BARGAINS.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXII, Issue 5167, 13 October 1877, Page 3

BARGAINS.

(From the City Press.) It may be taken for granted that the chief pleasure of the great majority of mankind would be the ability to spend money. Only a comparatively small section of the humau race is truly economical, and they are for the moat part regarded with disfavor by their fellowcreatures. It is natural that thia should be the case in a world where almost everybody has something to sell, and where the measure of what is necessary for the ordinary comfort of life, in the case of each one of lis, is no less than the measure of what other people possess. The number of articles which are advertised as "indispensable" is at present greater than the catalogue of books which were once described as "volumes which no gentleman's library shouldbe without." Like the Irish plaintiff in a law court, who, when asked why he wept so bitterly, replied that until he heard Mb case opened by counsel he had no idea how much he had suffered, we are all ignorant of our destitute conditions until enterprising inventors and tradesmen represent to us how forlorn existence must be unless we at once acquire a hundred articles in the uses of which we have to be instructed. There is little in this to be deplored. Every genuine contribution to the convenience and pleasure of life is a toilsome business of seeking ease, and pass our barren hours in a painful pursuit of mere pleasure, we are legitimately entitled to spend money on the comforts and contrivances that sometimes ameliorate difficult conditions, and put us on better terms with ourselves and with people around us. It is not in Loudon only that we have opportunities of acquiring those luxuries which grow with such enormous rapidity into necessaries. In seaside resorts and agricultural market towns, enterprising tradesmen gather together stupendous collections of conveniences for multiplying the wants of their customers. In the narrow zig-zag High-street of a famous water-ing-place we may see a shop the windows of which display wonderous little domestic and and culinary contrivances such as no lodging-house-keeper would be likely to use for the advantage of her tenants." The inference is I that visitors buy patent milk-warmers, transposing vegetable dishes, ingenious egg-boilers, fish-strainers, and bain maries, to take home with them. It is the same with the drapers' and mercers' shops. The " tremendous sacrifices " made at Brighton are only equalled by the " great sales of bankrupts' stocks" at Ramsgate, and the "reduction te less than j cost price" at Home Bay, Clacton-on-Sea, Pegwell Bay, and Twickenham Ait. The treason for this is, of course, obvious enough. The desire to multiply our possessionschecked, hut not corrected, by the conviction that the ftabit of buying things which we only think we want is leading us into temptation—produces an almost insatiable longing for "bargains." Of course we all have heard the old saw, that " anything is dear if you do not need it," but thit was Benjamin Franklin's, the old square-toed _ precision, who shammed a great _ desire for paternal amity and peace all the time that he i was leading up to the American War of Independence. Nobody wants to live on watergruel, as he did, nor to adopt the code of ethics propounded by " Poor Richard ;" what 1 we want is to be able to obtain the comforts of life,tolive well anddresswell; andinthesetimes anybody, especially any woman, who can contrive to do this on a very moderate income, and a family, must look round to see how to go to market to the best advantage. This is the way in which we persuade ourselves that we are wonderfully economical, all the time that we are indulging in the worst sort of extravagance by buying inferior articles at a pretended low price, and when we do not want them, because they are offered to us as "bargains," and we are told that we shall never have such a chance again. As a matter of fact, the real buyer of bargains is a person who is possessed of rare qualities, a person who in passing _ a quiet unpretentious shop can see and appraine any really good article that lies in the window or on a back shelf, and can tell, by what seems to be an instinct, b>:t is really a rapid combination of the observant and the estimating faculties, whether a thing is well made or of good quality, and is worth more than the priue asked for it in relation to the markets of the day. 'Such people seldom pay much attention to "bargains" forced upon their notice by emphatic bills in shop windows. They often carefully examine advertisements, because by means of such announcements they learn of new inventions or adaptations, and . contrive by some proofs of keen discrimination to select the genuine notification of a good thing from amidst a dozen puffs of so many bad ones ; but you never find them caught by "enormous sacrifices," "great bargains," or "unprecedented sales." They have discovered almost intuitively what many people spend half a life time and a small fortune in learning—that "great bargains" too often mean sham and shoddy. There are, of course, instances in which Burplus stocks, or job lots, or slightly unfashionable or unseasonable goods, are Bold at a considerable reduction of price ; but it requires a good judgment to discern which is a genuine sale of this kind, and which a mere pretext for getting rid of a confused jumble of inferior articles, the sweepings of the market, blended with a few good lots, in order to pass them off as genuine. Even in soma " highly respectable shops" remarkable means are used in order to

capture the bargain - hunter, and make a good profit out of an alleged loss. "Ah, I find I've made a mistake here, ma'am," says the demure salesman, turning over the piece of goods just taken from amongst a heap; •" this ought not to have been placed along with the others, it is quite a superior kind of goods ; but as I told you the price, and we have only this piece left, I suppose I must let you have it. But why not take the lot ? I'll measure it off for you," &c. Of course the customer closes with the " bargain," and goe3 home rejoicing, carrying a big parcel. It is a peculiarity of the bargainbuyer never to be able to calculate farthings, so that " seven three-farthings" seems somehow to be less instead of more .than, sevenpence, when uttered glibly, by a smart assistant, and is enormously below eightpence. Of course the farthing is supposed to represent the mere shaving of profit which is realised, and when a halfpenny is takeu off " a remnant," the seller is supposed to be at just such a pecuniary loss as shows what store he sets on the patronage of the customer, or how unable he is to withstand the appeal of human nature in its intense desire to get an advantage which can be obtained by nobody ebe. As to adulterations and the sale of " mixed fabrics," and inferior commodities of all sorts, the almost universal practice of selling makeshifts instead of the genuine article is one of the most appalling results of the mania for bargains ; perhaps the most appalling result is the growing inability of a large number of people to distinguish good things from bad. " Bargains" have so demoralised them that there is a " shoddy " character even in their tastes and judgments. _