Spirit of Jefferson. [volume] (Charles Town, Va. [W. Va.]) 1844-1948, 1889-03-05

met agen the wardlaws. Robert had
wholesale stok at war prices. and he cuden't
move EN-, and kindly asked my advice. CAV
it freely, and he took me along home with
him. when for the FIRST time sine left homo,
slept in q bed, and had square meal-thre
more months. We moved the stok to Brook
lyn, spiced up with auction purchases, sent out
thousands of hand bIs, cut at s5 per cent,
carved down the old war figures, and swung
open the doors, All, my God, that crowd! A
thousand o day, until one day, my old friend
past into the eternal. and baut the stok of
his brother on one years time, paid for It In
thirth-siX days, aud walked out of tho con-
cern, after four months, with $4,000 in clean,
hard cash Seven months before ON one of
life's darkest days, had left home with Just
mony enuf to cary me to New York. 1t was
the clos. quik, % per cent. and great aggre-
gates Then came the Gettysburg of 1873, that
buried the greatest Cbut one) merchant that
ever lived, and among thousands of others,
king credit drove this ritter beyond the oblivion
liRe-but only for da. In the erly morn he
stood up, undaunted and thru down the CANT
let of war. The lines wer hard, but strait, the
road was untroden, but ther was no alternativ
and the profecy was then made that tho
credit barbarians statistix should be reversed
insted of six survivors ont of every hundred
we wud have ninety-four yictors to eyry six
who perlshed in the doth traps of his Internal
majesty.
Then came life's last, lost Marengo. The
fortieth mile post had sped by. Never were
ods greater, never chances more perfectly dos
perate. The prePosterous audacity of inau-
gurating the net spot cash-ifty thousands In
det-without solitary dollar In the
mimic, tragic flites of fancy, it always re-
mined the ritter of the heroic struggles of Fred
erick. of Bruce and the great Nopoleon.
The diminutiv pile of auction goods-thc
bundle of nerv and plulz and ambition. aud the
five per cent wer big cards, and magnl6ed aud
multiplied with savage intensity. We settled
down beside rich concerns and swept past
them with perfect unconcern. Breaking all
records-trebling aud quadrupllng--demande
larger quarters year after year. until ther IS
not single available bilding in the metropolis,
and we ar driven TO buy and bild, and our un-
parallel marches from obscurity to the top, is
perfect parallel to thousands of our represen-
tativs who have followed our lines, stuk to our
iron laws, and keeping fully nbrest. hav kept
pace WITH and in many Instances, beaten our
marvellous record.
Thes magnificent mercantile mcteurs under
stand perfectly the single thrcds by which vic
tory hangs suspended. One way is to get al
can, the other, to sci as cheap as U can, and
wher the champions meet it, don't take long to
settle the question. The shadows of oblivion
steal surely over the hundred percenter, whilst
the popular, progresiv and successful favorite
marches with esy rapid strides to merited
prominence aud prosperity.
Some of thcs old-timcrs, brainy fellows many
of them. but working under fatal diaadyan-
tage and upon falls system, feeling the cold
steel of the merciles sharpshooter of the twen-
ty-fiVe per cent. creed, begin to wake up from
the ded slumber OF the past, and make a move
from the marshy low grounds up into hier nlti-
tudes. and upon the solid trax OF cash down;
some, like the savage, impulsiv Egyptian, de-
eide instanter, and If an angel from the un-
fathomablo depths of eternal space, wei nown
to piety Heven, wer to fly into his store next
morning and whisper that he wanted som
slcdghamers on thirty days, and could Civ
note endorsed by the Great jehovah, a load of
bu5shot would be the decisiv reply Others
viii begin by planting little racket counter in
their store with a lGrg ticket, " Thes goods viii
be sold for the cold hard cash" only, each item
ticketed, and often at the end of the day, TINT
counter is clear. And thus one day demon
strates the success of clos profits, quick sales
and big aggregates. stil others agen open an
opposition TO their own, but run upon our iron
rules, 1T is easier to make 800 cash by
twenty-five per cent. than 6fty per cent" And
here agen the first days work settles the xper-
iment. The push and drive of the old shop 20
over into the new cash concern, reconstructed,
chock-ful of enthusiasm, leving an oId-tImer
in the one hundred per cent shop TO collect tho
ded diets, aud wind up the old misery. Yet It
is still tru that the big majority look hopelesly
ut the wreck and So its too late, or theyr too
old, or with their credit masters on one side,
and their credit people ON the other, that es-
cape is impossible-others waiting for the sale
of dedlumber, or trusting to LUX or the Lord,
until som savage twenty-five per center sweeps
along and loading them with led, down they
go forever.
Still we hay made wide swnth acros the con-
tinent during the year past, which we sbal
broaden year after year, until the man who
bad the temerity to ask fifty per cent, or to sci
on the pa da plan, vii melt like April snow
hakes-like the anhilation of sickles Excelsior
Brigade at Slanasces, when thu struI thatIong,
unflinching line of steel and bakbone under
stonewall Jackson.
CHARLES BROADWAY Rouse,
New York City.