Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1889-06-05
TRADE AND FLOODS.
Matters of Commerce Forced to the
Rear by the Elements
J0HNSTOWN'S TRADE RECORD.
Talks With Our Merchants As to Effect of
Flood on Trade.
LUMBER EXPECTED TO GO HIGHER
JOHNSTOWN'S TRADE RECORD.
LUMBER EXPECTED TO GO HIGHER
OFFrcr OF PIrTsBURG DISPATCH,
TUESDAY. June 4 1889.

opr1cr OF PITTsBURG DISPATCH, \
TUESDAY. June 4. 1889.
Matters of trade and commerce have been
forced into the background the past few
days bv the great calamity of the Cone
mauph Valley. The sympathy of our mer-
chants has been awakened as never before,
and matters of business are once made sub
ordinate to the great work of helping the suf-
ferers. Trade has been remarkably quiet all
along the line, the business of our citizens be-
inc now to relieve human suffering, and in
some measure lift the burden from the multi
tudes to whom calamity has come in its
sharpest forms. said one of our leading bust
ness men to-day: "Johnstown furnished
We cannot but feel profoundly
for the people there. There was no point
throughout the territory of which Pittsburg is
the trade center whose trade was more reliable
than that of Johnstown. The merchants there
were, as q rule, of the most trustworthy char
acuer. They were of the kind whose custom
was valuable, and the proportion of losses from
that source were much below the average.
Another said: 4 have about
Twenty. Five Customers in Johnstown.
out of these there are probably Is who have OBJ
tanned goods within the past 60 days. They
were all as good as gold This has been fully
proved by wears of commercial inter-
of these customers have by an
awful fate, been deprived of the
power to pay their bills. Our firm takes little
account Of this SO far as our own losses are con-
cerned, and we have done our share IN con
tributions to the sufferers. The record those
Johnstown merchants made for reliability In
business matters is something of which they
have Just cause to be proud in this the day OF
their calamity, when the power to do what
they have it in their hearts to do is taken from
them by an awfully mysterious destiny"
A dealer in lumber said to-day: The great
freshets in the SusQuehanna Valley has de-
stroyed so many sawmills and sent so much
lumber afoat that look for a rise in values
through this section. Late news from Will
Transport shows that the destruction in that
region has been very large, and the effects on
trade can hardly fail to be felt in short time
in the form of stiffening prices"
His First Customer Dead.
At one house where the commercial editor is
accustomed to receive valuable information
daily, the head of the firm was reading the list
of the dead in THE DISPATCH, and had Just
come to the name of an old tried business
friend. With Quivering voice said he: II see
the name of the first man TO whom / sold bill
of goods in that list. He and his wife are
among the lost.
"He was an honest. thrifty German, who by
years of patient toll had attained a compe-
tency, and now he is swept away in a moment
without warning. You may judge that have
little inclination to talk over trade matters in
the presence of such scenes as this. When
feel so keenly the loss of this, my first business
patron, how must it be with the thousands
whose hearts are torn with untold anguish over
the loss of those bound to them by the closest
earthly ties"