Arizona weekly journal-miner., 1895-06-12
AN EXPERT ON CREDIT.
He Makes SeO,OOO a Year by Giving Ad-
 vice to Four Big Firms.

| He Makes SeO,OOO a Year by Giving Ad. vice to Four Big Firms.
 A well dressed, sharp eyed man entered the office of one of the big gest jobbing houses in New York the other day and said to the head of the firm, man worth many mil lions:
 MT. -, want to get a report on the credit of John Jones of Wau- kegan."
 The merchant touched a button which summoned the chief book keeper.
 1T want you, he said, to allow MT. - to examine our account with John Jones of Waukegan since he began trading here.
 The visitor went out with the bookkeeper, and for an hour there after was looking over the books. He made a written statement from them showing when and under what conditions John Jones had opened his account, the number of times he had purchased goods, the dates of shipping and payment and such oth- CT details as would appear ill the ac- counts of a mercantile house. Then he went back to the office of the head of the firm and asked some fur ther questions about Mir. Jones, which the merchant, although very busy, promptly answered. Finally he saw the salesman who had waited on Jones and had a confidential talk with him, so that when he left the store he knew all that this great firm could tell about Jones and his ! financial standing.
 Information of this sort is the most difficult to obtain from any merchant. and the books of this par ticular firm are especially hard to get at. In fact, with the exception of this one man, no one except mem- bers of the firm and the bookkeeper ever has access to them, not even the heads of departments. The ex- planation of this one outsiders priv ilege lies in the character of his busi- ness. He is engaged in protecting four of tho leading jobbing houses of the United States, of which that referred to is one, from bad debts. He does this by examining their books. Each of these firms has about the same class of customers, although their business Is not identical. He has a contract with each which d. lows him to examine its books at any time. Such examinations he always makes in person. When it is under stood that there is hardly a merchant of any standing throughout the country who does not purchase from one of these four firms, it will be seen that such privilege enables the person who uses 1t intelligently to get a pretty thorough knowledge of the financial standing and respon- sibility of nearly everybody who comes to this market to buy goods.
 This man devoteS himself entirely to the work that he has undertaken for these four firms and receives from them a commission for every examination he makes. He ereceives no other pay. He is never applied to by any of the firms until after the regular commercial agencies have made their reports and the standing of the buyer still remains in doubt While the rate he charges for exam ming an account is very small, his income is said to average $20, 900 year. The firms who employ him consider that what they pay him is more than justified. A member of one of these firms said the other day that he had saved an average of s. 500 month for the last year through the information obtained from this examiner. That is, he would have sold goods worth that amount to men who subsequently, failed with out paying anything to their credit ors had he not been warned by the examiners reports. In all these cases, too, the regular commercial agencies had reported favorably upon the persons who had applied for credit.-New York Sun.