Various - Chambers's Journal of Popular Literature, Science, and Art, No. 696

'Making pretend,' in wholesale and retail trade, is now carried to such an extent as to be a serious evil. Where woollen goods are sold as 'all wool,' despite the shoddy and cotton which enter into their composition; where calico is laden with chalk in order to augment its weight; where professed flax and silk goods have a large percentage of cotton, and alpaca goods are made of wool which was never on the back of an alpaca – we are justified in doubting whether the fib comes within the range of allowable 'making pretend;' the articles may possibly be worth the price charged, but nevertheless they are put forth under false names. The law-courts tell us that there are some millers, 'rogues in grain,' who do not scruple to mix up with their corn a cheap substance known among them by the mysterious name of 'Jonathan.' Butter is sold of which seventy per cent is not butter. Tea, coffee, cocoa, and chicory are rendered cheap by adulterants. London beer and London gin (we will leave provincial towns to speak for themselves) are often terribly sophisticated, to give apparent strength by the addition of drugs little less than poisonous. The frauds of trade find their way into a greater and greater number of departments and branches. 'Cream of the valley gin,' the 'dew off Ben Nevis,' 'fine crusted port,' 'pure dinner sherry' – we might excuse a bit of exaggeration in the names, provided the liquids themselves were genuine. 'Solid gold chains,' made of an alloy containing only six ounces of real gold to eighteen of baser metal, are now displayed in glittering array in shop-windows; and many 'real gold' articles have only a thin film of gold to cover a substratum of cheap metal. Soon after the Abyssinian war, when some of King Theodore's golden trinkets were exhibited in England, Birmingham or London or both produced 'Abyssinian gold' chains, watches, and jewellery in which real gold was conspicuous by its absence. Following this precedent, the same or other makers introduced 'Ashanti' gold jewellery after the little war in which Sir Garnet Wolseley was engaged; and the auriferous quality of the one was about equal to that of the other.

But apart from actual roguery, other modes of attracting customers are noticeable for a kind of whimsical audacity. A hairdresser, who sells bear's grease, buys or rents a small bear, which he placards profusely, and writes up, 'Here, and at Archangel.' A furniture-dealer advertises, for twelve or eighteen months together, that he is enlarging his premises, and will sell off his stock at low prices, to prevent the articles from being injured by dust and dirt – his stock being quietly renewed from time to time, and the prices remaining pretty nearly the same as before. A draper covers half the front of his house with inscriptions relating to an alleged shipwreck or conflagration, to denote how very cheaply he can sell the salvage. 'Dreadful depression in trade,' 'bankrupt stock,' 'ruinous sacrifice,' are well-known manœuvres. We hear of 'Hampshire rabbits' that never saw Hampshire, and 'Newcastle salmon' that were certainly neither caught nor pickled at Newcastle; 'Cheshire cheese' made in other shires; 'Melton-Mowbray pies,' 'Bath buns,' and 'Banbury cakes' made in London – these we can understand as extensions in the production of certain articles at one time localised.

The artistic or fine-art world is much troubled with 'making pretend,' often involving white-lies of considerable magnitude. 'Old Roman coins' produced in an out-of-the-way workshop in London or Birmingham; 'Fine old china' fabricated within a recent period; a 'Genuine Rubens' that originated somewhere near Wardour Street; a 'Landscape after Claude' (very much after) – are sorrowfully known to purchasers endowed with more money than brains. At one of the Great Exhibitions, a French firm displayed two pearl necklaces, of which one was valued (if we remember rightly) at fifty-fold as much as the other, and yet none but a practised observer could discriminate between them. The exhibitor wished to shew, and did shew, how skilfully he could make mock-pearls imitate real – but what a temptation to 'making pretend!'

The next morning I took care to find employment for Lilian which would require the use of her mind as well as her hands. Indeed we were all as busy as bees, there being a great deal still to be done in the way of putting our little home in order. Fortunately, as it happened for us, the builder had been obliged to make the rooms larger and less formal in shape than are the generality of cottage parlours, in order to carry out the architect's design for the exterior of the building, so we had two good sitting-rooms. Our drawing-room gave ample opportunity for the display of taste; and Mrs Tipper had begged me to select the furniture, choose the paper for the walls, and so forth. I did my best, in the way of endeavouring to make an effective background for the by no means few works of art which had arrived from Fairview, and were now to be unpacked and arranged by Lilian and me. Mrs Tipper had been a little disappointed at my selecting sober tints such as French gray for the walls, &c.; confessing that for her part she liked plenty of colour. Indeed the dear little woman too fondly remembered the best parlour in the little cottage at Holloway, where she informed me gay plumaged birds wandered up and down the walls amidst roses and tulips, to take kindly to more sober tints. And it required some diplomacy gracefully to decline two heavy lumps of china, supposed to represent Windsor Castle, which had been carefully preserved as relics of old times, and which were now brought forth from their beds of wool and presented as Mrs Tipper's contribution in the way of fine art for the drawing-room mantel-piece, with the information that they had been purchased at Greenwich fair and brought home as a surprise by 'John.' But I contrived to make it apparent that we already had as many ornaments as we knew what to do with; and the happy thought occurred to me to suggest that perhaps she would like to have the gifts which had been presented by her husband on the mantel-piece in her own room. At which she was fain to confess that such had been her desire. 'Only I thought you wanted a little more colour in the drawing-room, you know, dears; and I should be sorry to be selfish.'

But as our work progressed she acknowledged that the effect was 'elegant;' though I knew that term did not mean the highest eulogy in her estimation. The dainty collection of Sèvres and Dresden, which had belonged to Lilian's mother, the pictures, few valuable books, and the roses and lilies of the chintz, imparted quite colour enough to the room to satisfy us two. But it gave us enough to do to arrange it all. To the portrait of Lilian's mother, a really valuable painting, the costly work of a celebrated Academician (another extravagance of Mr Farrar's, deplored by Marian), was of course assigned the place of honour. She must have been a very lovely woman, of the delicate refined type of beauty, which expresses so much to certain minds, and the artist had evidently worked con amore . He had seen the soul beneath, and depicted what he had seen. I could well understand the thought which had suggested the simple white flowing dress and loosened hair, with no ornament save a star above the broad white brow, and which had caused him so to pose the figure as to impart the idea that it was floating upwards.

I have heard that Mr Farrar was not a little disappointed in the picture, considering the style too severe, and that he regretted not having stipulated for velvet and diamonds. But the picture had brought fresh fame to the artist; crowds of admirers gathering round the 'Morning Star,' as it was called, when it was on view at the Academy, though it was generally believed to be an ideal rather than a portrait. To Lilian it was a priceless treasure.