Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1891-01-24

| Yves sir. All right! says the canvasser,
| cheerfully, and departs. He has got the point
he wanted. But he must make assurance doubly
| sure; therefore he waits a while until grocer 8
| cart or some such tradesman's vehicle drives
| up. He approaches the driver and says: What
| is the name of the man who lives hereY Jones,
is the reply. That settles it; the mans name is
Jones, beyond possibility of mistake. The can
| vasser goes to the grocer whose name the cart
| gives him and gets the full name of Jones. That
| goes down in the directory. Jones is all there.
which he is made to advertise his business as not
desirable to make public. So much for Jones.
| EXPOSED BY THE DIRECTORY.
"a while ago there was a man, whose name
will call Srnythe, in suburban city Of New
York state. Ny canvasser failed to procure any
| information at his house. / went myself. His
wife met me at the door and screamed: we
don't want our name in the directory! If you
| put it in Wei have you arrested and bring suit
against you! put the name in with refused
| in big letters. Suit brought. / was put
| on the stand and declared that was obliged, as
| a slave to the public, to give the names and adj
| dresses. business and otherwise. of the resi-
dents of the city. If l sold a directory which
did not give such information in full was not
doing my duty nor carrying out my contract
| with those who bought what 1 sold. The
| plaintiff, on cross-examination, was asked why
he did not wish to have his name, &C.. in the
directory. He replied that it was because
| juries were selected from the directory. Had
he no other reasons? No: most certainly not.
Mr.. Smythe, said the cross-examining lawyer,
were you not at one time treasurer of the
Blank Insurance Company of New York city?
Yes. sir. l was And under what circum-
stances did you leave the company
THE case ended right there. After making
a few remarks derisive of the methods adopted
by the defense for defeating the prosecution
Mr.. Smythe's lawyer said that he and his client
were not there to tribe and that they would
pay the costs Of the suit themselves rather than
bother with any longer, The fact at the bottom
of it all was that Smythe had stolen 10000 from
the insurance company when he decamped and
that he had refused information to the canvas
ser because Of his desire to seclude himself
from observation and pursuit.
Il will take another sample case of man in
New York who, embarrassed little short of
criminally. fits to Yonkers. He leaves no trace
behind, but the week after his arrival ct his
new location the Yonkers directory man comes
around. The canvasser has no notion that
anything is wrong about MIR. Simpson, but in
formation is refused. He swOops around and
into the directory. The directory goes by the
first mails to Bradstreets and to other COM
mercial agencies. 'Why?' shouts chorus of
creditors, &c. Washington Simpson is in Yonk-
render him into cash, pauperism, or Sing Sing,
as the case may be. Perhaps you have got
some notion by this time of the usefulness of
directory as an agency for the detection of
dishonest persons People who do not want
their addresses and their business published
have in nearly every instance some dishonesty
to conceal.
1--WE have some funny experiences in this
way. woman came III not long ago to this
Office and made most urgent request that we
should not mention her name in the directory.
She was SO anxious about it that we could hardly
help asserting. But, madam, said, as she
started to go out, you must tell me what your
name is
"'Indeed. will not she replied.
But, madam protested.
"'Why, how absurd, she said. If were to
tell you you might put it in
"'But how am to tell what name to leave
out?' inquired in despair.
But she was gone, thank goodness! 1
haven't seen her since, though have been liy-
ing in daily expectation.
'All sorts OF pleas are presented to us where-
fore We should leave OUT names and addresses
from our directories. When the reasons are
good We grant the request, but that happens
rarely. 1t is mostly people that debt
and wish to avoid payment of their atoms
who are anxious for such omissions. !. I are not
accustomed to granttbe favor in such cases.
Suits have often been brought against us for
putting peoples names and addresses into di-
tories against their WILL but we have never
lost Our defense is that our business is for
the public and to no private personal ad-
vantage, and the complainant is usually most
unwilling to air In court his reasons for not
utslIlllR 10 appear III Tue directory. luefe Is
at present not single person in the Washing
ton Directory against whose name is marked
the word refused
NO OPPOSITION.
eve have no monopoly in the directory
making business in Washington. You might
start in tomorrow and get up an opposition
directory, procure advertisements for it and
sell it. But. let me IN you, it requires capi-
tai to begin with 6nd, more important yet,
knowledge. We have this field covered. Do
you imagine that you can cover it so well and
so thoroughly at few weeks notice? A while
ago, in certain of the cities we publish
directories for, rival came into the field with
a directory of his own. He quickly found that
he could not do the thing f-hand as well as we
| could; so he copied our work. Our directory
is copyrighted, and, to catch our adversary, We
put into our directory more than a
score OF bogus names. One of them was
| Quar-. Frank, no, &c The number was a
vacant lot. We sued the other party for vio-
| lating our copyright Our assertion was that
| the said party had copied our directory. As
an example to show it We called attention to
| the name 1 have mentioned and asked the
judge to read it after dividing it in the middle,
first right and then left. 1t read: Rank Fraudn
The judge wept with laughter and our case was
won. That was instance of what we call
| slip introduced into directory to catch n
| rival mapping. In that case in order to get
| hold of the advance sheets Of the opposition
publication, having tried every other way, we
bought waste paper by the thousands of pounds
from shop that purchased such stuff from the
| printing Office where the rival directory was
| being turned out. We went over every scrap
of it-purchasing it at y cents pound and
selling it back to the same concern at q cent
| a pound-until We came proofs of the
| opposition advance sheets. which furnished US
| with the evidence we wanted. The result was
the ruin OF the opposition directory.
FIGHTING FOR GRIP.
soften it happens that we have to fight for
our grip as directory makers for city or dis
trict. We must make the battle with such
weapons as we have made to our hands by
years of labor in the field. Suppose, for in
stance, that an opposition directory concern is
started in Syracuse. We must fight it. How
many men has the opposition got at work?
| Ten. Then must have twenty. Our
agencies in various parts of the country are
drawn upon, and experienced men are sup
piled promptly. Instructions are that two of
our men are to work wherever one of the OPP
position is working. One man must
precede the opposition man, and the
other must after. If our first
man captures the citizen first. he gets his
order for the directory and his advertisement
II he finds him out, the opposition man does
likewise, presumably. Our second man does
nothing but follow the opposition man like n
| shadow. II he sees him sent away from q house
he knows that the people are not at home, and
he waits. When the citizen comes home he
| gnthers him in before tho OpDOsitio,, comas