Essex County herald. [volume] (Guildhall, Vt.) 1873-1964, 1884-06-27
ENGLISH aBAGMEN."
queer Customs ON the Road and At
Table.

AaDAct
A London letter to the Philadelphia
Press saysi The men whom Charles
Dickens calls "bagmen" and the English
generally, commercial travellers, as COM
pared with the American drummer, are
neither so well-dressed, so voluble, or
so well educated. The commercial
traveller in this country gets five
dollars day for his expenses, and is
usually remunerated for his services by
fixed salary, although in some cases he is
paid b. commission only on his sales.
At nearly all of the country and some of
the London hotels a room is especially
reserved for the use of the "drummers,"
and is known as the commercial room.
Here the knights of the road do their
feeding, writing, talking, and, after
O'Clock, smoking None but CONNER
cialsn are allowed in these rooms, and
the charges for meals and lodgings made
to those who frequent them are less.by
one-third than those in which guests
using what is known as the coffee room
are mulcted.
In days gone by, when railroads were
unknown and stage coaches Travelled
from London to all parts of England and
Scotland, the advent of the drummer was
eagerly looked forward to by his country
customers. Then, as an old commercial
told me, with the suspicion of tear in
his watery eye, customers would drive
mile or two to meet the coach bringing
the salesman and his samples, eager to
hear the latest news from the big city,
get the pick of the new goods, and per-
chance, crack bottle of tawny port at
the visitors expense, at the old-fashioned
inn of the county town. All is changed
nowadays; increased facilities of travel
have induced hundreds of new firms,
large and small, to put men upon the
road, and now it is calculated that there
are no less than 10000 commercials
hunting up orders daily throughout the
limits of the three Kingdoms.
At moderate calculation, each Of
these persevering individuals covers up
ward of 10, 900 miles in the course of his
annual wanderings, doing an average
trade of some $50, 900 per annum. Here,
then, is an enormous annual trade of
$4,000, 900, 900 done by these well-nigh
ubiquitous busybodies. Taking five per
cent on this amount for railway fares,
and the estimate is assuredly moderate
one, one finds that this class or their
employers, contribute an enormous sum
each year to the Golfers of the railroad
corporations. And yet, with the excep-
ton of two lines, the Great Northern and
the Great Eastern, none of the companies
make any concessions whatever to them.
There are some old-fashioned customs
preserved to-day in the commercial
rooms of the provincial hotels which ap-
pear curious, and sometimes turn out en-
barrassing to the newly-fedged drummer
or outsider who obtain the entry to the
lair" Of the traveller under something
very like false pretences. The dinner
hour is usually o'clock, and the drum
mer who has been staying longest in the
hotel presides at one end of the long
table, while the latest arrival faces him.
These two do the serving of the joints,
and dispense the pie and pudding. In
some houses the custom of drinking
wine at these dinners prevails. AS a
matter of form, the worthy bagman who
occupies the post Of honor at the table
will say to the guests: Gentlemen, will
it be agreeable to you to join me in
glass of wines" Guests murmur: eyes,
Mr.. President, with pleasure" and
forthwith sherry is ordered-one, two or
three bottles-accordin to the number
of diners.
Woe betide the impecunious drummer
if the president of the hotel be an old
tippler, or, worse still, the representa-
tive of wine merchant anxious to obtain
an order from the gentleman who keeps
the hotel. In either case he will, as fast
as the bottles are emptied, order fur
ther supply and the unhappy CONNER
cial who, with light pocket and dis
inclination to partake of stimulents,
while he is perfectly at liberty to pass
the bottle as often as he likes, will find
himself called upon to pay his share of the
wine bill pro rata, and, as old hands of
the road say, the cost of the drink
amounts to three times the sum charged
for the food This absurd custom is,
however, rapidly dying out in the better
class of houses, and last Sunday, at the
Compton hotel, Liverpool, when an ex,
cellent dinner of half a dozen courses
was set on the table at charge of but
seventy cents per head, was agreeably
surprised to hear the president announce
before the soup was attacked: "Gentle-
men, this not wine house, so you will
be pleased to give your own orders for
wine or whatsoever you may be pleased
to drink with your dinner" If you adj
dress the most commonplace remark to
the gentleman at the top or bottom of
the table, you will commit a gross breach
of commercials etiquette if you omit
to preface your speech with 'NIr. Prcsi-
dent" or ''Mr. Vice."
One admirable custom prevails at all
hotels where commercials temporarily
take up their, abode When the cheese
has been passed round, the waiter pro-
duces plate which he hands to the pres
ident. This gentleman puts two-cent
piece in it, and it is passed round the
table, each person present doing likewise
A collection box of the Commercial TRAY
eler's Orphan Asylum is then placed be-
fore the president who counts the cash,
announces the amount, and deposits it
in the box This penny subscription
realizes, it is said, something like $25, 600
year.
A Boy Failed.
Mr. 0shorne Ia n very economical but