GENERAL STORES.

Manawatu Times, Volume II, Issue 23, 6 January 1877, Page 3

GENERAL STORES.

The principle of co-operation is growing very fast m London, and with it the system of general provision. Under one roof m a well-known emporium m a western suburb, for example, it is the great boast of its proprietor that everything short of an hippopotamus can be produced on the counter. One side of a street lias long belonged to this great universal! st, and he has just purchased the opposite side. The other day . an officer about to start for India bought his outfit at this place, and after remarking upon the great convenience he had met with m finding guns and gauze curtains under the same roof, observed, "If you could only provide me with a good wife, my whole arrangements might have been completed without leaving your threshold." " Well," rejoined the proprietor, rubbing his hands persuasively, "we have 320 young ladies m stock — I mean m our employment—all of unexceptionable character, and I have heard one of the most charming of these speak of India as the very country she would like to dwell m." The gallant captain asked for an introduction on the spot, and eventually married' her— though not on the premises, for a church is, strange to say, not at present included m the proprietor's arrangements. A commission, it is whispered, was charged upon the young lady m question, but whether any reduction was offered " upon taking a quantity'," I lia've not heard. — Correspondent of the Melbourne " Argus."