The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1875-11-01
THE MERCANTILE AGENCY.
The Nature and Methods Of its Business
Explained.

In calling the attention of our business men
to the advertisement of removal of the Mercan-
tile Agency, few words to the general public
may serve to enlighten many to whom the
name adopted for the institution would convey
no idea of the nature or method of the business.
1t is an ontgrowth of modern civilization and
the necessities of business of the present day
and together with the express business, pecul-
lar, we believe, to this country.
The founder was the late Lewis Tappan of
New York, who, with notifications to suit the
plan to the wants of houses in various kinds of
business, in fact continued a system of infor-
nation that had been found useful and profta-
BILE in the large dry goods business of his firm.
At that time, 1871. the settled territory
of the United States requiring to be covered ex-
tended nowhere beyond the Rocky Mountains,
and Wisconsin was frontier state. At the
same date there were not above fifty or sixty
business concerns in Chicago. The growth of
the Mercantile Agency pari passu with the
growth of the country has permitted the enter
prising managers to mature AID perfect their
system by degrees, attaining to measure of
accuracy, thoroughness and reliability that
would be next to impossible were the system
one to be adopted de novo at the present day.
From basis of the three cities of New York,
Boston and Philadelphia, the agency is now
located in sixty cities of this country, in the
chief cities of Canada and in the commercial
capitals of Europe. The present proprietors
were mostly co-operators with Mr.. Tappan at
the inception of the business. Its purpose and
aim are to facilitate mercantile transactions be-
they may be, by vast body Of information as
to the business history, property, home char
acter experience, &c., of all such as are or may
be, applicants to anybody for credit, such par
ticulars as are and always have been the subject
of inquiry between neighbor and nelghbor, or
mercantile correspondents. This information
obtained through local correspondents and by
extensive travelling by employees of the agency,
is recorded in suitable records with indexes, and
systematically revised at stated periods, besides
which from day to day there flows in an in.
creasing stream of special facts, items and
events which directly fall into their proper
place to be preserved for future use of subscrib-
ers, having first been notified to such as they
may Immediately interest. The amount of de.
tail involved in the business, as above briefly
indicated, appears to be enormous, but COM
paratively new feature. that of the Mercantile
Agency Reference Book, which has been issued
twice or more in each year for the past twelve
years. adds yet more to the vast labor under
taken by these offices. The book is printed
by movable types, requiring for its production
more than thirty-fve tons of metal, and en-
braces the names with ratings of upward Of
100000 individuals and firms in the United
States and Canada. The detailed record infor-
nation furnishes the basis for the ratings in
this work, which is recommended by the pub
fishers for ready reference and other occasions,
but as of inferior value and importance to the
records While the book can be only OCCASION
ally or periodically renewed, the records are in
process of daily renewal. The above outline
would not be complete without mention of the
collection department of the agency, being fer
the collection or adjustment of overdue claims
by means of their extensive correspondence,
knowledge of circumstances of debtors, &C.,
and which We understand is, with small profit
to the proprietors, rapidly taking the place of
other less satisfactory and reliable methods of
gathering up the fragments.
We had the intention at the outset to remark
upon the elegance of the new quarters in which
the agency is established, the great conven-
fences and ingenious appliances-the result of
long experience of the managers in the BUSH
ness-but think it better to advise our business
men, and all such should-te patrons of the
Office, to visit it themselves, and through the
courtesy of the able manager in this city, Mr..
I. Frank Jones, have it explained and illus
trated to them in person.