"Edward Bellamy. Lookimg Backward From 2000 to 1887" - читать интересную книгу автора

"Father calls me an indefatigable shopper, but I should soon
be a very fatigued one if I had to do as they did," was Edith's
laughing comment.

"The loss of time in going from shop to shop was indeed a
waste which the busy bitterly complained of," I said; "but as for
the ladies of the idle class, though they complained also, I think
the system was really a godsend by furnishing a device to kill
time."

"But say there were a thousand shops in a city, hundreds,
perhaps, of the same sort, how could even the idlest find time to
make their rounds?"

"They really could not visit all, of course," I replied. "Those
who did a great deal of buying, learned in time where they might
expect to find what they wanted. This class had made a science
of the specialties of the shops, and bought at advantage, always
getting the most and best for the least money. It required,
however, long experience to acquire this knowledge. Those who
were too busy, or bought too little to gain it, took their chances
and were generally unfortunate, getting the least and worst for
the most money. It was the merest chance if persons not
experienced in shopping received the value of their money."

"But why did you put up with such a shockingly inconvenient
arrangement when you saw its faults so plainly?" Edith asked
me.

"It was like all our social arrangements," I replied. "You can
see their faults scarcely more plainly than we did, but we saw no
remedy for them."

"Here we are at the store of our ward," said Edith, as we
turned in at the great portal of one of the magnificent public
buildings I had observed in my morning walk. There was
nothing in the exterior aspect of the edifice to suggest a store to
a representative of the nineteenth century. There was no display
of goods in the great windows, or any device to advertise wares,
or attract custom. Nor was there any sort of sign or legend on
the front of the building to indicate the character of the business
carried on there; but instead, above the portal, standing out
from the front of the building, a majestic life-size group of
statuary, the central figure of which was a female ideal of Plenty,
with her cornucopia. Judging from the composition of the
throng passing in and out, about the same proportion of the
sexes among shoppers obtained as in the nineteenth century. As
we entered, Edith said that there was one of these great
distributing establishments in each ward of the city, so that no