Spirit of Jefferson. [volume] (Charles Town, Va. [W. Va.]) 1844-1948, 1890-02-25
MISCELLANEOUS.
Monthly Auction Trade Jour-
nal for February, 1890.

Retrospection.
28l Church st.-Nearly forteen years ago.
'The stock lay scattered around the hoor,
not a shelf. table, desk or book, neither paper,
pen nor ink-the value was under fifty dolars!
Upon this start, without a solitary dollar of
capital and forty-ive thousand of old debts of
honor Qong since paid) hanging like black
cloud over the enterprise, and worse than all,
No Name-.With this forlorn aud desolate
start, than which nothing more perfectly des-
perate can be imagined, we sold the first year
nearly half a million.
"You may search the record of fancy aud
fiction for a parallel to the sublime audacity
and confident courage with which that unHinch-
ing band marched forth, from the very ashes
of humiliation and degradation over the un-
numbered ledger legions up to the topI Com
mercial calamities had swept upon us una
wares and sudden, and though restoration
was swift and solid and splendid. yet it was
tempered by terrific mental toll and daily
deadly grapple of nerve, sinew and back
bone"
S51 Broadway, 1878
We dubbed the Church st. records and rented
$40 in addition increasing our fore TO 100 men.
We paid 5000 of old canceld dcts of honor
Our little 20 by as, two flors wer choked up all
the time and this paragraf was our opening
appeal to clos, cash buyers
"Our unapproachable leaders are before
you in plain figures and appeal irresistibly to
the self-interest of every man who gazes upon
that grand play of life called succcss-you can.
not permit competitors to quote your prices
because they give time and you demand tho
| coin-yOur inducements must be in the shape
of sledge-hammers that smash up all coutro
versy on the subject, us the champion of rea
values you be beyond the range of all artillery
and these Irresistible appeals in the shape OF
leaders and logic are presented to you as finn
on that momenteus subject the best values fol
the money down.
356 Broadway-sept., 1s79-Thrc flors, 17s
ft The old Regular began to look at the
large and rapidly increasing volume of busincs.
In thes splendid quarters we soon got choked
up and we printed ON our bulletin this carac-
teristic sentence:
"These opinions arc thrown out to you be-
lieving that it is your interest to buy at eighty
cents for cash. and sell at one dollar for the
cash only, the identical item that your COM
petitor pays one dollar for, forcing him to sell
at S1.25 and.on time. all for the paltry consid-
| Grafton of thirty days credit, and when he can
no longer collect from his worthless Iedgers,
his goods and credit and name is gone forever.
God Almighty What carnage and agony and
ruin in the path of this barbarian of time.
who's unchanging law is written in blood and
tears in that Office Bible ready for the junk
shop at one cent a pound"
341 Broadway to IS Leonard-29O feet, seven
! Hnnra fant 4.
dozen of our generals had fdlcr from the rank
but we prest with undanted curage and
records beyond the range of profecy, and this
paragraf was the "flosofy of business, (" head
| ing our monthly of that date:
"lf you are turning over your stock once q
month, and call it business, just try some spe-
cial leaders from these headquarters, cut close
for the money down, and you will NOT be long
in finding out that your stock can be turned
over once week, or, after the fashion of our
early Church street struggles, every day. with
the bullion in bank, buying of first hands, uu-
der quoting every one, and dealing not upon
the dead uncertainty of time, but always for
the omnipotent coin, it will be only pastime to
crowd the results of five years down into one,
hastening the day of your ultimate triumph,
whilst still in your prime of life, contrasting
strangely with the ledger champion, worrying
along through the dreadful ages of agony, un-
til the final day. in the dead winter of time.
when the machine will go no longer, and the
unfortunate master turned out to beg or
starvc. How often we meet
these eloquent, helpless. gifted povertv-strick-
en- old men pleading for just one more chance,
when with their dauntless resolution. unshakeu
faith in their ability and integrity, their vast,
varied and costly experience. and above all, a
little solid cash, they would oblivion the bitter
and irreclaimable past IN the splendor of fu-
ture triumphs. Alas ninetS-nine out of q
hundred it is too late; yet once in a while tina,
hundreth man comes forth at she command OF
some hidden, heaEen-born ambition, and
claims his place in the foremost rduks, among
the intellectual giants of tliis eyentful age
JaHray. Cladin. Bliss and
Dunham living; Kobbe, Montant, Wardlaw
and Peake, dead"
465 and 46S Broadway-Jan. 1885. so by
200 The fourth largest store in the city
The men marching away from the mercantile
giants, the system had driven the credit bar
barians from the field, and aggressive success
full representatives wer pressing on and up,
with marvellous rnpidity and almost incredible
| results. The leder of our jorna1 opened with
this salutation:
''The writer of these lines, prouder than a
thousand times Of the big broad mark made in
the history of ten thousand of his brother mer-
chants, esteeming above his little fortune
coined ont Of the most bitter adversity-the
warm wishes and high esteem of men whom
he has reclaimed from the lost paths of time,
whose friendship, confidence and respect
grows stronger year after year, deems 1t IN.
necessary to assure the patrons of the house
and the readers of this journal that greater ef
forts than ever viii be put in force to render
the union stronger. the circle wider, the ad
vantages greater, and the nnal results NOR,
decisive. There is no record that cannot b,