AN EXPENSIVE PAISLEY

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26636, 5 December 1947, Page 2

AN EXPENSIVE PAISLEY

According to legend, the popularity of Scotland’s famed Paisley shawls waned considerably after the execution of Jessie McLaughlan in Glasgow about 100 years ago. The condemned woman had worn one of these brilliantly coloured garments when she was hanged. Evidence, however, of the appreciation the modern woman has for the bright pattern was shown recently, when a young Scottish woman in Dunedin wrote to the Paisley mills in Scotland Inquiring about the cost of having one sent to her in New Zealand. The inquiry resulted in the information that the price of the particular article in Scotland was £ls, but the extra costs which would be incurred on the journey of the shawl to the potential wearer would make the purchase prohibitively expensive. She found that, apart from exchange, the Customs duty would add 25 per cent, to the Scottish price; then came the New Zealand sales tax of 20 per cent.—not on the Scottish price, however, nor on the Scottish price plus the Customs tax, but on the estimated retail selling price of the article in New Zealand, thereby bringing the probable—but not yet the final—cost of this expensive garment into the vicinity of £3O to £" ! i Her dreams of possessing one of the >rious Paisleys was finally shattered when she was warned that there would be a final payment of 6d for collecting it through the Post Office