have, but just the heads." And Gilliflower
thrust into our hands two considerable
pamphlets.

When we had leisure to examine these
lists of heads, we find that one volume
purported to be the General Stock List, and
comprised eighteen closely printed pages.
These pages told of linens, diapers, cambrics,
and all varieties of sheetings, shirtings,
towellings and canvassings. There were flannels of
Lancashire and flannels of Wales, Galways
and Swanskins, serges, baizes, blankets, rugs,
druggets, lindseys, and kerseys. There were
calicoes, and cotton fabrics, in all their countless
and unaccountable nomenclature;—
domestics, Croydons, Wigans, twills, ticks,
drills, jeans, satteens, checks, Denies,
cantoons and moleskins, muslins, lawns, jacconets,
hair cords, dimities, muslinets. There
were Hutchinson's books (not literary
productions from the pen of Hutchinson, but
book-muslins woven at his looms) and Swiss
books, and pale hard books, and strange
fabrics called by such names as nainsooks
and lenos, and smooth soft lappings, all purity,
and comfort, and sanctity, not inappropriately
called bishop's lawn. There, too, we read of
fustians, and moleskins, velveteens and
drabbets, broadcloths, beavers, pilots,
Whitneys, Petershams, friezes, mohairs, and
unnumbered cloakings; nor were doeskins
and cassimeres, or even paddings (to give
men an athletic muscular appearance)
forgotten. For the first time, we heard of
vestings, called baratheas, Valentias, velvettas,
sealetts and gambroons; Coventry plushes,
too, of a colour which might lead us to infer
that they took their name from the appearance
of Lady Godiva's cheeks during her
celebrated illustration of the "haute école."
Then there were alpacas, and Coburgs, and
Osnaburgs, and brocardelts (in a parenthesis
delicately stated to be available for ladies'
skirts), and merinos, and moreens, and
princettas—types of an endless list of names
celebrated in Bradford and its purlieus—
tammies, too, which are better known as
glazed linings for curtains, and in whose
history it is recorded that soon after their
invention they were made into fashionable
ball-dresses, and displayed at a great festivity
by the great ladies of York.

Then, of dyed goods, came Silesias, Casbans,
constitutions, and permanents, and endless
hosieries, and untold gloves, and nondescript
articles ranging between stay-laces and
carpet-bags. Then, there was the Scotch
Department, and the Print Department, and
the Ribbon Department (subdivided into
French and Coventry ribbons; one class
among the latter bearing the suggestive title
of love-ribbons); and all the endless varieties
of silks, gros, glacé, rads-de-mère, shot, and
moire; and delicate laces, and bonnets, and
rich furs.

But astonishing as all this was, the other
volume was to be marvelled at even more;
for, although it professed to contain a list of
only the small-ware department, it was
thirty-four good pages long. Bootless were
it to tell of the countless articles included in
this list; of twenty-two varieties of
umbrellas; of ten classes of tapes; of braids
and ferrets, bobbins and galloons, bindings,
cords, trimmings, and worsted lace; of
threads, cottons, silks, webs, window-lines,
and tassels; of buckrams, sampler canvas,
foundation muslins, gimps, linings, filleting,
wire-piping and dress-fasteners. Who shall
number the varieties of stay-laces and
boot-laces, or unveil the particulars of such
mysterious articles as stiffening or petticoat
cord? What are vause fringes, and wherein
do they differ from toilet fringe? And what
on earth is the meaning of heavy white
cotton bullion fringe? If it be cotton, how
can it be bullion? and vice versâ? Then, as
to hooks and eyes; what are the patent
swan bills? And in needles; how shall
we distinguish the super drilled-eyed sharps
from the groundowns? Or what
distinguishes the round head country pins from
the heavy London ditto? Or what are
Lillekins? Shall we penetrate the
mysteries of stays, or peep into carpet bags, or
enter into the question of braces, or stiffeners,
or stocks, or ties, or purses, or thimbles, or
trouser-straps, or busks, or gaiters, or above
all, of sundries? Here are manufactured
shirts, and engravings of various collars (the
Paxton, the Jullien, the Universal, and the
like); here are dickeys of fanciful variety;
Shakespeare collars, for ladies; and buttons.
Why, the buttons are a study in themselves
for variety of price, size, pattern, and
material! We shut up the voluminous pamphlets
in hopeless confusion, and begin to look upon
Gilliflower as an eccentric millionnaire, who
has taken an odd fancy to have a little Great
Exhibition of his own.

But we not only see the names of these
things; we see the things themselves; we
handle them. They lie around in every
possible variety of shape, and pattern, and
colour, displaying antagonism in taste,—
elegance for the elegant, and ugliness for the
gross. And in the middle of all these
wonders, walk matter-of-fact-looking men,
examining and handling them as if they were
accustomed to such things everyday of their
lives: apparently buying them, too.
Customers (so Gilliflower whispers), drapers, and
so forth, selecting goods to make up their
parcels. That man looking over the velvets,
is a great Canadian haberdasher; he comes
over every six months, and seldom buys
less than forty thousand pounds worth of
goods. The man next to him is from Wigan,
and probably won't spend more than a
ten-pound note.

So we wander amid splendid draperies
for robes, and brush against shawls, and look
over stores of stuffs for the tailor, destined for
the clothing of mankind. Here are