DOI article:
Russell, T. Baron: A Guardian of the Poor
DOI Page / Citation link: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.26392#0209
A Guardian of the Poor
By T. Baron Russell
I
Borlase and Company did not aspire, like certain other
drapers in the Southern Suburbs, to be universal providers.
Neither did they seek, otherwise than passively, to rival these
powerful neighbours in the esteem of villadom and the superior
order of suburban society. The wares that changed hands across
Borlase’s many counters were modestly content to assimilate, at a
respectful interval, those examples of last year’s mode which found
their way to the more ambitious emporia, where they were
exhibited to the wives and daughters of retired tradesmen and
head-clerks, as Parisian innovations, almost sinfully novel. The
raw material of feminine adornment was what Borlase and Company
dealt in, uncostly chiffons and faced ribbons, which with the Penny
Dressmaker and the A7nateur Bonnet yournal to aid, produced under
deft hands a sort of jerry-built finery, whose characteristic a
sensitive instinct might divine, in a sympathetic glance, from the
“ groves” of dingy two-storeyed houses, which sent forth their
hundreds a-Saturday’s to Borlase’s shop. The possibilities latent
in shoddy (or debris of old cloth) and of cotton warps in a fabric
guaranteed “all wool,” and so demonstrated to unconfiding
customers,
By T. Baron Russell
I
Borlase and Company did not aspire, like certain other
drapers in the Southern Suburbs, to be universal providers.
Neither did they seek, otherwise than passively, to rival these
powerful neighbours in the esteem of villadom and the superior
order of suburban society. The wares that changed hands across
Borlase’s many counters were modestly content to assimilate, at a
respectful interval, those examples of last year’s mode which found
their way to the more ambitious emporia, where they were
exhibited to the wives and daughters of retired tradesmen and
head-clerks, as Parisian innovations, almost sinfully novel. The
raw material of feminine adornment was what Borlase and Company
dealt in, uncostly chiffons and faced ribbons, which with the Penny
Dressmaker and the A7nateur Bonnet yournal to aid, produced under
deft hands a sort of jerry-built finery, whose characteristic a
sensitive instinct might divine, in a sympathetic glance, from the
“ groves” of dingy two-storeyed houses, which sent forth their
hundreds a-Saturday’s to Borlase’s shop. The possibilities latent
in shoddy (or debris of old cloth) and of cotton warps in a fabric
guaranteed “all wool,” and so demonstrated to unconfiding
customers,