sed and polite,
exhibiting their goods; the cash-boys flying about with money in one
hand and a bundle in the other; customers streaming in at every door;
and customers passing out, with the satisfied air of people who have got
what they want. It gives the visitor a cheerful idea of abundance to see
such a provision of comfortable and pleasant things brought from every
quarter of the globe.

An old dry-goods merchant of London, now nearly ninety, and long ago
retired from business with a large fortune, has given his recollections
of business in the good old times. There is a periodical, called the
"Draper's Magazine," devoted to the dry-goods business, and it is in
this that some months ago he told his story.

When he was a few months past thirteen, being stout and large for his
age, he was placed in a London dry-goods store, as boy of all work. No
wages were given him. At that time the clerks in stores usually boarded
with their employer. On the first night of his service, when it was time
to go to bed, he was shown a low, truckle bedstead, under the counter,
made to pull out and push in. He did not have even this poor bed to
himself, but shared it with another boy in the store. On getting up in
the morning, instead of washing and dressing for the day, he was obliged
to put on some old clothes, take down the shutters of the store,--which
were so heavy he could hardly carry them,--then clean the brass signs
and the outside of the shop windows, leaving the inside to be washed by
the older clerks. When he had done this, he was allowed to go up stairs,
wash himself, dress for the day, and to eat his breakfast. Then he took
his place behind the counter.

We think it wrong for boys under fourteen to work ten hours a day. But
in the stores of the olden time, both boys and men worked from fourteen
to sixteen hours a day, and nothing was thought of it. This store, for
example, was opened soon after eight in the morning, and the shutters
were not put up till ten in the evening. There was much work to do after
the store was closed; and the young men, in fact, were usually released
from labor about a _quarter past eleven_. On Saturday nights the store
closed at twelve o'clock, and it was not uncommon for the young men to
be employed in putting away the goods until between two and three on
Sunday morning.

"There used to be," the old gentleman records, "a supper of hot
beafsteaks and onions, and porter, which we boys used to re