabbit in question was full of micro-organisms, and death was stated to be directly due to this cause. The case appeared prominently in all the newspapers, with the inevitable result that timid people who relish rabbits were startled, and the game-dealers suffered accordingly. Last year the oyster trade was seriously dislocated through an unfortunate death under similar circumstances. One of the most curious revivals of trade on record was the revival of the Paris hat trade, which advanced last season by literal leaps and bounds. The tradesmen attributed the exceptional prosperity entirely to the fact that * bowing ’ became almost a mania among the Parisian dandies. It is difficult, indeed, to say what does not affect trade in one way or another. When something unusual happens, such

as a big expenditure on a wedding or an enormous outlay on a royal reception, one hears the remark • It's all good for trade,' and even those who regard such expend! tares as waste acknowledge the benefits conferred on industry in this way. The theory that even erime is * good for trade ' cannot be supported by a table of statistics, but there must surely be something in it, seeing that property is stolen every year in England to the value of Mveral millions and that the * hauls ’ of London thieves alone amount to £lOO,OOO per annum. THE CAT CAME SACK.