Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1891-07-04
SYSTEMATIC ROBBERY,
Foreign Corporation Stealing the Brands
of Local Bakers,

oI LOCd1 bdheTS.
Disreputable methods in business NAV
seem to win for the time being, but they are
as sure to lose in the end as the average
small boy is to eat himself into an attack of
the cholera morbus the first time he inds
himself alone in a neighbor's green-apple
orchard. The people of to-day cannot be
victimized more than once by the same man
or firm. There is too much. intelligence,
too much of an adherence for a thief and
of a regard for justice among the Americans
of the nineteenth century to allow the man
or firm who uses disreputable methods to
succeed.
This is true of the baking business as well
as of every other walk in life Every bak-
ing company has its own brands of cakes
and crackers, brands that are as well known
to the public as is the company itself They
become sort of trademark, and to all in
tents and. purposes are as much the prop
erty of the man who made them as is the
coat on his back. To steal these brands and
to place the base limitations on the market
as the original goods is nothing more or less
than systematic robbery-robbery of the
most underhanded, disreputable kind
Yet this very thing is being done in Pitts
burg. and, in fact, all over Western Penn
sylvania. A foreign company, run by for
eign capital and otficiated by foreign men
has dropped in from the East, or the West,
or some other part of the country and with
an almost incredible display of nerve has
boldly appropriated the best and most
famous brands of the local baking concerns
and is now trying to sell its limitations to
the public as the original article.
The Marvin establishment on Liberty
street and Herds Keystone Biscuit Works
in Allegheny were the principal victims
Among the principal crackers and cakes
counterfeited are Eagle butter crackers,
brand that has been made and sold exclu-
sively by Marvin for ten years, and that is
known all over the Union; j. Davis water
crackers that were first made by John Davis
in 1915, and that were transferred to Mr..
Marvin when he bought out their originator
in 1865; Royal fruit biscuit, brand that is
known everywhere as Marvin's, and that
has been on the market for five or six wears.
Then there are Keystone mixed cakes, a
brand that has become SO well known that
1t is sort of trade mark of the Herd Com
pany; French jumbles, another of Marvin's
famous cakes; baseball cookies, taffy waters,
lemon ginger snaps and charm water
crackers, all of them known everywhere as
Marvin's goods.
The names of all these and more too. for
that matter, have been boldly appropriated.
and the public is asked to buy the stale imi-
tations after they have been shipped here
from some other part of the country and
stood around in warehouses for a month or
more The price asked in most cases is less
than the originals cost, but the quality is so
manifestly inferior and the goods are so un-
BEAUTIFULLY stale before they reach this mar
ket that very few people are victimized. Those
who are caught once never fall into the same
snare second time.
A great deal Of care must be used by buy
ers OF crackers, however, for firm that will
stoop to dlsreputable methods is apt to do
great deal of scheming to outwit the pub
lie. In buying crackers and cakes always be
sure you are getting the make of a firm that
is strictly reliable and that can be depended
upon to give you pure, fresh and wholesome
goods.