344 Tradesman and Merchant — Commercial Population 



prices for all comers in the place of higgling always.^ Another in- 

 stance of the effort to make display was the vieing of shopkeepers at 

 pushing their bow-windows out into the street, even to the great 

 inconvenience of traffic." 



In many respects the smaller shops of 1750 had kept their early 

 characteristics. In a list of nuisances which a reformer proposed to 

 remove and amend are named "Sheds for shops placed against the 

 walls of churches," and "Streets blocked up with sheds and stalls."' 

 Not all shops appear to have had glass windows, some were open with 

 a pent-house above.'* Every shop had its conspicuous and significant 

 signboard. The shopkeeper stood at his door and solicited business 

 from passers-by.^ Some shops had manufacturing rooms in connec- 

 tion, which furnished part or all the wares.^ Others bought their 

 wares from many sources, all over England and abroad, and some- 

 times there was cooperative buying.'^ In 1747 there were 175 trades 

 or different kinds of shops at which things were sold. The trade and 

 the craft continually overlapped. The draper, the grocer, the mercer, 

 the glover, and the hosier had shops which were solely for the sale of 

 goods. ^ By 1791 the Directory adds nearly two hundred trades to 

 the 1747 list. The common retail stores were mostly general stores.® 



There w^as and had been a growing distinction between the goods 

 usually handled in shops and those usually handled in markets; 

 in 1695 the shops were reported as wont to handle mercery wares, 

 lace, linen, groceries, confections, hardware, glass and earthenware, 

 cutlery, draperies, etc.,^° while the markets handled raw produce and 

 materials and provisions. The di\asion turned to a considerable 

 extent on the degree of perishability.^^ 



1 See an advertisement, quite typical, quoted from the "Postboy," 1712-13, of 

 a drygoods and clothing house, mercer and draper, in Martin, Grasshopper, 215. 

 Of course, resort to the files of these old newspapers where accessible gives a more 

 general notion of contemporary methods of advertising. See Sampson, Historj- 

 of Advertising. 



2 Besant, Eighteenth Century London, 90. 



^ Gwyn, Essay on Improvements, quoted in Besant. Eighteenth Century' 

 London, 89. 



^ Ibid., 78. 



^Mantoux, 98; Besant, Tudor London, 273. 



^ Campbell, 177-8, 215. 



' Ibid., 188. 



^"General Description of All Trades," 1747, cited in Besant, Eighteenth Cen- 

 tury, London, 248. 



9 Campbell, 283; Mantoux, 98. 



i» Maitland, London, I, 499. 



^' Cf. conditions at Worcester; V. C. H., Worces., II, app. XCVI. 



