THF ENGLISH PAINTED BY AN AMERICAN.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume IV, Issue 184, 6 October 1876, Page 14

THF ENGLISH PAINTED BY AN AMERICAN.

Mbs. Louise Chandler Moulton, an American lady now in London, contributes a descriptive article to the ' New Tort weekly/ -whence we select the following passages : — " The best dressed women we saw in England were the shopgirls. There was a quiet elegance about them which their idler and wealthier sisters certainly lacked. They are dressed, throughout London, in black. At Swan and Edgar's and other select and high-priced, establishments on Regentstre'et, they wore really sumptuous silks — fitted to perfection, and made up in the most artistic manner. Their hair was simply and beautifully arranged j their hands well kept, and their manners would have been lady-like but for the trace of servility, of which I will speak further on. At Whiteley's, on the Wesbbourne road, the girls wore dresses of cachemere or some sort of wollen stuff ; but still they were black, and they fitted to perfection, and yet the " young ladies" had that air of quiet gentility for which the London shop-girl is distinguished. Nothing can equal the servility of London shop-keepers, as a rule. It is a comfort to be ruled, not to be bullied into buying what you don't want ; but the freshly-hn-proted American is midly surprised to be thanked with just as sweet a humility for saying that goods are trash, and he will have none of them, as if he had launched out in some unparalleled extravagance. He gets used to this servile civility after awhile, and receives it as bis just due. ' Quite so,' is a favorable formula with the London shopkeeper; and this habit leads them sometimes into ludicrous blunders. For instance, I went one day into the shop of a London druggist or a chemist as they say there, * I want a toothbrush/ I said. * Quite so, madam ;' — ' And some smelling salts — strong !' — ' Quite so !' — * Ob, and ink, have you got good black ink ?' — ' Quite so !' Presently my parcels were put up, and I began to count out the pay for them. My Yankee arithmetic was scarcely equal to the shillings and sixpences, not to say farthings, of this unaccustomed currency ; and I said, I'm awkward with your money/ — ' Quite so, madame/ came the shopman's reply, with the accustomed sweet, readiness ; and it was only by the smile I could not suppress that he was reminded of his quite unintentional discourtesy. There is something pitiful in the humility of the lower orders in England. They are a sad-faced and solemn set. They quite understand Oarlyle's theory that half mankind are bom with saddles on their backs ready to be ridden, and the other half are born booted and spurred ready to ride them. The common people have felt the saddle on their backs so long that they do not object to it now. I presume, in fact, that they scarcely feel its pressure. The whole of life in England seems to me to be arranged for the benefit of the upper classes one of whose distinguishing characteristics is a very wholesome, or rather very unwholesome, contempt for those people who are beneath them.