3-065-929 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Native shop in Bazaar-Street, Calcutta, 1874. 'A newly-published volume, "Letters from India and Kashmir," contains the following passage of lively and familiar description: "The native bazaars of Calcutta are narrow", crowded, and tortuous. Your conveyance soon comes to a stand, and is surrounded by a deafening crowd. 'Sahib! salam, Sahib!' His hands are pressed together, and he looks at you with a grimace intended to express abject entreaty. 'Fine dressing-gown, handkerchief, Cashmere cap, Sahib! Please, honour Sahib, come see my shop! Very beautiful! most cheap!'...Now, the subject of our Illustration does not much resemble this scene of bewildering bustle and profuse display of various merchandise to compete for the custom of the English Sahib. It is simply a view of those humbler stalls, perhaps in the same bazaar, where the few articles of domestic need for the poorer classes of the Bengalee people are offered for sale. But the spirit of retail trade is the same all over the world, be its object the gain of rupees or pounds and shillings; of annas and pice, of dollars, francs, or pence. It is one thing, however, when the rich come to buy what they do not really want; another thing when the poor come to buy what they do'. From "Illustrated London News", 1874.