To be netted with German knitting cotton, and the figures darned in.

On the afternoon of a dull November day, in the late dull autumn, we were purchasing some trifle at one of the thronged counters at Stewart's, when we accidentally heard that it was the last week" down town."

Being of the constant conservative temperament that ever deprecates change, whether it is of an article of furniture, a boot maker, or a place of residence, we strolled with a lingering regret, almost amounting to sadness, through those noble saloons for "the last time," calling up the changes that had passed our individual life, since our first bewildered glimpse as a school-girl fresh from the country, of their gay and animated scenes-let us be candid, sixteen years ago!-and the social transition that called for the meditated removal. Then, "Stewart's," opposite the Park, was in the centre of the retail trade; above Canal was up town for general shopping purposes. Now, no one goes below, and the great "quarter"-in which this thronged emporium of spring and fall shoppers stands—is given up, as is "the city," in London to the roar of heavy traffic, and the whirl of vast commercial transactions. They have driven the butterflies from the haunts of trade; the gay equipages and flashing harness give place to the solid dray, or the rattling express; boxes encumber the sidewalk, so lately echoing to the patter of pretty feet, and the light toilets of our "lilies of the field" cease to brighten the anxious, care-worn crowd that throng the public ways. Shall we live to see "below Fourteenth" voted out of reach, and a new Stewart's arise fronting Central Park?

On the morning of Nov. 10th, a sunshiny day at last, after a week of storm and English fog, we drove past the deserted palace, which must VOL. LXVI.-34

have waked wonderingly that morning to its echoing desolation. Groups of surprised and disconcerted looking females patrolled the steps, tried the various entrances, and at last discovered, from the huge placards, that this was a feminine Stewart's no longer. Henceforth it was given over to unpicturesque buyers of the wholesale.

We designed then, and have recently put into execution, an intention of visiting the new establishment for the benefit of our distant readers who have not an opportunity of seeing with their own eyes. They may congratulate themselves on being saved some physical fatigue, if our pen can photograph its scenes so as to give them some idea of "up town Stewart's."

The building itself, like its predecessor, is of white marble, and looms up purely at the angle of Broadway, occupied by Grace Church, between Ninth and Tenth Streets. It does not yet occupy the whole block, that is left for the hereafter. We will enter on Ninth Street, for this corner is built round, and then have a gradual interior view. We find ourselves instantly in the midst of business. This entrance or lobby is occupied by the package department, where many busy hands are checking, tossing and bearing off for delivery the hundreds of neatly enveloped parcels, stamped, signed, countersigned, and registered to prevent mistakes, to their various places of destination; a most important and beautifully regulated department, and one where great strictness and accuracy are of necessity required, when the whole enormous trade is "retail."

A wide staircase, with a neat mahogany balustrade, apparently ascends to the top of the 429

building from this entrance; but we are going below, and descending one flight, come upon a room where great brown rolls of oilcloth, twenty, thirty, and forty feet long, are piled like rows of pipes or leaders near an aqueduct terminus; past these, and we enter the wide carpet room, below the level of the busy street, yet as finely lighted on a sunny day as though intended for the sale of silks or satins. How is this managed?

You noticed a pavement of glass running all around the building as you stepped from the sidewalk; knobs of little glass, but so securely set in its close iron framing, and so thickly moulded, that you trod on it as securely as if it had been stone. That is the transparent roof of the recess or gallery that surrounds the room, and from it comes this soft clear daylight; no windows you perceive, unless these great slabs of the same substance underfoot, in the shape of huge windows, occurring at regular intervals beneath the glass roofing, can be called so. They are, indeed, and light a floor still lower, thirty feet under ground, where carpets are stored until required in this the salesroom devoted to them exclusively. Carpets of every degree are spread out upon the wide floor, or ranged in regular order against the wall; from the cotton and woollen plaids, still found upon the floors of the farmer's cheerful sitting-room, to the gorgeous velvet medallions, thick sewn with tropical blossoming, or reproduced from the bewildering lenses of the kaleidoscope, in all their phantasy of form and richness of coloring. Here, by an ingenious contrivance, like the leaves of a huge volume slowly turning, we can choose conveniently from the cumbersome rolls of oilcloth just past; there, as we make the circuit of the room, and mark its depth and breadth, and the graceful Corinthian columns of iron, pure in color as marble, that bear up the fearful weight above them, are piled the luxurious hassocks, on which the rich man kneels to pray in Grace Church yonder; the soft Persian mats that muffle the footfalls of his chamber, or the velvet rugs on which bask "dogs and game," or an antlered deer couchant, in the brilliant coloring of life, before his glowing grates.

We are passing on to the staircase on the Tenth Street side, and conveniently near it is a neatly decorated ladies' dressing room of good dimensions, a most admirable thought! of which we make special mention.

Emerging from this staircase, we come at once upon the busy scene. This is the main saloon, entered directly from the street, and

lighted on all sides by walls of plate-glass windows, the light tempered by plain blue shades. No array of laces, and shawls, and silks are displayed temptingly before them, as in other establishments.

"Le bon vin

Needs no sign.”

Not even a tendril of enticement is outwardly put forth here.

At first the hum, the stir, the flashing, changing crowd, prevents anything like a survey in detail; but presently we come to see that there are four departments, or parallel ranges of low shelves, that separate but do not divide the wide space which occupies all the floor, save that one division towards Ninth Street, against which the principal staircase is placed. These divisions are cut in two by a central aisle, running from Tenth towards Ninth Street, and are entered by doors from Broadway fronting them. As we come from the carpet room, we are the first division, with a long scarlet-covered oval counter directly before us, the glove department. We know it to our cost. We have worn no other gloves but Alexandre's since those schoolgirl days, and Stewart monopolizes his manufacture. Let us acknowledge our one feminine extravagance-a costly self-indulgence with gloves at $1 50 (they were seventy-five cents when we made our first investment in a pair for examination day), and those of the plainest. "Stitched backs" are $1 60; thanks to the rates of foreign exchange! We are not surprised at being told that the business of this counter alone is $300,000 yearly. The other half of the first division is occupied by niuslin and cambric embroidered lingerie of all descriptions, and laces, from the neat Valenciennes collar at $2 50, to the Brussels points (shawls) at $100, or $1000, as required.

In the second division we find, on the right as you enter from Broadway, merinoes and all wool goods.; opposite are reps, poplins, and fancy fabrics in woollen and cotton, woollen and silk, etc. Beyond the dividing aisle, cheaper mixed fabrics; and opposite them again, one side of the hollow square, which incloses the cashier's desk, divided, yet not concealed from the crowd by a particularly light and graceful screen of iron filagree, painted white. Here is another kindly convenience for ladies-a desk where an order, a note, an address, or a despatch may be written at ease, and intruding upon the time and attention of none. There is a corresponding one on the opposite side of the inclosure.

And here “cash boys most do congregate,”