Page 152

Miscellaneous. 
0t mass of the printed garment fabrics 
this country.  Experience has long 
shewn me that the class of "buyers" 
usually employed, though smart men of 
business in most instances, are anything 
but smart judges of artistic excellence; 
hence they take that most vulgar of all 
standards, "novelty," as the one upon 
which to make their purchases: and it 
has been my misfortune to observe re- 
peatedly, that out of some six or eight 
respectable-looking designs, the great 
probability would be that the worst 
would really be chosen; not on any 
principle, but simply because some slight 
eccentricity of line or detail rendered it 
more novel than those with which it was 
exhibited: and the result would be, that 
the worst-designed article would be se- 
lected, and an order given for a large 
number of pieces, whilst probably the 
best designs, if purchased at all, would 
only be in such small quantities as to 
really give them no chance in the gene- 
ral market, and the one selected by the 
buyer as his particular choice is made 
to "sell," because, having staked his re- 
putation on that choice, the retail cus- 
tomer must be worried into purchasing 
it by the eloquent young men who act as 
his "subs" in the establishment in which 
he plays the part of arbiter elegantiarum. 
Nor is the choice of patterns by those 
who preside over the manufacturing pro- 
cesses conducted on any better princi- 
ple; for I have very rarely met with one 
of the very many persons engaged in our 
calico-printing establishments, as the 
judges of patterns and the arbiters of 
what is and what is not to be printed, 
who could draw a line of sufficient ac- 
curacy to indicate any desirable altera- 
tion in any pattern,-in fact, the power 
to do so is thought nothing of by our 
calico-printers ; and in nine cases out ten, 
when any such suggestion is verbally 
made, it is scarcely understandable, and 
is often dictated by the mere whim of 
the suggester, or from a desire to have 
"a say" in each design, and to a certain 
extent make it "his own" by spoiling it. 
If his advice is rejected, the pattern is at 
once condemned; and even should some 
authority superior to his direct its execu- 
tion, the sale of it may be altogether 
prevented by this very man whose capri- 
cious opinion has been rejected, whilst 
those patterns he has assisted to render 
more ugly are urged upon the customer 
with an eloquence of the very highest 
Manchester stamp. Instances might be 
quoted of goods so printed or manufac- 
tured to patterns, which had not passed 
the ordeal of approval or alteration of 
such a gentleman, being left unopened in 
the warehouse until the end of the season, 
and then their not having sold has been 
quoted as an instance of the want of 
judgment on the part of those who 
ordered their execution, not having the 
fear of the salesman before their eyes; 
whilst the " uglies" selected by the latter, 
or altered to his mind, have been sold off, 
and are quoted, of course, as a triumph- 
ant proof of his better taste! In short, 
there are two classes of persons engaged 
in decorative manufactures of every de- 
scription, who, as a body, are infinitely 
behind the great bulk of the public, and 
these are, those who select the patterns for 
execution, and those who afterwards make 
the wholesale choice for the retail dealer. 
Few of either class have any principle on 
which to conduct their selection, and as 
their opinion of public taste is based on 
a standard even below their own, their 
choice is often a very anomalous one. 
Believing their own opinion to be im- 
maculate, when they find that the public 
finds fault with their goods, they con- 
clude at once that their choice has shot 
over the heads of their customers; for it 
never appears to enter their own that 
any other choice could have been better 
than the one made, and still less that 
more taste could have been displayed 
therein. In short, this is the class above 
all others who need training in our 
Schools of Design, which ought to have 
a practical knowledge of first principles 
which should render them the best im- 
provers of national taste, and whose utter 
ignorance of anything of the kind at the 
present time renders them the greatest 
possible obstacle to radical improvement. 
Of course, there are exceptions to this 
rule to be found amongst the salesmen 
and buyers of our wholesale and retail 
houses; but these pro% the rule, since it 
is the excellence of the choice of these 
individuals, made on a definite principle, 
which shews of how much value the 
knowledge they possess is, and that to 
the tradition of the warehouse and the 
shop, the addition of artistic principle 
would prove a boon of immense value. 
I despair, however, ofseeing the present 
class of salesmen and buyers attempting 
to gain any such knowledge, or troubling 
their heads about the nonsensical ab- 
stractions of pure       the principles 
of ignorant ati     -      y know how 
to make designs, n        o spoil or sell 
them; for I knotv they are too profoundly 
imbued with the prejudice of the market- 
place and the logic of 'Change, that that 
is best which "sells."  So as they do not 
"buy" excellence themselves, even so do 
they set it down that they cannot "sell" 
it to others.          AN OBaxvHa.