The Complete English Tradesman (1839 ed.)

ially about the proper style of a tradesman's letters, which I hinted should be plain and easy, free in language, and direct to the purpose i

subject, or to whatever persons they are we write or speak. The end of speech is that men might understand one another's meaning; certainly that speech, or that way of speaking, which is most easily understood, is the best way of speaking. If any man were to ask me, which would be supposed to be a perfect style, or lang

cut off, as they are foolish and improper in business, so, indeed, are they in any other things; hard words, and affectation

es of eight. So, if a merchant comes to me to hire a small ship of me, and tells me it is for the pipin trade, or to buy a vessel, and tells me he intends to make a pipiner of her, the meaning is, that she is to run to Seville for oranges, or to Malaga for lemons. If he says he intends to send her for a lading of fruit, the meaning is, she is to go to Alicant, Denia, or Xevia, on the coast of Spain, for raisins of the sun, or to Malaga for Malaga raisins. Thus, in the home trade in England: if in Ken

not go forward unless he had two or three loads of spanish, and that otherwise his bricks would cost him six or seven cha

maker almost out of his senses. The case was this:-The brewers formerly mixed molasses with their ale to sweeten it, and abate the quantity of malt, molasses, being, at that time, much cheaper in proportion, and this they called spanish, not being willing that people should know it. Agai

n must be not only allowed to use them in his style, but cannot write properly without them-it is a particular excellence in a tradesman to be able to know all the terms of art in every separate business, so as to be able to speak or write to any particular handicraft or manufacturer in his own

ns, are not to be used with affectation, and with a

does not understand them-I say, he ought not to write in those terms to such, because it shows a kind of ostentation, and a triumph over the ignorance of the person they are

minister to quote the Chrysostome and St Austin, and repeat at large all their sayings in the Greek and the Latin, in a country church, among a parcel of ploughmen and farmers. Thus a sailor, writing a letter to a surgeon, told him he had a swelling on the north-east side of his face-that his windward leg being hurt by a bruise, it so put h

ther trades, that he might be able to speak to every manufacturer or artist in his own language, and understand them when they talked one to another: this would make trade be a kind of universal language, and the particular marks they are obliged to, would be l

their business; not the names of their tools only, and the way of working with their instruments as well as hands, but the very cant of their trade, for

of art, and the cant, as I call it, of every business; and particularly this, that they

e judgment in his goods, or in his art, and cannot easily be imposed upon; accordingly, he treats you like a man that is not to be cheated, comes close to the point, and does not crowd you

you are a dealer, as they call themselves, or a stranger. If you begin well, if you take up the horse's foot right, if you handle him in the proper places, if you bid his servant open his mouth, or go about it yourself like a workman, if you speak of his shapes or goings in the proper words-'Oh!' says the jockey to his fellow, 'he understands a horse, he speaks the language:' then he knows you are

ke; but if he finds you have none of the terms of art, know little or nothing of the names of plants, or the nature of planting, he picks your pocket instantly, shows you a fine trimmed fuz-bush for a juniper, sells you common pinks for painted ladies, an ordinary tulip for a rarity, and the like. Thus I saw a gardener sell a gentleman a large yellow auricula, that is to say, a running away, for a curious flower, and take a great price. It seems, the gentleman was a lover of a good yellow; and it is known, that when nature in the auricula is exhausted, and has spent her stren

e the best of the bricks, and which perhaps they would not have done if he had not been there to look at them, they supposing he understood which were the best; but he, in the abundance of his ignorance, finds fault with them, because they were not a good colour, and did not look red; the brickmaker's me

first make,' because that is the best. If you go to Suffolk to buy butter, you refuse the butter of the first make, because that is not the best, but you bargain for 'the right rowing butter,' which is the butter that is made when the cows are turned into the grounds where the grass has been mowed,

and usages of those countries as to their commerce, so an English tradesman ought to understand all the languages of trade, within the circumferen

posing he sells to those who sell again, it is their business to understand him, not his to understand them: and if he finds they do not understand him, he will

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cks which are not well burnt, and which generally look of