One of the curiosities of any Age is the things that people assume are New. A generation arises and discovers phenomena that surely nobody before had ever seen. Those with a bit of knowledge of history know that there really is nothing new under the sun, but the shocked indignation or rejoicing at discovery about things which were ever thus continues apace.
Consider the complaints about Wal-Mart and Home Depot and Amazon destroying all the family businesses in your favorite town. Shop Local signs pop up all over town as people rally to keep the small concerns going while the Faceless Behemoths inexorably destroy the fabric of the community. When did these behemoths start destroying commerce? Well, obviously when Sam Walton began his Imperial Ambitions and Jeff Bezos took over the internet.
Or, maybe it was in 1905.
Everybody who has moved about the world at all knows Ring’s Come-one Come-all Up-to-date Stores. The main office is in New York. Broadway, to be exact, on the left as you go down, just before you get to Park Row, where the newspapers come from. There is another office in Chicago. Others in St. Louis, St. Paul, and across the seas in London, Paris, Berlin, and, in short, everywhere. The peculiar advantage about Ring’s Stores is that you can get anything you happen to want there, from a motor to a macaroon, and rather cheaper than you could get it anywhere else. England had up to the present been ill-supplied with these handy paradises, the one in Piccadilly being the only extant specimen.
Oliver Ring fixed that in 1905. The sleepy town of Wrykyn, notable mostly for the nearby boarding school, was one of the first English towns to witness the arrival of the American chain.
The sensation among the tradesmen caused by the invasion was, as may be imagined, immense and painful. The thing was a public disaster. It resembled the advent of a fox in a fowl-run. For years the tradesmen of Wrykyn had jogged along in their comfortable way, each making his little profits, with no thought of competition or modern hustle. And now the enemy was at their doors. Many were the gloomy looks cast at the gaudy building as it grew like a mushroom. It was finished with incredible speed, and then advertisements began to flood the local papers.
Yes, despite the fact that this could be an NPR story of a small town in 21st Century, it was written over a century ago by that noted economic reporter, P.G. Wodehouse.
The story “An International Affair” is one of the Wodehouse’s early schoolboy tales. The lads at the boarding school take note of the new improved store and, not surprisingly flock to it. The Hero of our tale, Dunstable, laments this sad state of affairs.
“You see they advertise a special ‘public-school’ tea, as they call it. It sounds jolly good. I don’t know what buckwheat cakes are, but they ought to be decent. I suppose now everybody’ll chuck Cook’s and go there. It’s a beastly shame, considering that Cook’s has been a sort of school shop so long. And they really depend on the school. At least, one never sees anybody else going there. Well, I shall stick to Cook’s. I don’t want any of your beastly Yankee invaders. Support home industries. Be a patriot. The band then played God Save the King, and the meeting dispersed. But, seriously, man, I am rather sick about this. The Cooks are such awfully good sorts, and this is bound to make them lose a tremendous lot. The school’s simply crawling with chaps who’d do anything to get a good tea cheaper than they’re getting now. They’ll simply scrum in to this new place.”
Again, you could take that speech right out of this story, switch “Cook’s” to the name of your local haunt, and use it the next time you want to complain about the Large Retail Establishment de jour.
Dunstable’s friend is stoically resigned to failure. “‘Well, I don’t see what we can do,’ said Linton, ‘except keep on going to Cook’s ourselves. Let’s be going now, by the way. We’ll get as many chaps as we can to promise to stick to them. But we can’t prevent the rest going where they like. Come on.’”
Now you can decide. On the one hand we have Cook’s owned and staffed by wonderful people who provide excellent service with a smile. On the other hand, you have this Giant American Conglomerate, owned by a rapacious individual with no sense of beauty and managed by a cad. If you aren’t convinced, Dunstable tales to the manager, asking if maybe they could leave a bit of business for Cook’s. The reply: “‘One moment, sir,’ said the man from the States. ‘Let me remind you of a little rule which will be useful to you when you butt into the big, cold world. That is, never let sentiment interfere with business. See? Either Ring’s Stores or your friend has got to be on top, and, if I know anything, it’s going to be We.’”
For those of you rooting for Cook’s, fear not. Dunstable is a clever lad. He poisons a bunch of his classmates who dine at Ring’s and the Headmaster then prohibits anyone from the school from ever eating at Ring’s again. The moral? All is fair in love and war? Perhaps it should come with the warning: “Kids, Don’t Try This at Home.”
P.G. Wodehouse is, to put it mildly, a comic genius. But, he was also a keen observer of society, which was one the reasons his comedy hits home so often. Tales of Wrykyn and Elsewhere is a collection of his early stories before he hit his comic stride. If you want a snapshot of the antics of boys plotting against headmasters, there are plenty of quaint stories herein.
A footnote: the collection also includes a rather amusing pair of stories from St Asterisk’s mocking Sherlock Holmes. Truth be told, it is surprising that Wodehouse never developed this theme into a full length novel. In the stories Wotsing (who is obviously Watson) is the superior intellect, wryly observing the Holmes stand-in (Burdock Rose), who constantly looks for ridiculously complicated explanations of incredibly simple occurrences. The characters are underdeveloped, and both stories are short. But, if you imagine a story with a larger-than-life Uncle Fred-like figure as Sherlock Holmes, you can see the possibility here.
I know the later Wodedouse. Wooster and Jeeves are iconic. Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie were perfect in those roles.
PS: More than a few have tilted parodically at the Holmes legend. I remember an anthology done by science-fiction authors a few decades ago. Unfortunately, only the wonderful names they came up with remains. And of that, only a shadow.