The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1893-10-24
PEDDLING DIAMONDS.
Men Who Go Around With Their
Pockets Full Of Gems.

1t IsNo Uncommon Thing For Ono of Them
to Have 1000 Worth of Tiny Trifies In
His CIothes-There Is No Such Thing as
Bargain In Diamonds.
One of the most surprising lines of bust
ness that u man can so 1nto-surprlslng,
that is. until you have time to think about
il. and then it isn't surprising at all-is the
peddling of diamonds.
Men 60 about the country with from S1O,-
900 to $4,000 worth of the costly, tiny tri-
fes in their Clothes hunting for customers
in all sorts of place where they are likely to
find customers. and they make at least
some of them make, good living out of it.
And one really curious thing about it is
that very few of them own the goods they
carry They do not in some cases even give
bonds or put up any sort of security except
ing that of their own personal character.
They are known or believed to be thor
sughly honest and reliable, and the mer-
chants who really have money invested in
the goods trust them fully and freely.
A New York man, who travels almost
continually, met one of these peddlers in
the reading room of hotel in Hartford
some time ago and told afterward how as
tonished he was when the stranger ap-
preached him and began showing his goods
"He was tall, good looking young fell
low" said the New Yorker, land was
dressed very quietly and tastefully.. I no
ticed that there wasn't single article Of
jewelry visible on his person, not even a
gold button or watch chain.
1.-THE only thing that looked like jewelry
was a key chain, and l observed afterward
that that was made very strongly and ap-
peared to be, as presume it was, made Of
the very finest steel.
'sHe sat down beside me, and pulling at
his chain drew out of his pocket channels
leather bag or purse. Out of this he took
what looked like handful of small pack
ages, each wrapped up in fine white tissue
paper These he unwrapped one after an
other and showed me the contents.
Elm each one was gem. There were
diamonds, rubies and emeralds and two or
three pearls, but nearly all Of them were
diamonds, and only three or four were
what would call unusually large stones.
They were without settings, and as he I'M
folded the papers he rubbed each stone
gently and deity with small piece of
flannel.
Naturally, he was talking while he did
all this, and soon got very much interest
ed" the speaker continued. HE began by
asking if he could not sell me diamond,
and told him I thought not but said it
hesitatingly because WANTED to hear what
he had to say.
81 have them here said the peddler,
all the way from $50 up to s., 500, but can
sell you one that any gentleman would be
pleased to wear for 5000 or $500. Most per
sons, even those who can afford it, do not
care to wear very large ones, though have
some customers who won't look at small
stone.'"
"You have regular customers thenW
asked the man from New York. and he an
swered: ''Oh, yes. My trade is mostly
among actors and hotel men, and know
nearly all the prominent ones east of the
Mississippi"
And then he took out powerful glass
and asked the New Yorker to look at q
beautiful brilliant he had just unwrapped.
II looked at it and admired it, but told
him was no judge of diamonds" the New
Yorker went on. "All stones of the same
size looked pretty much alike to me, though
Icould see that some seemed to be more
brilliant than others. He laughed a little
and said that he found that comparatively
few people were judges, but that a great
many were reluctant to own it and either
believed or pretended to believe that they
could tell genuine diamond from the best
possible imitation and a good stone from
bad one.
''Such people, he said, buy diamonds
whenever they can be made to believe that
they are getting bargains, but as a rule
they pay more than they need to- Strictly
speaking, there is no such thing as a bar
gain in diamonds, excepting in buying one
from somebody who is ignorant or careless
of the true value of what he has, because
diamond has an intrinsic value as well de-
fined as that of gold.
"'However' he continued. I am always
glad to meet anybody who is on the look
out for bargains, because generally man.
age to sell them something at good price
"Then he went on to tell me that he only
carried tie other stores as a sort of side
show. Once in a great while he would sell
pearl or ruby, but nearly all his bust
ness consisted OF sales of diamonds and
watches.
"He kept On chatting, even after had
satisfied him that 1 didn't intend to buy
anything, and ne kept some of his parcels
open for considerable time while he was
slowly wrapping up the others.
II thought at first that he seemed to be
careless about it, but es watched him
noticed that he never looked anywhere ex-
cepting either at his goods or straight in
my eye, and could see that his vigilance
was never relaxed for an instant"
This description affords n very fair no
ton of the business these peddlers do and
there are moro of them going around the
world than most people have any notion of.
The stuff they take with them, too, is of
a kind that it would be practically impos-
sible to trace, for diamonds, even good
sized ones, are hard to identify, as rule.
There are cases, of course in which some
popularity of cutting or the accident of
great size renders Identification possible,
but the stones that could be positively
sworn to are very rare -New York News.
A Novel Walking Cane.
A novelty of German manufacture is
Nhn