The Cheyenne daily leader. [volume] (Cheyenne, Wyo.) 1870-1884, 1884-01-04
TRUTH AND TRADE.
A worldly-wiss View of Everyday
Business Methods,
In which It Is Made to Appear that
TruthfuIness Lacks Something
of Being the Rest
Policy.


overheard as it dropped from the lips Of a
-mafrapparently well versed in business meth
DDS, led to an attempt to discover TO what
extent the business code OF honesty has been
deliberately adopted among shop-keepers.
The inquirer met at length, however, a phi
losopher with whom be a previously had a
slight acquaintance. The question being put,
the reply was a lecture.
81 believe" said the philosopher, who was
rather a handsome man, about 30 years
Of age, well-dresssd and wholesome looking,
a-thnt you hnve asked the right question of
the fatal man. Thad occasion a few years
ago to look up the practical ethics Of various
branches OF business. / believe that business
men are, at heart and in intention, honest.
The customer, however, frequently drives him
to practices in which the suppression Of un-
pleasant and Improbable fact figures to some
extent In following these practices the
shopkeeper does not lie outright. He could
make affidavit to that, But his experience is
like that of a man who has been often on the
witness stand, and knows that II he attempts
TO tell the whole truth both sides may DO
damaged. The customer is nearly always a
man uninformed and prejudiced. He is un-
prepared to form a correct Judgment Of b
he Is purchasing He may believe that In
buying he has only to see for himself, order,
pay and receive. Or he may deem It best to
leave his order with the shopkeeper and
trust to the ~latter's honesty 10 give MN a
fair article at q fair price. IT, with the hrst
described customer, the shoPkeep@r iet crop
soms unfortunate word In describing inc
goods, exciting the customers pre1udices, no
might lose the opportunity Of making a sale.
He therefore adopts a Fabian policy In deal
Inc with him, and withholds all information.
s1Yfth the second his policy Is TO deliver An
article sufficiently good TO secure his trade in
future In either case the shopkeeper's brain
Is busy calculating the profits, which has a
tendency to make him put the highest figure
possible on his goods. You know, OF course,
that in almost any store you enter you buy a
piece of goods at a certain price, while beside
it lies another equally good, but not quite so
fashionable, marked at a price perhaps only
half or three-quarters as much as the first
piece. Fashion, the shopkeeper will tell you
took a fancy to the design OF the first piece;
it has become scarce, and consequently, dear,
the seller charging for It all he can get. Now.
with human fallibility, the shopkeeper may
fall into the belief that pretty much all his
goods are fashionable and scarce when a Gus
toner appears who Is able and willing to pay
a good price for what he orders, but when a
bargain driver Is facing the shopkeeper he
may have his doubt as to the scarcity and
dearness Of goods elsewhere, and let them go
Ut " DflCo less Luhu no CuhIRtu tnt pIIlt Gus
toner. You see, he thus transfers TO his shop
the methods of a board OF trade, apparent
supply and demand governing transactions.
1.-THE tailor who measures you for a suit Of
clothes may tell you he is too busy, that you
must walt a week or two before 1t can be
made. AT the end of the time agreed upon
you call upon him and ho brings out from a
drawer a suit made from the cloth you
ordered. You think 1t a handsome, we'll
made suit; you try 1t on and it Is a perfect 1T;
you pay your cash and go away satisfied.
Your folks at home congratulate you on
your nice clothes, you admire them and your
figure in them In the glass, and then you go
ON wearing them for whatever time you
usually wear a suit, whom you put them off
for good, knowing that you got your moneys
worth from that tailor. But what would be
your feelings toward that tailor II you were
made aware OF some little facts that hs with
held from youi The suit Of clothes was an
other mans misfit, It was made a month be
fore your measure was taken, and 1t was
lying IN a drawer in the shop when you were
waiting for it to BIO made. Moreover, when
you expressed to him your pleasure with his
promptness in delivering them, and with his
artistic skill in making them, his modest atti
tude and his professions Of honest work were
a part OF the sham Of his business,
'rYou perceive how far reaching is honesty,
do you notl Well, II you attempt to handle
any one of the various classes OF goods which
arc sold in our city shops you will find that
the public is not educated up to a point which
will permit the shopkoeper to tell all he
knows about his stock. II a shopkeeper told
damaging facts about his own goods, and yet
could assert with truth that they were as good
as his neighbors', his customers would want
him to take something of his prices. Igno-
rance is bliss with the average customer.
Take coffee. You buy 1t ready ground. You
don't know whether II is half coffee or three
quarters something else. You don't know
whether the green coffee-beans were not
somewhat damaged by II you
like the taste of 1t. you buy 1t and think it
good coffee. But II told by your grocer hat
IL was damaged or adulterated, you might be
uneasy.
Take cigars. What smoker can
gauge the value of each of half a dozen
cigars Of different prices, ranging, say, from
is to 80 centsi Yet the man who always
smokes a 25.cent cigar would be made IN
happy II told that a bunch OF 20-cent cigars
had been worked of on him. Take shoes.
There are certain seams In shoes which to the
knowing bring down their value, as they are
not regular made. Yet they will
wear woll enough, and If you don't
know where to look Tor these seams
you will rest contentedly In the belief that
you wear irst-class shoes Then there is the
special last idea Many a shoemaker is en-
abled by a customers belief that his feet are
of a shape entirely different from the com
mon run To charge a high price for shoes
made for him on his own lasts, whereas tho
shoemaker knoss that very probably his Gus
toner would find as good a fit and as strong
n shoe ut a ready made shoe store without
difficulty. But no end of people, my friend,
love TO be h~umbugged in the direction OF
thoir vanities, Take drug stores-to say
nothing of the veil which druggists draw
over their dealings by the use Of Latin labels,
or OF the prices they charge for water and
sugar when put up in u nice little bottle.
think Of the drug stores which are now
palaces of beauty, but which would be almost
as naked as assorted lots OF Venuses II
stripped of their dummy jars and bottles
Yet the public is to blame for the encourage
ment OF such shams The public, 1 say, car
not in its present stage OF Development with
stand such a shock as honesty in bushes,
would give It The individual in bushes,
who Intends to tell the whole truth always
plain and unvarnished, and who intends &C
pursue a course of the s~trictest honesty. set,
himself down in a maze which the brevity oi
life furbids his following to the Kit