The Donaldsonville chief., 1877-05-19
Our New York Letter.
The Sewing Machine Drop
NIacy-The Dog ShOw-Fasfl-
ions.

EDITOR CHIEF:
The most interesting thing that has
happened for many years, is the drop
| in sewing machines. The business
has been controlled for years by a
ring organized by two or three of the
largest companies, who in the early
years of the business succeeded in
getting control of the points without
which no machine can be made. These
companies compelled all the others to
pay royalties, and really kept great
many out of the field by refusing to
license them at all. Last Tuesday all
these patents expired, and now the
trade in sewing machines is free and
unincumbered. That the burden i'm
posed by this ring may be understood,
I may say that one company has paid
in the last ten years nearly million
of dollars. But the great trouble
with the business has been the credit
system and the enormous expense of
selling. The commissions paid to
agents mount up terribly, and then
most of the machines have been sold
on two years credit, on what are called
leases, the company owning the ma
chine until it is paid for. There was
the loss of interest on the vast capital
this system necessitated, and there
was the enormous expense of detect
ives, collectors and processes to re-
cover, all of which made the business
of selling machine, the first cost of
which was perhaps $50, for $40, not
very profitable. All this changes.
The Weed company reduced the price
of machines nearly half, the day the
patents expired, and all the other COM
panies who make machines competing
with ir, were forced to follow suit.
They intend, as far as practicable, to
bring the business down to cash
basis, and the people who can pay
will have the benefit of the reduction,
inasmnch as under the old system q
woman who couldn't get credit for a
loaf of bread could get possession of
a $40 sewing machine. This change of
bnse will work to the disadvantage of
the poor, but the really paying people
will be adyantaged by it.
One of the richest merchants in the
city was r. H. Macy, who died a few
weeks ago. Mr.. Macy made will,
and TO the astonishment of his friends,
he left his only son an income of only
$1,000 year, and gave as a reason
for it that the young man was hope
lessly depraved and totally unfit to
be trusted with property. AS it hap
pens to be entirely true, it is strik
ing commentary on the uselessness of
human calculations. Macy's ambition
was to have his son gentleman, and
to have him spend the vast estate he
was gathering like one. Accordingly,
he was all his life furnished with all
the money he could snend, and he
went through the usual routine of a
fast young New Workers. life. He
had high company, drank expensive
wines, drove fast horses, etc, all of
which pleased the old gentleman well
enough till he awoke one day to the
bitter knowledge that his boy had
contracted habits which he could not
throw off, and that made a blackguard
of him instead of gentleman. He
made the old mans life unhappy by
his low associations; and he had the
bitterness of seeing the boy who had
been his pride, degenerate into de-
bauchee, who could not hold the re-
spect of any one, and who was the
| laughing stock of his acquaintances,
and the disgrace of his family. Now
for the moral. The immense business of
the Macy establishment will hereafter
be controlled by q man who entered
the store a friendless boy, and who
worked his way up slowly but surely,
and who, ten years ago, would have
been glad to clean his employers sons
boots. This is only one case in thou
sands, though very few make known
the delinquencies of their children as
freely as did Macy. The average
young man Of rich parents in this city
is not reliable being.
The prettiest show Of the last six
teen months, not excepting the big