sales, and not in any private yard or stable, and see attached to all manner of wonderful pills unless afterwards brought by the buyer and the and nostrums, really and truly claim the hoseller to the bookkeeper of the fair and the toll nour of discovering these miraculous specifics? paid, or, if there be no toll, the sum of one What portion of our daily supplement are we to penny paid to that functionary, who should believe, and what to look upon as the fungi of a enter down the price, colour, and marks of such commercially rotten system of trade?" Thus, horse, with the name, additions, and abode of Mr. Blank, with an excusable irritability: adding, such buyer and seller, the latter being properly" If there is such a natural predisposition in the attested." commercial mind to act disingenuously-not to put too fine a point upon it-why cannot the law correct the failing ?"

Not that a compliance with these formalities will be sufficient to establish an incontrovertible right to a stolen horse; for, if the Of course we make it our business to vinditrue owner be fortunate enough to discover the cate this very common law from any laxity in animal within forty days, and prove to the satis- the matter, although we may not be in a posifaction of a magistrate, by the oaths of two wit- tion to assert that it is sufficiently powerful to nesses, that it is, in fact, his property, he can keep the British merchant always on the rails. recover it by tendering to the purchaser such" No man," says Lord Langdale-and we quote price as he bonâ fide paid for it in market his words as a general exposition of the law, bearing on our portion at least of his question

overt.

Not entirely unconnected with his recently-"has a right to see his goods as the goods of acquired familiarity with "shopping," a strange another. You may express the same principle," suspicion has arisen (we are informed) in the mind he continues, "and say that no man has a right of our illustrative Mr. Blank. Having already, to dress himself in colours, or adopt and bear as a dutiful reader of this periodical, discovered that the British merchant is not altogether to be trusted in the matter of quantity, he has been driven to the supposition that he is as little to be trusted when quality is in question.

"How is it," he inquires of us, "that I find my tradesmen compelled to be constantly proclaiming, in the very largest type, that they arehonest? Will nobody believe them unless they are incessantly reiterating this extraordinary assertion through the medium of an advertisement? It would not enhance the estimation in which you hold your personal friend, I suppose, if he were everlastingly informing you that he really was an honest fellow and if not your friend, why your grocer?

symbols to which he has no peculiar or exclusive right, and thereby personate another person for the purpose of inducing the public to suppose either that he is that other person, or that he is connected with, and selling the manufacture of, that other person, when he is in reality selling his own. It is perfectly manifest that to do these things is a fraud, and a very gross fraud.” So far the law; but to claim its protection, we find it is necessary that the claimant petition with perfectly clean hands. As to how far the majority of advertisers are in this condition we leave our readers to judge. In the following cases we observe that the British merchant was not in an immaculate condition:

A London tradesman once upon a time fur"What a terribly suggestive picture of com- nished his customers with a black tea which mercial depravity," continues Mr. Blank, "does he called "Howqua's Mixture." A rival teathe advertisement sheet of the Times present merchant, not to be outdone, immediately adverto Mrs. Blank and myself every morning! Do tised a similar tea, and sold it in wrappers prewe not there find the tea-dealer from whom we cisely similar to those used by tea-merchant purchase the beverage with which our break-number one.

in China he had frequently taken tea with Howqua, and under the influence of its soothing fragrance had extracted the secret of its manufacture from that too communicative Chinaman; that having brought a quantity of tea from China, he had subsequently succeeded in making Howqua's Mixture, and selling quantities of it."

fast-table is supplied, informing the public, at On an application to the Court of Chancery a considerable expense, that he actually sells by the original Howqua's Mixture dispenser, that 'tea,' and not sloe-leaves, or other British pro-ingenious gentleman stated that the tea was duce? Do we not there discover our fish-sauce made by Howqua for his own use; that whilst manufacturer imploring us to observe that the labels upon his precious bottles are signed so and so, coloured so and so, or illustrated in some outrageous fashion, because the whole world are in a conspiracy to defraud him, and none other are genuine' unless so distinguished? Do not one hundred thousand British shopkeepers peremptorily command us to beware of imitations, and threaten the universe (every individual member of which is apparently bent upon imitating) with all the horrors of Chancery? Do we not discover, to our infinite perplexity, that four hundred individual tradesmen are each in the habit of preparing the only genuine Revalenta, and that as many more are the sole manufacturers of any earthly commodity you choose to name? Do the distinguished members of the medical profession whose names we

So far, good; but it unfortunately appears that by his labels and advertisements this recipient of Chinese secrets had stated that the mixture was made by his friend Howqua in Canton, and imported into this country in the packages in which it was sold. Also, that it was very rare in China, and only grown in one province of the Celestial Empire called Kyiang Nan.

Now, unfortunately for the cleanliness of the petitioner's hands, it turned out that Kyiang Nan did not produce "black" tea at all, but only

"green," and consequently the court would not protect the friend of Howqua. "There has been," said Vice-Chancellor Shadwell, "such a degree of representation, which I take to be false, held out to the public about the mode of procuring and making up the plaintiff's mixture, that in my opinion a court of equity ought not to interfere to protect the plaintiff, until the plaintiff has established his title at law."

Let us take another case, in which the court looked with a like suspicion upon the hands of

the suitor :

An individual, having invented a species of grease for the hair, sold it to a tradesman, whom we will call Figaro, and who, in turn, sold it to the public as "Figaro's Medicated Mexican Balm" adding the following eloquent, though purely imaginary, statement of its properties and origin:

"By special appointment. Medicated Mexican Balm, for restoring, nourishing, and beautifying the hair. It is a highly concentrated extract from vegetable balsamic productions of that highly interesting, but little known, country, Mexico, and possesses mild astringent properties, which give tone to weak and impoverished hair," &c. &c.; concluding with a statement that this admirable composition is made from an original recipe of the learned J. F. Von Blumenbach, and . recently presented to the proprietor by a very near relation of that illustrious physiologist!

Another "Medicated Mexican Balm" having appeared in the London horizon, the friend of the near relation of the illustrious Blumenbach applied to the Court of Chancery for an injunction to restrain his rival from selling it. The court, however, looking suspiciously at the petitioner's hands, recommended the matter to be tried by an action at law. The action never came off.

to this decision, Lord Langdale stated that there was quite sufficient to mislead the ordinary run of persons, and induce them to go to the wrong shop.'

It will be gathered from the words of Lord Langdale above quoted, that the coincidence of name alone did not influence the court in their decision, and the following case bears out the assumption:

Burgess père and Burgess fils once upon a time unhappily quarrelled, and the son commenced business in opposition to the father. Burgess père having gained some little notoriety as the manufacturer of "Burgess's Essence of Anchovies," the young man advertised to the public that he could furnish them with Burgess's Essence of Anchovies also, although the condi- . ment was of his own manufacture. Burgess senior applied to the court for protection, but without avail: "All the Queen's subjects," said the Lord Justice Knight Bruce, in answer to the appeal of the indignant father, "have a right, if they will, to manufacture pickles and sauces, and not the less so that their father have done so before them. All the Queen's subjects," he continued, "have a right to sell them in their own name, and not the less so that they bear the same name as their father, and nothing else has been done in that which is the question before us."

The fact is, that before the court will interfere, the case of the petitioner must not only be free from suspicion, but there must appear an evident attempt to mislead the public. Now the ingenious individual in the following case did attempt to mislead the public, and the court put a stop to his 'buses and proceedings accordingly.

The London Conveyance Company were in the habit of advertising that title upon their Let us not be understood to imply that ombibuses. The person above referred to, who the British merchant is always to be found was also a 'bus proprietor, thought fit to adorn in a chronic state of uncleanliness, and thus his 'buses with the following ambiguous inscripunable to obtain the protection of her Majesty's tion on the back: "London Conveyance" (an High Court of Chancery. There are number- indisputable assertion); on the panels of the side, less instances in which the court has be- "Original Conveyance for Company." Through friended him. Here is an example: An en- some typographical mismanagement of the terprising individual, named Day, having en- painter, no doubt, the word "for" was scarcely tered into partnership with a person who provi- discernible by the public. The court, as we dentially bore the name of Martin, took advan-have said, summarily ordered the 'buses off the tage of this coincidence to commence a blacking manufactory at No. 90, Holborn-hill. They advertised their blacking, in labels exactly similar to those used by the well-known firm of Day and Martin, and were doubtless prodigiously astonished when any deluded citizen applied to them under the supposition that he was getting his goods from the old-established house.

On an application to the Court of Chancery, however, from the original Day and Martin, an injunction was granted to restrain the new firm from selling "any composition or blacking described as purporting to be blacking manufactured by Day and Martin, in bottles having affixed thereto labels representing the blacking sold to be the same as that made by the original and well-known firm of that name.' In coming

road, or, at the least, requested that their panels should bear some less ambiguous legend.

So, again, in the following extract from the Reports, although there appeared no actual appropriation of name, the court were of opinion that the public were not fairly dealt with: A patent medicine having been sold as "Frank's Specific Solution," a rival trader advertised a similar medicine which he called Chemical Solution." Not content with this, however, he attached to his advertisement a testimonial in favour of Frank's Specific Solution. The plan was highly ingenious, but did not meet with the approbation of the Master of the Rolls.

"If anybody," said that learned functionary, critically reads the advertisement of the defendant" (this was the gentleman who sold the

"Chemical Solution"), " he will find that he does not in direct terms apply the encomiums given to the plaintiff's preparation to his own; he does not even say that the preparation he is selling is made by the plaintiff, and yet, for all that, nobody can look at all these things without observing that the name and the testimonials of the plaintiff are so craftily employed as to be well calculated to produce in the minds of ordinary readers the impression that the mixture or solution prepared and sold by the defendant is the same as that to which these testimonials are applicable, that is to say, the mixture or solution of the plaintiff."

While on the subject of medicine, we may possibly be able to throw a little light upon Mr. Blank's uncertainty of mind, as to whether the miraculous specifics which are offered to him as the discoveries of our most celebrated physicians are so in reality.

Sir James Clarke, the well-known physician, on one occasion complained to the Court of Chancery that a London chemist was selling pills which he called "Sir J. Clarke's Consumption Pills." Moreover, he informed the court that the chemist had attached the following audacious story in recommendation of his quackery: "By Her Majesty the Queen's permission. Sir James Clarke's Consumption Pills. I am fully aware that, by introducing my cure for consumption as a patent medicine, it will create some astonishment in the minds of the profession, but it is only by having recourse to such means that the knowledge of the discovery can be disseminated amongst those unfortunate persons whom it has been my great aim to relieve." It was evident, from the wording of this, that the unscrupulous chemist wished the public to suppose that Sir James Clarke was addressing them, and that the chemist was, upon the whole, perpetrating as cool and impudent a fraud as his perverted ingenuity could suggest. For all this, however, Sir James Clarke could not obtain the injunction for which he prayed, the court informing him that his proper remedy was an action for libel. They came to this decision, we believe, with some reluctance, but there was no other alternative. It was to no purpose that the counsel employed by Sir James, directed the attention of the judges to a case tried before Lord Eldon, in which Lord Byron had succeeded in restraining a publisher from publishing as his, a poem which he had not written. If Sir James Clarke had been in the habit of making pills as Lord Byron was in the habit of making poems," said Lord Langdale, "the case might have been different."

ther the public, who may be easily misled, would be deceived." The case to which he was more immediately referring, was that in which a needle manufacturer, who was in the habit of labelling his goods as warranted and made solely by Shrimpton and Hooper, complained of a rival tradesman for advertising his needles in wrappers of the same colour, &c., and bearing the inscription, "Invented and sold by Shrimpton Turvey."

A needle manufacturer might not possibly have been deceived by this inscription; but the chances are, that Mrs. Blank would have been wofully taken in.

The chances are, indeed, that Mrs. Blank may be very frequently misled in her shopping experience. In presenting Mr. Blank, for instance, with a "registered paletot," she may very readily suppose that she is furnishing him with "Nicoll's registered llama-cloth paletot," but the two things are made by different makers, nor can the law prevent either from advertising his garment as the registered paletot."

We will not weary our readers with these unpleasant examples of commercial laxity. Unhappily, we could multiply the instances ad infinitum, but instances enough, we hope, have been referred to, to disclose the existing state of the law on the subject. Moreover, before the present session of Parliament is brought to a close, a change in this phase of our criminal law is probable.

So long, however, as we find merchants of respectability attaching labels to their goods which attempt a fraud upon the public; so long as we find publishers resorting to such wretched expedients as the publication of self-styled " sequels" to popular books; we can scarcely wonder at the advertising jugglery of the more humble shopkeeper.

TURKISH STREET FOUNTAINS.

THERE were many projects afoot one morning at Misseri's breakfast-table. Some were going up the Genoese round tower at Galata, for the sake of the grand view of all the blue breadth of the Bosphorus ; others, were bound to climb the great fire tower over in Stamboul, to sketch the long broken chains of aqueducts built by some forgotten purple-wearer; some, were for boating, to the castles of Europe and Asia, intending to see Barbarossa the pirate's tomb, and Godfrey de Bouillon's plane-tree, besides a score or two of the Sultan's tinsel Italian palaces; one or two were off for the ruined Greek palace of the Blachernæ; and others were going to take horse A few other points connected with this subject and traverse the whole length of the triple rammay be worthy of notice. We have said, that be- parts, which always seemed to me to resemble fore the Court of Chancery will interfere to pro-a collection of all the old invalid English fortect a tradesman, there must have been an evident attempt to mislead the public. Now, this does not refer to the commercial, but to the ordinary public. "The way in which the court deals with these cases," said the Master of the Rolls (Romilly), "is not to see whether the manufacturers themselves should distinguish the goods sold, but whe

*

tresses, drawn up to be reviewed by old Time himself; half a dozen were for shady seclusion in the bazaars. But Rocket and the present inditer were bent on making a tour of the beautiful Turkish street fountains.

Breakfast was over, the fish had succeeded the cutlets, eggs the fish, grapes the eggs,

figs the grapes, peaches the figs; honey from Mount Hymettus, golden brown and aromatic, had sweetened the bread, and fountain water, clear and silvery, had cooled the coffee; and being now in good training for our usual liver complaint, we left the waiters covering the table with a green gauze tent, to keep off the analytical flies, and went to prepare for our long ramble-present writer, with Leghorn hat and green umbrella, shield against the sunbeams' golden arrows, which seemed to consider my head in the light of a bull's-eye; Rocket, in an eccentric costume of filmy white, white wide-awake, and with a short crooked bamboo under his arm, intended to intimidate Jew touters and repulse street dogs.

where four or five of the steamers that ply up and down the Bosphorus are lying, some of them crowded with ghostly veiled Turkish women. Before us, on the Stamboul side, are flocks of vessels, with a netted mass of spars and ropes, and here and there a flag, flowering the dark wood with colour, like the pink blossoms on the still leafless branches of the Judas-trees in the Seraglio gardens. I see miles of square windows, which glitter gold in the morning sun, to the special wonder of many a peasant, to whom the countless windows of Stamboul are said to be a special and almost a proverbial object of wonder; houses, painted red and yellow; redstriped mosques, grey domes, and everywhere against the sky-line the sharp sentinel lances of the minarets, each one, at the prayer hour, gifted with a voice, as of a warning prophet or watchful angel; everywhere among the houses, cypresses and vines, and on the suburban flat-topped chimneys, bushy stork nests.

We were just emerging from Misseri's door, where the gilt horseshoe is nailed for luck, and we were looking at the axes of the firemen hanging up in the little wooden shed of a guard-house opposite the hotel, when a sudden roar of voices, and the trample of feet round the corner of the We come to our first fountain, but before street, arrested us. Round the corner came a we can well walk round it, our attention is tearing, howling mob of some two dozen half-naked caught by two specially Oriental trades, which, Turks and Greeks, running at a pas de charge, and close by the fountain, are being carried on carrying on their shoulders a something which I with great vigour, and apparent success: the at first thought was a large musical-box, then a one, is that of a sherbet-seller; the other, that of coal-scuttle, then a banker's brass safe, and lastly, a public letter-writer. The soojee, or sherbetwhat it really was—a small fire-engine, almost the seller, is sheltered by a huge green umbrella only one, I believe, in this great city, where fires which rises like a tent above his earthen bowls are perpetual, and more destructive than in any of bruised cherries and purple weltering curother part of the world, the houses being all built rants, above his yellow-rinded lemons, his water of lath wood scarcely thicker than the sides of bottles, his porous half thawed ice, his funnels a cigar-box, and the unceasing heat of the sun, and tumblers. The coarse vandyked edge of this leaving an after glow that almost warms the rude canopy, springing from its mushroom stem moonshine, and makes them dry and com- of a pole, is presided over by a pendulous-nosed bustible. It is not an unusual thing, indeed, for Armenian, with a blue and yellow rag bandaging a thousand persons to be rendered houseless by round his sallow fez; the man has bare arms, one night's fire. Even now, as I look out be- brown slop breeches, and a tight-fitting white yond the arsenal towards the Sweet Waters of jacket. The odd man, or porter, of some great Europe, on the sloping hills that run down to house, is resting his globular water-vessel full of the Golden Horn, I see in a churchyard hil-fountain water, while he drinks some iced lemonlocky with tombstones a whole townful of burnt-ade. The only ornament about the dealer's stall is out Jews, squatting, half-starved, tearful, broken- a sort of inner tinselled raised roof, still furtherto hearted, and penniless, under their squalid white tents. King Fire is the only reformer, sanitary commissioner or improver, that exists in Turkey. There are no iron plates with "F. P. 25 ft." visible in Turkish streets, no fire insurance offices, "Hand-in-hands" or gilt Suns here, no men with axes in their belts, looking out into night skies to see if the black turns red, nothing but a miserable garden squirt, and a bawling senseless bare-legged mob, who go and see that the houses burn down fairly, or occasionally stop the flames by pulling down one or two of the mountain cigar-boxes in which the Greeks and Jews huddle together. The philosophical comment of Rocket at this sight, is worthy of the gallant young diplomat. He says, "The Turks are queer buffers."

A moment at the Bank, where I observe a sheaf of cricket-bats in the corner; a look in at the tournebroche of the English post-office, where a yawning, grumbling English clerk looks languidly over the letters, and damns the Turks; and we are at the bridge of boats,

shield the ice and currant-juice from the vertical sun. A second customer, dressed in yellow and blue, and with a white turban, stands with his back to me, sipping something. The servant has tight gaiters reaching from his knee to his ankle, and his bare feet are thrust in coarse red slippers with heavy soles. In both cases the baggy Zouave breeches swag half down the calf. The sleeves of the first man are pink, his turban is green, his breeches are blue, and his sleeveless jacket is brown. As for the proprietor of the stall, he is calmly indifferent to trade, and sits on his low stool gravely, as if entertaining his friends, and rather conferring an obligation on his customers.

Not far off, under a stuccoed wall pierced by ponderously barred gratings, sits the sagacious letter-writer, with a gossip on one side of him, and a customer on the other; three pair of huge red slippers, like crab-shells, are lying before them. The writer sits cross-legged on a thin plank platform, held up from the ground by three transverse beams, and spread with a dry hide of red and brown striped carpet, which gives it

a domestic look, though it is in the full open

streets.

The correspondent is very anxious, the writer very grave and consequential, the gossip very deferential and attentive. Before the writer are a small box of paper, reed-pens, pen-cases, inks, and seals; his chibouk has gone out; neglected in the hurry of business. The three men represent three types of Turks; the one, a bigoted, dull, day-dreamer; the letter-sender, a mean, puzzled, opium-eating knave; the centre man, a full-brained, but sorrowful, simplehearted, honest Mussulman. He looks quite the pasha with his yellow turban, red fez, lightcoloured robe, and blue-striped inner dress; the gossip, with broad red sash and purple robe, is the thorough old Turk; the correspondent is a feeble, miserable mixture of European and Asiatic dress-flapping, buttonless waistcoat, and trousers of dirty grey plaid silk. What it was that wise Abdallah wrote-whether news of hope or sorrow, of birth or death, of joy or grief-I shall never know; it has gone, like the great river of events that flows by daily. Be sure, however, that if of joy or grief, it ended with some pious ejaculation, as, "It is ordained," or, "It is decreed by Allah."

But let us get at once to our fountain. It is not such a mean little sink, guarded by sticks of black sealing-wax, as charity has provided for us in London streets; no, it is a complete institution-a sort of water-temple. It is like the gated entrance to an Eastern palace.

mere ornament or display. Generally, as in this instance, they project in a sort of bow, or apse, from the wall; sometimes, in the humbler instances, mere brass taps project from a sort of ornamental altar-piece flush with the wall. They are never quite alike, but these features all of the larger ones have in common:--an overlapping roof of extreme breadth, so as to cast the greatest possible amount of shadow; much inscription and cursive and undulating floral ornament, either painted or carved in marble; a terrace with steps round its base and tall gratings, round the lower openings of which, are chained small brass vessels to drink out of. No wonder that as people come here to bathe in shadow, and to drink the liquid coolness fresh from the well that guards it, as the melon does its inner juice, the fountain becomes, almost from necessity, a special lounge for everybody but the women. Hither come the roast chesnuts and the green peaches, the figs and the pickled cucumbers, the sherbet and the lemonade, the horse-boys and the beggars, the fakir and the guitar player, the street boy and the wild dog; here, the porter rests his luggage mountains, and the araba man looks for custom.

The inscriptions, inserted in gilt sickle-blade letters in oblong panels in front of the buildings and above their external tanks, run generally somewhat in this way:

water flows unceasingly, like his benevolence, as well for the king as the beggar, the wise man and the fool. The first of all the blessings of Allah is water."

"Rest, O traveller, for this is the fountain of enjoyment; rest here, as under the shadow of the plane-tree, for this roof casts a shade as deep as that of the cypress, but with more of This fountain, too, is a memorable fountain; joy. Ask one day of the angels in Eden if this not that it is the one from which Sultan Mah-water is not as delicious as the rivers of that moud used to send his slaves with silver vessels garden, or as the stream of Zemzem. Sultan to fetch water, which vessels, when filled, were Achmed, the second Alexander, he whose glory immediately sealed with the royal seal; it is is as the sun, and his generosity perpetually inmemorable, because of its situation. Do you see creasing, like the tree of life, has reared this that tall, narrow archway, with the inner door-kiosk and stamped it with his signet ring. This way below leading into a court-yard, with the gilt sun and royal cypher above it, and the striped red and white sentry-boxes on either side? That is the Imperial Gate of the Seragliothe Sublime Porte-from which we derive our silly name for the Turkish government. That gate has let in and out, more villains, murderers, thieves, and horrid rascals, than any gate in the world. Near it are still shown the niches where old Ali Pasha's head, and those of his family, were put for show when brought The iron gratings that shut in the fountain from Albania. Those plain, square, grated win-rooms are always specially beautiful, and genedows above, are the windows of private apart-rally of a pattern devised on purpose for the buildments. That gate leads to the Downing-street ing. They are fine as jeweller's work, and full of of Constantinople. There, are all the public the most cunning harmony of flowing lines, treoffices, with long matted passages filled with foiled and heart-shaped, and blossoming into a suitors, smoking and waiting great men's plea-thousand shapes of ingenuity and fairy-like art. The shafts between the gratings are marble, and, waist high, comes the lower wall, on the top of which rest the brass chatties.

sures.

As these poems in blue and gold, sometimes run to whole yards of verse, let this specimen suffice. To those thirsty people who can read the fish-hook and serrated Turkish characters, these fountains are perpetually chanting poems.

Now, these fountains arose either from royal magnificence (how easy it is to be generous with other people's money!), or from the bequests of Most of these fountains have a guardian who charitable people: dying Turks not unfrequently lives within, at least by day, and who sees that leaving enormous legacies, not only to build, nothing is injured or defaced. There, this vebut also to maintain fountains. Sometimes nerable Dryad hears the water rinse and trickle, they are square, isolated buildings standing as he reads his Koran, and dreams about Paraby the river-side, or usefully in the centre dise, and the future rewards of the charitable, of some market-place: never, however, for such as he who endowed the fountain.