The shops were small, open in front, when the shutters were down, much like those in a Cairo bazaar, and all the goods were in sight.  The shopkeepers stood in front and cried their wares, and besought customers.  Until 1568 there were but few silk shops in London, and all those were kept by women.  It was not till about that time that citizens’ wives ceased to wear white knit woolen caps, and three-square Minever caps with peaks.  In the beginning of Elizabeth’s reign the apprentices (a conspicuous class) wore blue cloaks in winter and blue gowns in summer; unless men were threescore years old, it was not lawful to wear gowns lower than the calves of the legs, but the length of cloaks was not limited.  The journeymen and apprentices wore long daggers in the daytime at their backs or sides.  When the apprentices attended their masters and mistresses in the night they carried lanterns and candles, and a great long club on the neck.  These apprentices were apt to lounge with their clubs about the fronts of shops, ready to take a hand in any excitement —­to run down a witch, or raid an objectionable house, or tear down a tavern of evil repute, or spoil a playhouse.  The high-streets, especially in winter-time, were annoyed by hourly frays of sword and buckler-men; but these were suddenly suppressed when the more deadly fight with rapier and dagger came in.  The streets were entirely unlighted and dangerous at night, and for this reason the plays at the theatres were given at three in the afternoon.

About Shakespeare’s time many new inventions and luxuries came in:  masks, muffs, fans, periwigs, shoe-roses, love-handkerchiefs (tokens given by maids and gentlewomen to their favorites), heath-brooms for hair-brushes, scarfs, garters, waistcoats, flat-caps; also hops, turkeys, apricots, Venice glass, tobacco.  In 1524, and for years after, was used this rhyme

        “Turkeys, Carpes, Hops:  Piccarel, and beers,
        Came into England:  all in one year.”

There were no coffee-houses as yet, for neither tea nor coffee was introduced till about 1661.  Tobacco was first made known in England by Sir John Hawkins in 1565, though not commonly used by men and women till some years after.  It was urged as a great medicine for many ills.  Harrison says, 1573, “In these days the taking in of the smoke of the Indian herb called ‘Tabaco,’ by an instrument formed like a little ladle, whereby it passeth from the mouth into the head and stomach, is greatly taken up and used in England, against Rewmes and some other diseases engendered in the lungs and inward parts, and not without effect.”  It’s use spread rapidly, to the disgust of James I. and others, who doubted that it was good for cold, aches, humors, and rheums.  In 1614 it was said that seven thousand houses lived by this trade, and that L 399,375 a year was spent in smoke.  Tobacco was even taken on the stage.  Every base groom must have his pipe; it was sold in all inns and ale-houses, and the shops of apothecaries, grocers, and chandlers were almost never, from morning till night, without company still taking of tobacco.