" THE TRADE."
[To TIM EDITOR Or THE "SPECTATOR."] Stn,—Your article upon " The Drink Problem" leads me to ask : When was it, and by whom, that the liquor interest was first called distinctively "The Trade"? In Sir Walter Scott's
correspondence, as Lockhart's Life shows, " The Trade" is always—perltps it naturally would be—the book-trade. It is so, too, in a passage of Professor Wilson's (Christopher North's) Nodes Ambrosianae, as edited by his son-in-law, Pro- fessor Ferrier, for there the following conversation occurs :— " Tickler. Colburn has published many valuable and successful books within these few years, and I wish him that success in his trade which his enterprising spirit deserves. North. So do I, and here's The Trade,' if you please, in a bumper."
To the passage is appended a footnote : " The Book-trade is the trade par excellence" (Vol. I., p. 189). It seems a pity that the meaning of " The Trade" should have sunk from literature to liquor.—I am, Sir, &c., J. E. C. WELLDON. The Deanery, Manchester.
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