and enough goods were sold to supply the
vicinity with hosiery and lace for years to
come; this done, he would move off to some
other centre, driving, drinking, swearing,
puffing his wares, and making love as only a
bagman could.

How different the mode of the modern
"commercial!" A clerk, or possibly a
partner in the house which he represents,
he travels about with nothing but a black
leather portmanteau, well strapped down, and
filled with patterns of his wares. With this,
a railway-rug, a small carpet-bag, and a
Bradshaw, he contrives to be everywhere, and
whips off what used to be a six months'
circuit, within the space of a single day.
Breakfasting at home in London, he lunches in
Manchester, and, after doing a good stroke of
business there, passes on to York, whence
after a cozy dinner and a satisfactory interview
with his principal customers, he is
whisked back by the night-train to London,
where he arrives in good time for the morning-
meal. He is the only man who knows
Bradshaw. He is great upon three-fifties,
four-tens, and one-forty-five. He takes his seat
with his back to the engine, by instinct. He
is tolerably well-read; thanks to the railway
literature. He has no time for driving or
drinking, or swearing, or puffing, or even for
making love, He has not, in fact, one single
characteristic for which the commercial
traveller used to be distinguished.

Some few relics there are;—men who will
not be run down even by locomotives—who
preserve the old habits of the race. We see
the old fellows in their old gigs, driving their
old mares from old hostel to new-fangled inn.
They drink the old port in the old manner,
and feebly crow as they chuck elderly
chambermaids under the chin; but their
day is gone, they are out of fashion, and the
sight of them makes us melancholy. They
are but the ghosts and shadows of the roaring
bagmen of their youth. Reader! would'st
thou study the commercial traveller in his
richest and primest state? Get thee into
France; travel over departments into the
soul of which the iron hath not entered;
and study the Commis-voyageur at the
ordinary of the Trois Couronnes, or the
Boule d'Or, and if you are fond of large men
with ragged whiskers—if you can stand a
little swearing, and have no objection to a
strong flavour of garlic and stale tobacco—it
is just possible that you may like him. But,
in England, the old traveller has passed
away, and even his successor is fast being
supplanted by more convenient expedients.
One of these, is the Manchester Warehouse.

Who first conceived the notion of assembling
beneath one roof stores of every article
which a haberdasher can stand in need of?—
an omnium gatherum of haberdashery? Fame
gives the palm to Tod.

Then sprang up princely dealers who
made London the centre of their operations,
and turned over fabulous sums of money in
stockings, silks, dresses, and calicoes. The
foundations of colossal fortunes were then
laid, which now surpass the treasuries of the
Esterhazys, the Sutherlands, or the
Westmorlands. Marvellous were the commercial
operations which these great haberdashers
performed. One of them having obtained, by dint
of court influence, certain information that
the death of the Fourth George was imminent,
posted off northward in hot haste, and
bought up all the black cloth, and all the
crape and bombazine in the land, before the
occasion for a general mourning was known.
The railway and the electric telegraph have
rendered a similar coup impossible; but that
astute haberdasher now enjoys the fruits
of his ability, and calls lands and mansions
his, which are the spolia opima of a race
that counts the name of Plantagenet among
its prefixes.

In the later days of the slow coaches—
in the days of Tod—in the days when the
great mourning operation was performed—
London was the centre of attraction for
the country dealers. In Cheapside, and
its tributary arteries, arose those
warehouses which still form the characteristic
feature of that quarter; and thither came the
country drapers to replenish their stocks
and buy up the latest braveries of London.
But the railway has made other centres
more convenient and attainable; chiefest
among which is Manchester. So Manchester
has now come to be the reservoir into which
the greatest proportion of our cotton, flax,
silk, and woollen manufactures find their way,
and from which the drapers and haberdashers
of the north of England are supplied.
The Manchester warehouse which we lately
visited, was a building fit for the Town Hall
of any respectable municipality; a stately,
spacious, and tasteful edifice; rich and
substantial as its respectable proprietors, the
well-known firm of Banneret and Co. There
are nearly a hundred such buildings in
Manchester;—not so large, perhaps, for this is of
the largest; but all in their degree worthy
of Cottonopolis. After some preliminary
chat with Mr. Gilliflower, a member of the
firm, we proceeded to take a survey of the
building; Gilliflower accompanying us the
while, expatiating and illustrating, as the
choruses did for the heroes of Sophocles
and Æschylus. We found in this great storehouse
that there was, as Gilliflower expressed
it, a little of everything; and everything was
arranged in such convenient order that it
could be found as soon as it was wanted. "We
buy," said Gilliflower, "of the manufacturers,
and then we sell to the retail trade; the
drapers from the country towns and even
from Canada, come to us. The value of the
stock we keep on hand varies from one to
two hundred thousand pounds. Here is a
list of what we have—not exactly all we