The Canton mail. [volume] (Canton, Miss.) 18??-1882, 1876-07-08
GREAT SHOP-KEEPELS.


GREAT SHOP-KEEPERS.
In Scribner for July, DR.. Holland says
that A. L. Stewards business was one
which he did not do, without depress-
ing influence upon all who were de-
pendent upon the same business for
livelihood. His great establishment was
shadow that hung over all the Others
twenty thousand dollars; the man with
hundred thousand dollars the man
with one thousand dollars, each, alike,
was obliged to compete with this man,
stiles of his enormous business. The
hosier, the halter, the woman in her
thread-and-needle shop, the milliner,
the glove dealer, the carpet dealer, the
upholsterer, all were obliged to COM
pete with Stewart. If he had followed
q single line of business, it would have
been different; but he followed all lines.
Wherever he saw profit to be made,
in any line of business that was at all
congruous with dry-goods, he made it.
He thus became formidable competitor
with half the shop-keepers in New York.
His capital made it possible for him to
ruin men by the turn of his hand,-to
fix prices at which everybody was obliged
to sell at whatever loss. However
proud the New Yorker may have been
of his wonderful establishment,-an
there is no doubt that it was pretty
universally regarded with pride,-it is
easy now to see, in this period of unex-
ampled depression, that our business
men at large would be in much better
condition if that establishment had
never existed. If all the money that
has gone to swell his useless estate had
been divided among small dealers, hun
dreds of stores, now idle, would be oc-
cupied and multitudes OF men now in
straitened circumstances, would be COM
paratively prosperous.
"But it is said that he employed a
great many people. Yes, he did; but
did he pay them well Would they not
have been better paid in the employ of
others? The necessities of his position,
and his ambition, compelled him to pay
small prices. The great mass of those
who served him worked hard for the
bread that fed them, and the clothes that
covered them. The public bought
cheaply; the outside dealers suffered !;
the employees laid up no money, and
Mr.. Stewart got rich. Under the cir
cumstances, and under the necessities of
the case, was it desirable that he should
get rich We think not; and we think
that the final result of this great shop
keeping success is deplorable in every
way. 1t has absorbed the properties of
great multitude of men and women.
New York would be richer, happier,
more comfortable more healthy in all
its business aspects, if the great store at
Tenth street had never been built. Five
hundred men who invest their little
capital in the varied lines of business,
and pay their modest rent, and devote
their time to their affairs, content with
profits that give them and their families
fair living and few savings for a
rainy day. are certainly better for a city
than single Stewart, who absorbs their
business and leaves them in distress"
HARD TIMES ABROAD.
Speaking Of the present unsatisfactory
condition of business affairs throughout
England, and particularly in London,
the last number of the Saturday Review
philosophers in this strain:
London is less gay because London is
less rich, and that London should be SC
far less rich as to have begun to make
current history Of the country. The
wealth of the provinces is poured inte
London, and when London shows the
pressure of dull times there can be nj
doubt that times are very dull through
out England. 1t is not that any grea
calamity is weighing on the country, bu
number of small adverse causes hav.
produced large unfavorable result. W.
are not in the midst of commercial cri
sis, and if trade is more limited, it il
sounder that it used to be. People ar,
not so much ruined as hit, and the mum
Der Of people who have been hit in variou
ways is enormous. Large losses hav,
been sustained by the holders of foreign
bonds, and may have been accustomed t,
live merrily on precarious incomes hav,
found their resources suddenly at an end
But this is an element in the general ag
gregate of impecuniosity the importanc
of which may be easily exaggerated
London is not much affected by the mise
ries of Turkish and Peruvian bondhold
ers, and it is not until the home trad
and home revenues are affected tina
economy becomes transparent. II is bt
cause steady people are suffering tina
London show signs of Distress"
THE SLAVE TRADE.
Intelligence from west Africa show
that the suppression of the slave trad
on the cost by the English is sendin
thousands of poor creatures to crue
and miserable death at the hands of ne
gro chiefs. These kings, as they ar
| called without reason. no Ionper able +