Punch: Punch (6.1844)

240

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

IMPORTANT TO SHOPKEEPERS.

A'tfENIlOK, gentlemen, if you please, to Punch. He has a suggestion | showy, let your shopman be attired on one side as Hamlet, on the other
to make to you ; one which concerns your pockets. j as Harlequin.

Gentlemen, you wisely erect Gothic, Elizabethan, Louis-Q,uatorze,
Arabesque, Grotesque, and Nondescript shop-fronts in first-rate style.
May you get credit for your outlay, equal to what Punch gives you for
your sagacity ! For you are very sagacious. You know that a discerning
public has decided that good wine does need a bush ; that all is gold

You who deal in old armour and curiosities, might serve your customers,,
through Templars and Crusaders. Tea-dealers and grocers, you might have
Chinamen. The 'Squire to the Knight of the Thimble might be Sir-
Piercie Shafton. Turks would tell immensely in the carpet-warehouse -r
Hindoos in the India ditto. For a tobacconist, Sir Walter Raleigh

that glitters; and that the more you spend in show, the less you are likely i would be the very man ; and who would suit a bookseller like Dr. Faustus I
to charge for goods. 1 Ancient Greeks and Romans would do for any business, especially for ai>

The notifications of " Awful Sacrifices " and " Tremendous Failures " "old-established" one. Characters, too, might be selected promiscuously.

in your said windows are very clever. Your advertising vehicles are fine
notions. The ideal dandy (not to say beau ideal) which you in particular,
tailors, station in your door-ways, is a capital invention. Your decoy-

from the whole range of the Drama. Consistency, however, should not
be violated ; it would be wrong, for example, to have Shylock in a
sausage-shop.

ducks, or, if you please, yourselves, are very knowing birds : your j Gentlemen, you do not work your shopmen half enough. This asser-
traps are baited admirably. Still, there is another line that you might i tion seems, on the face of it, an egregious falsehood, perhaps : no matter,
try. You linen-drapers, for instance, are content with turning them away unless

What think you, gentlemen, of dressing your assistants in character ?■ they sell so much ; and, for their procuring custom, you trust wholly to
They are, many of them, very fine young men. You would thus combine ; their native graces. You will say that you dress them in black, with
the attractions of the common shop with those of the fancy-fair. Consider, ; white neckcloths. Pooh ! this is the attire of waiters and Young
with a Romeo, or better still, a Don Giovanni behind the counter, what a England : the ladies hate it. Give them military uniforms : that would
throng of beauty there would be before it. Ponder on the advantages of ( be more to the purpose.

having a Macbeth to serve out the plaids. Some of you, who furnish j Many of you are in the habit of calling your shopmen " Gents-."
funerals, put, with a taste and feeling truly admirable, your house-fronts \ Henceforth, let them be gentles : remembering that customers are
into mourning ; why not your shopmen also? Make Hamlets of them, j gudgeons. Or as all, doubtless, is fish that comes to your nets—or hooks—
With their faces pale from confinement and over-work they would look let your purchasers be trout, and your shopmen artificial flies—vermilion,
the character admirably. Or to match with those of your shops, of which, : green and gold. And, if your business does not experience a " rise," never
with a more refined propriety, you render the exterior half sable, half } trust— ^CUBC^?.

AMUSEMENTS FOR THE HOLIDAYS. MR. JAMES'S NOVELS.

uring the Whitsun recess, Mr. Peter Borthwick
intends giving, in the racket court of the
old Fleet prison, an entertainment to be
called "Two Nights with the House
of Commons." It will be divided into
two parts ; the first to consist of an
entire debate upon any popular question,
—the Factory one, perhaps,— in which
the honourable member will give imita-
tions of the principal speakers, introducing
their favourite sentiments, particular ges-
tures, manners, and axioms. The party-
cheering will be given just the same as in
the House, and the yelling and hooting
will be executed by 658 supernumeraries
engaged expressly for the purpose. A
division will take place at the end of the debate, and a majority be declared
in favour of the bill.

The second part will commence with the second reading of the same
bill. The same speakers will speak ; but to make the entertainment as
perfect as possible, a little opposition will be got up, and an amendment
put from the other side ; whereupon every member will contradict what
he said on the former occasion, and vote on the division with the opposite
party. The majority and minority, in fact, will change places, and the
amendment be carried by exactly the same number of votes as the
original bill. The costumes of the members will be taken from the best

Mr. Horne has insinuated in his " New Spirit of the Age," that
Mr. James's works were written, not by himself, but by so many secretaries
kept upon a weekly salary for that purpose. In answer to this, we have
received the following statement. It must convince every one, we think,
who has at all looked into Mr. James's Novels, that the number published
by him every year is not so extraordinary as to induce the belief
they were written by more than one person—at least this was our con-
viction after reading one or two of them.

The number of Novels manufactured by G. P. R. James,

From Jan. 1838 to Jan. 1839,
was 3 novels,
or 9 volumes,
or 2880 pages.

And from Jan. 1842 to Jan. 1843,
was 7 novels,
or 21 volumes,
or 7230 pages.

Caution !—All the genuine Novels have the name of " G. P. R. James
Esq." printed in full on the title-page ; and librarians are desired to note
that his Novels are made up of never less than three volumes, with an
intimation in the work that he is :' Historiographer to Her Majesty."

G. P. R. JAMES.

At the request of young ladies exclusively engaged in Schools,
Mr" G. P. R J. has introduced his Melancholy Sentimental Novel,
which is specially adapted to their reading, being of different degrees of
Sentimentality and Melancholy, with fine, startling, impossible Events,
parliamentary authorities. The white waistcoats have been made after j Wholesale and for Exportation, at G. P. R. J.'s Manufactory,.

Young England's own private cut, and the wigs, beards, and mustachios
have been modelled—regardless of horse-hair—from the originals them-
selves. The whole will conclude with a song, called—" Who's afraid to
speak of eighty-eight 9" (in allusion to the majority), which will be sung
by Mr. Borthwick, in the character of Sir James Graham. Bouquets
have been provided for the occasion.

19, Burlington Street, Regent Street.

Printed by William Biadburv, of No. 8, York Place, Stoke Newlngton, and Frederick Muilett Evans,
of No. 7, Church Row, Stoke NewinRton, both in the County or .Middlesex, Printers, at their
OrTke in Lombard Street, in the Precinct of Whilefriars, in the City of London, and published by
Joseph Smith, Publisher, of No. 53, St. John's Wood Terrace, St. John's Wood Road, Regent's Park,
in the county of Middlesex, at the Office, No. 194, Strand, In the Parish of St. Clement Danee, iw
the County of Middlesex—Satcrdav, Junx 1, 1844.