BAZAARS.

Thames Star, Volume VII, Issue 2505, 16 January 1877, Page 3

BAZAARS.

(mOM THE LIVERPOOL CRITIC.) All the wit and severity of Punch, all the strictures and savagery of the Saturday Re view have ignominiously failed in making the shadow of an impression upon the tastes, fashions, and habits of the " girl of the period "which element enters rery largely and very necessarily into the bazaar infliction, hence its utter insensibility and impenetrability to honest and , healthy criticism. Though the name is exotic, yet the business seems to have been marvellously successful in naturalising itself, and in striking very deep root among us. A bazaar is a market, youngs ladies. The name is therefore appropriate, though foreign; for when beauty arrays and adorns itself (as beauty of the present day knows only too well how to array and, adorn its fascinations) for a bazaar,' it performs all this adornment and arrangement for a' market. Verbally, young ladies, that appears ridiculous tautology; really, it contains a very sorrowful signification—a signification upon which those who are wise among you had better deeply ponder. * Bazaars, comtemplated from any point %oi view, excite an Englishman's ire ; but all the contemptible elements that enter into their polite and elegant constitutions^ nothing is so contemptible as is the list of patrons. How the long array of countesses; ladies, bonorables,. must laugh at the pure and unadulterated flunkyism of the spirit exhibited by the patronage humbly solicited. Who so successful in these displays of pitiable flunkyism as our parsons, our "spiritual pastors and masters ? " " Give us," humbly writes >the Rev. Mellifluous Macsycophant, M.A., to the Countess Ve*re de Ve*re;"but the alluring prestige of your ladyship's illustrious name, and.all the. people of my parish will be only too proud to work their fingers to the bone for the benefit of our most Christian bazaars." The Couotess VeVe de Vere laughs, gives heir illustrious name, and—no more. : But that is quite enough. To be in any way with that name, every Mrs for miles round will work and toil, fawn and scheme; she will make her daughters work and her friends work, stitch, stitch, stitch; but, as a rule, both friends and daughters are too overwhelmed with the honor of having their plebeian names mentioned after that of the Countess to require much making. Read the bazaar advertisements; notice the imposing array of titled dames and honorable demoiselles that head the dazriing list; then observe the few homely Mrs So-.and-So's that constitute the flunky addendum at the fag-ecd. This humble fag-end signifies the bone and muscle of the bazaar; they are the workers, the toilers, the money-spenders, and, verily, they have their reward—namely, the honor of seeing their names printed on the same list as those of titled members of the aristocracy. Is this not sickening ? Is such frantic flunkyism not degrading to our manliness, our independence, bur national spirit ? But the matter by no means ends even in this pitiable slough of degradation. To bazaars so patronised,, society will scramble like maniacs; byv bazaars so illuminated, society - will submit to be fleeced like lambs 5 1 under such distinguished auspices, lavender-gloved scions of commerce will forget their natural instincts, and pay five shillings for an article . not worth fivepence; and beauty will ..;. amile, and dignity will swindle, and the gold will keep tumbling in. But where are' the countesses, the ladies, the honorablesP Pooh! have they not lent their distinguished names? is that not honor enough? Of cpurse it is. So let Mrs Snooks rustle "audibly and swell visibly with reflected grandeur and flunk ified distinction: swells are the patrons, so let the "Misses • Snooks smirk, smile, and wheedle; the affair is under the most distinguished auspices, so let all the sons of commerce lounge, flirt, and fork out the cash. -- ■■■.; ;=- '■-. ■ .-'■■■ ■ -' '"- ■

We have been called a nation of shopkeepers ; a few more of these elite bazaar announcements, and surely we shall be designated the proud people of the Kingdom p£ Flunkydom. At one grand bazaar of the kind in question, the jrious pastor took the opportunity of enunciating his ideas of education. He had, by means best known to himself, ; obtained a gorgeous list of titled patronesses ; surely, Sis leading idea of education may be found in that part of the Catechism commonly called " Thy duty towards thy neighbor " —that is, supposing the priest in question is not yet too advanced for our old-fashioned Catechism ; undoubtedly, then, the parson farored with such a gilded programme of patrons would labor night and day, in season and out of season, to train the young idea, above all thiDg3, " to submit himself to all his governors, teachers, spiritual pastors, and masters ;" to order himself " lowly and reverently to all his betters." The young idea so taught would infallible grow up to regard most " lowly and reverently " the dazzling list pf names that figured in the spiritual pastor's aristocratic programme. It is humiliating to be compelled to acknowledge ourselves such pure . thoroughbred flunkies 5 but it is still more pitiable to think that our heavenly-minded parsons are our chief leaders in such abject positions.

. Against honestly-conducted bazaars we haVe not a word, to say. Sell honest articles for honest money, and not the victimised buyer?; strip them of their nauseous flunkyism, and we will regard them with favor. Conduct them as they are now conducted, gild them as they are '. now gilded, flunlcify them as they, are now flunkified, and surely they will speedily become contemptible and absolutely unsavory in, the nostrils of all independent Englishmen.

"My boy," said . a solemn-visaged I Evangelist to a lad who had just emerged from a hair-pulling match with another boy, "do you expect to rove hereafter in a land of pure delight ?" " No," said the lad '," I've bursted another button off my trousers, and I expect to get licked for it." Two Hibernians were passing a stable which had a rooster on it for a weathervane, when one addressed the other thus: —" Pat, what's the raison they didn'tput a hin up there, instid of a rooster ?" " An' sure, replied Pat, "that aisy enough. Don't ye see it would be onconvanient to go Up for the eggs ?" A man who had been married twice to ladies both named Catherine, advised his friends, against taking dupli-kates.