Fayette County herald. [volume] (Washington [Washington Court House], Fayette County, O. [Ohio]) 1860-1???, 1874-03-19
For the Herald
DemagOgueiSRA.

MEsSRs EDIToRs:-I have carefully read
the Trade Place articles in your three last
issues, and for the life of me, I cannot dis
cover what the writer is driving or writing
at. He makes some sweeping assertions,
by inference at least, which think no sane
business man could do, and which I am
sure no sane, rejecting man will gulp
down as radically correct, and were it not
that the subject was one of solid business
would conclude that the writer was la
boring under some strange hallucination,
or an attack Of business nightmare, COM
Functions of conscience for extraYagant
profits made in the sale of goods at some
time OF place, and desiring to appease the
injured cause of justice, was trying to make
amends by exposing 'the tricks of trade, .
known to no other person in the mer-
chantile business but himself
In jamestown such profits as 60 and 80
per cent. might have been made, or even in
Washington a per cent. approximating to
that enormous amount might have been
realized by SOME person dealing IN dam
aged goods, but even in such a case it
would be hard to induce people to suck
down such Baron Munchansen stories and
believe that merchants, as a class, are
thieves, combined to steal from their IN
suspecting customers. There is another
phase in the consideration of these Trade
Place 'gudgeon baits,'' which stamps them
as the wild fancies of distorted brain, and
that fact is that our people are readers, and
the wholesale prices of nearly everything
sold by our merchants, grocers, etc, is
quoted In extenso in almost every issue OF
the daily papers, so that the reader who de-
sires to be informed what per cent. he pays
his merchant or grocer, can learn to frac-
ton by consulting the prices current, and
if he does so, he will discover that often
calicOes, muslins and staple goods, can be
purchased in our town at retail as low as
they are quoted at wholesale.
/ But, Messrs. Editors, have conversed
with several of our merchants, and imag-
inc that there is not one of them who real
ICES over an average of twenty per cent.
| (unless it may be the author of Trade
Place papers) and out of that twenty per
cent clerk hire, rent, insurance and Incl
dental expenses are to be deducted. II
every buyer would pay cash, or even
promptly, every three or six months, be-
lieve that goods could be sold a little
lower, but not much, if the Give and lei
live' principle is carried into practice.
To answer the Trade Place effusioRs
would consume time and space more than
I care about wasting upon the moonshine
vagaries of man who essays in a whole
sale manner to brand our business men az
swindlerS, Qor that is the "hard PAM o
Trade Place papers.) The same man, too
who, for years in another town, and on
year at least in this, extorted from his Gus
toners the same Kind of extortionate pric
es, but being seized with spasmodic Fl
of generosity, now desires to make the peO
pie believe he is anxious to sell goods 70
accommodation snly and not as mean
of earning livelihood, to say nothing G
amassing competency or laying up some
thing for 'a rainy day"
Our farmers and citizens cannot be guile
by such clap-trap as emanates from Trad
Place, (so-called) because most of tn
goods-buying people have travelled som
and know that wherever mock auction
exist, and an oYerweaning desire to ber
eft the ''dear people, there is the pIac
above all others to keep your hand on yor
pocket book. But am extending this a
ticle to too great length, and will clos
by lone Word,' as the preachers say. N
man is such fool to imagine that an
other man is such a self-sacrifcing patri
as to do business for the fun of it, and hov
ever much love may be expressed for tt
public in gushing effusions, there is alway
self at the bottom, and the people genera
> ly conclude that the greatest hypoeri
makes the loudest noise for purpo
:, which every one appreciates and unde
stands. JABEz
March Is, 1874.