The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1869-04-07
COMMERCIAL AGENCIES.

Manutnctured ana destroyed.
From lengthy article on commercial agen-
following extracts:-
DETAILS OF THE sYsTBM.
The information dispensed by these retail
dealers In commercial regulations Is collected
by various means. One leading firm prefers 20
employ lawyers, and in every village has as it's
agent the village pFactioner, who, being au ia"
in the affairs OF M clients, is supposed to be
most competent authority as to their financial
standing Having no interest in the affairs of
the central agency beyond what he can make
out Of IL by hook or by crook, the agent takes
NO trouble to collect information, merely jot-
ting down impressions hastily formed aud
transmitting them as accurate data. OF his
friends he takes care, of courses but let the
store at which he trades, as the country phrase
is, once refuse him a long credit, and the pro-
prietor is doomed to the loss of reputation In
the New York market. Or worse, the agent
visits the head Of the firm and presents his
credentials insiHuating that it would give him
pleasure TO make himself Of advantage to it
FOR a consideration, and thus turns the insti-
tuition he represents into a vehicle for
levying blackmail. That one Of these
results generally follows is obvious
from the nature of the case. The agent has
no interest in taking the trouble to secure ac-
Curate information; he has an interest in
making all he can out of the advantages
afforded him. 1t is not long since the writer
had opportunity Of proving the truth of these
allegations from inspection of the books Of
leading firm. In a single manufacturing town
in New Englsud one firm which had failed
four weeks before was rated safe, while
another firm of heavy capital and managed by
able business men was rated below halt a
dozen other frms which could hardly be so-
counted solvent. In the town tested there
were thirteen manufactures in ALL and
more absurd tumble of error than was repre-
sented by their rating was never exhibited
under the pretense of accurate information.
The agent, who was, or ought to have been,
responsible for the inform alton, was also per-
sonally known to the writer, and took no
further trouble in the matter than to re-
turn by mail his impressions in the mat
ter, without even the ceremony of in
quiriDg to assure himself to their correctness.
The above Ia only one case in a hundred
thousand, probably, and is mentioned only as
. case which came under the writer's personal
notice. In fact, the agent is generally unac
quainted with the heads of the agency he re-
presents, and cares not a straw for their in
terests, SO long as his personal ends can be
subserved. The legal agent is literally remu-
nerated with promises by the firm, of which
he is the accredited correspondent. His name
ts placed upon the books, and the firm
promises to recommend him as a collector in
case any city customer of theirs should need
the services of collector in his vicinity. This
is the substance of the terms of the compact
when the agent employed is lawyer.
One Of the three or four firms mentioned
employs business men in preference. The
system is to have several agents in every city
and town. For reports in the dry goods bu-
siness person engaged in that trade is en-
ployed; for reports OF other lines of business
an expert in the line to be reported is written
to and becomes the correspondent Of the CEN
tral agency. In smaller towns, where no ex-
tensive trade is carried on, it is customary to
receive reports from bankers who are sup
posed to be au fat as to bank accounts, and
therefore competent authority. This system,
1t Is evident is even more dangerous than the
other, since 1t affords men in any line Of bust
ness the very best opportunities to destroy
the credit of a rival in the New York market,
and that, too, without the slightest liability
to action for libel. The information to be i'm
parted is Onfdential-strictly so-and no way
Of redress is open except that Of horse whip
ping the agent in question, which, however,
in no degree mends the broken vessel OF
credit; and hence, unless the rival is pos
sessed of sufficient capital to pay cash, his
business languishts through depletion OF
stock, and final failure results.
Either system evidently carries with it every
predispOsing cause for inaccuraoy of informa-
tion. If the agent has no personal ends to
subserve he contents himself with transmit
ting his impressions in the rough, without
inquiry, reproducing the gossip of the hour,
which may or may not be well founded, and
no more. II he has any petty spite to crafty
he gratifes it; if any firm is willing to pay
literally for first class rating he rates 1t first
GLASS, regardless of the facts; il he has a rival
in business who is to be destroyed he begins
the work by impugning the credit of his rival
in the New York market, and trusts to Provi-
dence or the bridge at Stirling to carry him
safe overin completing what he has thus begun.
Yet information, or something so called, gather
ed by these means, is gravely retailed in the New
York market as authentic by firms the heads Of
which are aware, II they have any common
sense knowledge of human nature in their
oraniums, OF its utter unreliability and of its
absolute libelousness in majority of cases.
OF loftier pretenss, fulfilled in manner more
beggarly the annals of business Bsrnumism
afford no example. Even the quaokery Of the
ouaek doctor is innocent, compared with the
workings of this mighty engine of misrepre-
sentatiOn and inuendo, which assassinates
commercial relations in secret, leaving no
avenue Of redress to the injured party. No
body-neither agency or AGENTS responsible
for inaccuracy of information.
INTERNAL ORGAN IzArIoN.
A visit to the spacious and many -desked
rooms of Jenny Yardstick x Son, or of Dunn
Brown & Co., or OF McKilIen x Plague, or of
Hurt, Galiows & Co., results in about the
same budget of memoranda. All issue regu-
lar semi. yearly almanac of commercial ratings
Ponderous tones line the walls at intervals;
multitudinous pigeon-holes are stuffed with
documents purportiDg to represent CONNER
eial regulations; busy bees Of clerks on small
salaries fit to and fro, and now and then
drops seedy city agent with valuable item