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THE TOWN.
No. XVI.—SHOPDOM.

Shop d its slaves I sing! Bright Phoebus, veil That face effulgent from the sordid theme!

What Muse will deign descend to weight and scale,
The yard-wan4s whisking, and the scissors’ gleam?
The counter-jumper jimp, the shop-girl pale, Are these the stuff for dithyrambic dream,
Or even the
sprightly lays
and lyrics solemn Which grace the
modern advertising column P
“Shop!” Term opprobrious in the dainty ears
Of such as soar above the common herd, As snob - souled
conquerors, or as smug-lipped peers, Napoleons or Carabas; a word
Blue blood will flout with supercilious sneers,
Or did, till, by mutation most absurd,
Time’s whirligig our slips of rank arrayed As pillars in the temple-porch of Trade.
Now Trade’s broad trail is over all the Town. Once shunned as serpent-slime, it touches now,
Awaking scarce a shudder or a frown,
The purple’s hem, the ermine’s skirt. The brow That bears the strawberry leaves can scarce look down
On those who buy and sell. The Argo’s prow For honour ploughed the sunny seas of Greece, But Commerce holds the modern Golden Fleece.
Young Jason now would seek the aureate prize On Change or in Cheapside, and haply find
His Colchis in the marts of merchandise
That lurk Town’s showier thoroughfares behind. Rank’s junior slip as junior partner tries
“Blood’s” subtle influence on the snobbish mind, Or sucks sweet gain, with fellow Swells in scores, From Shopdom’s apotheosis—” The Stores.”
Though Nature brings not back the Mastodon, Man loves the Mammoth fashion; monster bulks
Bewitch his fancy. Trade on Pelion
Would Ossa pile. The heir of the Fitz-Fulkes Must not mete silks like JONES or Robinson,
Yet Swelldom in the train of Shopdom skulks, And he who ‘d scorn the counter-jumper’s antic, Would share Shop’s spoil, if but the scale’s gigantic.
From the small chandler of the Town’s back street To the Colossal Caterer omnivending,
Whose long-drawn lines of glittering frontage greet Villadom’s view in vistas nigh unending,
Seems a far flight; yet Flintwit’s plodding feet Have compassed it; his soul astute, unbending,
Fitted him well Trade’s latest war to wage, The huckster-Alexander of his age.
Net state to state, nor field to field adds he, But shop to shop. A conquest bloodless, blameless,
Of course. The foeman of the poor and free Is Mars, not Mammon! Who so sour, so shameless,
As to suggest that Flintwit’s energy,
His enterprise astute, his ardour tameless, Show aught in common with the ruthless tyrant ‘Gainst whom Tyrtaean bards with splendid ire rant?

A Sunni of the Shop, a Trade Tiberius, Only satiric licence dares conceive.
Flintwit, ‘tis true, is rocky, cold, imperious, Ask the pinched boys and pallid slips of Eve
Who toil long hours at duties deleterious
To health and heart, his fortune’s web to weave. But can Leviathan heed Lilliput’s wishes? The whale consult the weal of little fishes?
Still the Colossal claims its holocaust
As in the days of Cheops, pyramid
Or huge emporium, Egypt’s age-long boast,
Or London’s vast Trade labyrinths! Stand and bid The storm-flood spare the flower, the locust host
Pass the poor cotter’s crop, then seek to rid The little folk of Labour from the blight
Of Mammoth Mammonism’s ruthless might.
Flintwit has risen on the toil-bowed necks Of plodding legions sternly drilled to serve
The strong, shrewd selfishness that nothing reeks Of weakling weariness, that will not swerve
For any tender thought of age or sex.
His course, clear-ordered as the comet’s curve, Is no more checked than storm or cataclysm By any scruples born of altruism.

The ethics of the Shop find little place
For that mild idol of the theorists.
The Devil take the hindmost in wealth’s race Is Flintwit’s maxim. Soft sophistic twists
Turn not his steps from seeking the first place By any course that climbing skill assists.
Shopdom is proof against that strange insanity Called the Enthusiasm of Humanity?
Humanity? Flintwit’s iron discipline
Deals with frail women as the Corsican
Dealt with battalions. They may pale and pine Through long-drawn hours, limb-racked, and faint, cmi wan,
Lynx-watched and harried. What if they incline Wildly to Shame’s escape, and swell the clan
Of painted Perditas? The Town’s supply Of souls to wreck will never slack or dry.
Humanity? Flintwit’s frown at light infraction Of Shopdom’s rigid self-regarding rule
Strikes boyish culprits to dumb stupefaction. The beardless bondsman of the desk or stool
May miss a penny, munch a pear, the action
Brings prompt discharge, perchance arrest. Sweet school For the mild equities and gentler graces
The giant haunt of hucksters in high places!

Flintwit, a petty trader in his time,
Would sink a fleet of Trade’s small cockboats now To float his Argosy, nor deem it crime.
Supple and sinuous, with dust-grovelling brow Whilst worming upwards, now erect, sublime
He tramples where he crawled. Dared he avow The past’s law-dodging tricks true taste would shrink, But law and taste at wealth-crowned knaves can wink.
Such Shopdom in excelsis.’ Town’s blue blood Must curdle at its contact,—can one doubt it?
The pride of the Fitz-Fulkes in feudal mood Bend to the bagman’s bait, do ought but flout it?
Absurd! Yet Trade ‘s Tom Tiddler’s ground ‘s so good, And if Rank’s stragglers linger round about it,
What marvel they are drawn, ensnared, nor stop Till Fulkes with Flintwit share the taint of Shop?
“Shop!” As the Babylonish garment cursed Poor Achan, so the Nessus-shirt of greed
Clings like a curse to Babylon. So are nursed Town’s sordid vices, so its victims bleed.
Though the sword smite not now, the swollen-pursed Suck, vampire-like, the hearts that faint to feed
The Insatiate, sacrificed to cramming thus The Moloch maw of the new Succubus.
Taint of the Trading City spreading wide
From Chepe to proud Mayfair! Accursed thing That lifts cad ‘cuteness, lowers patrician pride,
The Store’s stiff tyrants, the low Hebrew ring Levels at last! Greed greets on every side
The labouring Muse who London’s maze would sing. Mammon, that raised it, rings the curtain down Upon the long-drawn drama of the Town!