THE modern draper's guide to wealth is a wonderful short cut. Perseverance, honesty, integrity, and such twaddle have got to be drugs in the market. To get on the highway of fortune, you must rush headlong down the Road to Ruin, continue straight on till you come to the Insolvent Court, and—there you are. Let business grow dull, and capital object—like a fat turtle—to be turned over and over, and the haberdashers have still the safe expedient left them of being ruined before taking in their spring goods. About six "fearful bankruptcies" will make an enterprising tradesman comfortable for life. There is nothing like "dreadful failure" for insuring complete success, and selling off at the most "frightful loss" is the cleverest way of getting the very handsomest profits. As for a shopkeeper writing up over his door "established these hundred years," it's sheer madness. He might as well say at once that he didn't intend selling off at 60 per cent. under prime cost. His father might have put up such a sign, but the nation has grown wiser. A clever linendraper, who wishes to succeed in business, should look cautiously at the splendid establishments of his neighbours, and then try to eclipse them all. If his rival's shop-front reaches to the second floor, let his touch the third. Double the size of the plate-glass, have fifty times more brass, and a hundred times more gas, and he will take all their business away from them as easily as a watch in a crowd. Never mind the goods, but for heaven's sake look to the French polish! Remember this—A crust on silver is known to be better than venison on crockeryware. The "extensive alteration of premises," if well advertised, will fill the house like the first night of a new theatre; velvets with cotton backs, silks thin as tracing paper, calicoes half plaster of Paris, will fetch prices higher than a murderess's ringlets. [Illustration] As soon as this novelty has died away, an enterprising tradesman should have a "disastrous fire," by way of a jolly, house-warming. Hang up a few scorched blankets outside the shop, with a placard stating that 20,000 are for sale, and down will rush the ladies like sparrows to a pea-sowing. Dresses soiled a little in one corner—so as not to show—by the water from the engines in the back scullery—will look _dirt_ cheap at twice their original price. [Illustration: ALARMING SACRIFICE ]