Daily Los Angeles herald., 1883-04-26
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Merchandise Becoming Classified =
Each Branch OF Trade Setting Up
for Itself

There is being quietly developed
very desirable improvement in mercan
tile circles. that should have been accom-
plished long ago. II consists of classi
tication Of business, and limitation o
the extensive variety in our mercantile
houses. In former times many of oul
merchants attempted to keep an assort
ment of goods, wares, merchandise ant
products, that was most awkward ano
exasperating. Only four years sine,
nearly all of our dealers kept little o.
everything.
1t was no uncommon thing for book
seller to keep hosiery, clothing, leather,
paints and brushes, glass, hats, garden
seeds, carpenters tools, hardware, pow.
der and shot, glassware, woodenware,
Yankee notions, cigars and tobacco,
needles, pins, thread and grindstones.
Clothing merchants kept groceries of all
kinds, grain, seeds, nails. potatoes, dry
goods, salt, hardware, baskets, legal
blanks, boots and shoes, wool wine and
brandy. Others mixed ready-made
clothing with crockery, school books,
stationery, oil, garden and flower setds,
steel pens, corn-baskets, gunny bags and
canned fruit, silks, satins, picture
frames and cordage in their stock, max
ing such a maze Of heterogeneous stuff
that required vast amount Of room to
accommodate and separate. In con
sequence Of such cumbrous stock, only
small trade was done in each variety,
and but q limited assortment of each
kind was kept on hand, while the result
was vast lot of incongruous remnants,
out of fashion, spoiled by age, damaged
by contact with inharmonious goods, an
everlasting bother in ordering small sup
plies of each kind which cost vast
amount of high freight bills and dray-
age.
| The transition of clerk from meas
uring molasses, tar and oil to that of
silks and dress goods was not always
happy and was sometimes slow. 1t af-
fords us great pleasure to see that this
awkward, Improbable method of bust
ness is slowly changing and becoming
classified in metropolitan style. Fruit
stores sell fruit; hardware, iron and
steel are setting up for themselves; dry
goods dealers have abandoned groceries
and farm produce; boot and shoe deal
ers have confined themselves to their
Legitimate branch of business; booksel-
lers find books and paper enough to
occupy their time; grocers are going out
of the hardware business, and each
great staple branch of trade and COM
merce is crystalizing into body by
itself, and assuming better shape that
has less labor and more profit But the
change is not yet conplete.
There are some of the old country
assortments yet in our city, but the
change to special lines of goods is going
on most happily. Los Angeles is now
large enough to have our merchants
divide into classes and not compete with
each other in everything. Wherever
the change from a multitude Of articles,
like the contents of Noah's Ark, has
been made to certain branch of trade
the effect is noticeable. The stores look
better. the stock of each quality and
kinds larger and the goods are bought
and sold at lower rates, making large
increase in the volume Of business in
the city Classification brings beauty,
profit and comfort, and these three
gracss in business are desirable.