From: "Seerialmom" 
Newsgroups: alt.consumers misc.consumers.house misc.consumers uk.people.consumers misc.consumers.frugal-living
Subject: Re: A Short History of Shopping
Date: 27 Dec 2006 10:27:52 -0800
   posting-account=tLsavw0AAABwvJPOYtrFfsaGJUACz5Zi


KW wrote:
> In older England the merchant class had many easy-going traditions. One
> tradition was that a respectable tradesman would never seek business
> but wait for it to come to him. Another tradition was that to decorate
> one's store window with lights or colors, or to display one's stock of
> goods attractively in the view of the public, was a contemptible and
> underhanded method of tempting a brother tradesman's customers away
> from him. Still another tradition was that it was strictly unethical
> and unbusinesslike to handle more than one line of goods. If one sold
> tea, it was the best reason in the world why he should not sell
> teaspoons. As for advertising, the thing would have been so brazen and
> bold that public opinion would have put the advertiser out of business.
> The proper demeanor for a merchant was to seem reluctant to part with
> his goods.
>
> One may readily imagine what happened when the Jewish merchant bustled
> into the midst of this jungle of traditions. He simply broke them all.
> In those days tradition had all the force of a divinely promulgated
> moral law and in consequence of his initiative the Jew was regarded as
> a great offender. A man who would break those trade traditions would
> stop at nothing! The Jew was anxious to sell. If he could not sell one
> article to a customer, he had another on hand to offer him.
>
> The Jews' stores became bazaars, forerunners of our modern department
> stores, and the old English custom of one store for one line of goods
> was broken up. The Jew went after trade, pursued it, persuaded it. He
> was the originator of "a quick turnover and small profits." He
> originated the
> installment plan. The one state of affairs he could not endure was
> business at a standstill, and to start it moving he would do anything.
> He was the first advertiser-in a day when even to announce in the
> public prints the location of your store was to intimate to the public
> that you were in financial difficulties, were about to go to the wall
> and were trying the last desperate expedient to which no
> self-respecting merchant would stoop.
>
> It was as easy as child's play to connect this energy with dishonesty.
> The Jew was not playing the game, at least so the staid English
> merchant thought. As a matter of fact he was playing the game to get it
> all in his own hands-which he has practically done.

Where's your footnote or site reference?  How do we know you didn't
just make all of this up? :)  Or how do we know you didn't write this
as a veiled anti-semetic rant?