The Ohio Democrat. (Logan, O. [Ohio]) 1886-1906, 1891-08-29
VICTIMS on A swlNpLE.
How the Patrons OF Some Drug stores Are


delights in being humbugged has
passed into an international proverb.
The latest addition TO the rank and file
of petty swindlers is the druggists who
practice the Substitution scheme"
The swindle is growing evil of recent
date. Some firm or individual by long
and patient research, and often by the
expenditure of enormous sums of
money, discovers and perfects pro-
prietary article. After years of scru-
tiny and perhaps patient abuse the
article finds its way into public favor
Its price is perhaps cheapened and its
merits become advertised and known
in every town and city. It is at this
| juncture that the retail druggist gives
to his inquiring customer an article
''iust as good" and quietly pockets the
price of its inferiority.
To such an extent has this imposition
grown that general attention was
called to it in an address before the
National Editorial association at st.
Paul by A. Frank Richardson, of New
York.
Mr.. Richardson has given this abuse
of substituting" his attention for some
time and there is probably no man in
this country better qualified to speak
about its extent and injustice. The
man who buys paraffine factory butter,
or stewed minnows in tin cans with
sardine label on, or wooden nutmegs,
or perhaps drinks coffee originally
made at the brickyards and sweetened
with sugar whose sacchariue qualities
are the combined effort of sugar
trust and sand bank, may while re-
viewing the fact that he is not an
ostrich come to the conclusion that he
has been victimized and swindled.
About the time he is divorced from his
digestion he realizes that the substi-
tutes and ''our own make" are perhaps
a little cheaper but hardly as fattening.
Then the same man will walk into
drug store. He wants Apollinaris wa
ter. He has seen advertised that it will
call back the sullSing appetite. He gets
something with the same label and
"just as good" The druggist makes a
few cents by the swindling substitu-
ton, and the customer forswears the
use of Apollinaris, etc, and keeps it all
except the "etc." There are hundreds
of proprietary articles that have earned
a reputation through public prints and
extended testimonials that have been
almost forced from the market by the
substitution swindle.
people have no idea how extensive
this petty system of thievery has be-
come" said Mr.. Richardson. "There
are concerns whose preparations have
become household words. Millions of
dollars are invested in the business of
these concerns. Their articles have
merit, and those merits have been ad-
vcrtised This popularity induces the
customer to call for the article at the
druggists. The druggist has some un-
known article Just as good, which,
presuming on the confidence the pur-
chaser places in him, the druggist
palms off on the customer.
"The evil, aside from the swindle of
the practice to the purchaser, lies in the
fact that he is induced to use something
which is either worthless or injurious.
Vt Detroit and elsewhere there are
houses whose sole business it is to
manufacture worthless mixtures and
compounds which they sell to retail
druggists under labels bearing some re-
semblance to favorite and well known
preparations. These retail venders of
unknown nostrums masquerading un-
der well known name generally place
on the preparation: Our own make,
strictly pure etc. The interest the
druggist has in selling this stuff is that
he buys it at a much lower price than
the standard preparation. The in
dividual purchaser is easily swayed
at best. Add to this the confidence
he naturally places in his druggist
and it is no wonder Mat this petty
system of swindling has reached its
already great proportions. There are
preparations in which millions of dol
lars are invested and hundreds of thou
sands spent yearly in calling the atten-
ton of the public to their particular use
or benefit, and when anyone calls at
the dealers stores for the express pur-
pose of getting the familiar article the
dealer tries every method in his power
to induce him to take something else,
J which he knows is of doubtful merit if
not positively injurious
''For nearly every one of the we'll
known preparations there are dozen
limitations which druggists announce
are precisely the same thing-only
cheaper The success of any proprie
tary article rests on the same broad
basis of known merit as all other sue
cesses. No amount of advertising can
bring business to q dishonest merchant
and no amount of advertising can keep
a poor medical preparation long in
favor, but when the preparation has
kept on for years fighting its way into
favor it is little short of thievery fol
dealers to make use of its popularity
l for it's own destruction by selling under
it's guisc and name cheap and worth
less article"
Mr.. Richardson suggested that the
only practical way of ridding the pub.
lie of this abuse of substituting was to
, make known its nefarious details SC
: that purchasers might insist on having
the article they believe to be the best
and refuse to take the article the
$ swindling dealer wishes to substitute
i Customers who will not accept 'some
thing just as good" from druggis
3 know that they can get what they wan
: at some other drug store. Chicago Tri
bune.
:, IN DEATH VALLEY.