Macon beacon. [volume] (Macon, Miss.) 1859-1995, 1878-05-11
The Craze for Bookkeeping.

We give below a few extracts from an
article published in the Toronto Canada
Monetary Times, under the above cap
ton, which our farmer readers should
mark well and impress its truth upon
the minds of their sons.
For many years past it has been evi.
dent enough to prudent men that in this
country the number of sterekeepers was
out of all proportion to the business to be
probably done. A failure list, repre-,
ssnting in 1876 twenty millions of CAPT.
tai, does not seem to have convinced
people that shopkeeping, as at present
carried on, is a losing business Tor the
great majority of those engaged in it,
Too many country stores, too many
wholesale warehouses, and too much
bank accommodation to importers, has
wrought a great deal of evil which man.
ifests itself in insolvent estates and bank.
rupt stocks.
The trade naturally tributary to any
business center, is 90 divided among the
numerous shopkeepers, or in part alb
sorbed by the grangers, who are con-
stantly making purchases in towns and
cities outside, that there is, even with a
moderate profit on ones goods, but little
money to be made in the business,
scarcely indeed, a fair living lor each, if
the trade were equally distributed.
4 correspondent in one of the counties
south of London writes to Us verv sen.
sibly upon the lamentable ignorance
which prevails among those out o! trade
in regard to the labOgious duties and
worrying responsibility $ of business
men. "This ignorance" he says, "is
being constantly transferred into the
ranks of trade itself, and never
fails to bear its legitimate fruit. Com.
Portable farmers sell or mortgage
the good property on which they
and their families have lived for
years in comparative ease, and with a few
thousand dollars proceeds they dash into
trade in the village or town, and in a
year or two lose every cent, and become
village drudges or paupers for the sue.
ceeding years Of their lives. Men seem
to think no apprenticeship, or expert
ence, or special knowledge is required to
start a store in town; and yet they might
see, il they would, that for the last
twenty, thirty, or forty years, only one
or Two men in the hundred has succeeded
in making money, while rarely has one
failed ct success on the farm, Every
village has twice as many struggling Tor
its trade as can live and failures are of
weekly occurrence, but, like the fallen
in battle, their places are at once
filled by men ready to share their
fate. The tendency to crowd
into towns has huddled up in
them more than a fourth of our popula.
ton"
The picture here drawn is unfortunately
too true. From more than one quarter
comes testimony to it's truth. Leading
journals continue to emphasize the plenty
which a recent harvest has thrown into
the lap of the husbandman and some Of
tn m, in spite of much adverse evidence,
discover nothing but prosperity in the
condition Of eur manu- actures and salts.
f~sction on the part of our merchants.
TIE experience of the great bulk of ouI
traders tends to show, nevertheless, that
a reduction must be made in the number.
of the commercial army, and a marked
diversion of capital from the choket
avenues Of trade, before a healthy condi
ton of our great monetary and CONNER,
cial interest shall return.