“…the world has gone past me. I don’t blame it; but I no longer understand it. Tradesmen are not the same as they used to be, apprentices are not the same, business is not the same, business commodities are not the same. Seven-eighths of my stock is old-fashioned. I am an old-fashioned man in an old-fashioned shop, in a street that is not the same as I remember it. I have fallen behind the time, and I am too old to catch it again.”
~Charles Dickens, taken from “Dombey and Son”
This photograph is a remarkable reminder of how simple things like street lamps frightened conventional businessmen and their traditional business practices. Lamenting this significant change, many businessmen simply threw in the towel and acknowledged that they had not the wherewithal to deal with the profound pace of change that would allow people to shop outside of normal business hours.
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