Phillipsburg herald. [volume] (Phillipsburg, Kan.) 1882-1905, 1895-06-27
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WVfsilslllsslss.5Es-- whats the differ
N&yl4lSS.SS& ence?" asked the
wv : :7;:32' '. said ., h.
tailor "the other
Is good part cotton"
"And mines all wool?" asked the
customer.
yours is mostly WOOL" replied the
tailor, looking at his customer with
evident surprise at his innocence, says
the New York Sun.
The cant phrase, "all wool and a yard
wide" has come to mean half cotton
and twenty-seven inches wide Some
persons believe that the difference be-
tween phrase and fact is to be attribut-
ed to the high tariff on woolens and
worsteds, but such discrepancies run
through all branches Of trade, whether
they are affected by the tariff or not.
Every real thing has come through
modern ingenuity to have an admirable
counterfeit bearing the real things
name, and so meaningless have names
become in trade that the retailer sells
the counterfeit under the name of the
real with little or no consciousness of
untruthfulness. Mail customers usual
ly fail to understand this, and are out
ragged on discovering that the thing
does not correspond to its name, but
women, who are born shoppers, long
ago accepted the situation and adopted
the false nomenclature. They do not
resent as dishonesty the conduct Of the
grocer that offers fresh eggs" at so
much and Strictly fresh new laid
eggs" at so per cent more. Every
woman knows that the shops sell for
silk material that has a cleverly made
surface of pure silk on back of cotton.
Women judge not by the name, but by
the price, the feel" and other indica-
tions to which men are blind. 1t was
discovered a few years ago that many
imported silks were made with only
small percentage of real silk, along with
clay for weight and soap for lustre,
while American manufacturers were
turning out the real thing and finding
1t despised. There is regularly rec
ognized set of substitutes in every de-
partment Of trade, just as the druggists
have substitutes that are made to serve
when some unimportant ingredient In
a prescription Is not at hand. The word
porcelain has actually lost its true sig
nificance, save, perhaps, in the fine
arts, and cooking utensils are glibly
sold as porcelain lined" that have
merely an inner surface of coarse,
glazed clay. A Philadelphia invented
a good many years ago a sort Of white
glass for lamp shades, and called it hot
cast porcelain, and now many forms of
white glass are sold as porcelain. 1t
has ceased to be lie, because all the
world knows that the word is purely
conventional. The phrase, antique
oak" has gradually come to mean, in
the language Of the cheap furniture
makers, stained ash, or even poorer
material, and the rug importers have
contributed to trade the verb "to an
tique," with its past particle IAN
tiqued," the form commonly used.
Mahogany" will soon mean in the
language Of the cheap furniture trade
any wood stained into distant imita-
tion Of new mahogany. OF course, the
latter, in turn, is stained to initiate old
mahogany, and is sold as such. Gel
luloid has become counterfeit for
almost anything, and its protean de-
vices are Unreasonable. 1t goes as Oft
en- as not as ivory, and doubtless there
are shopkeepers who sell 1t with no
sense Of fraud. The Technology Of the
hardwood trade is in a chaotic state
by reason of the way in which counter
feits have obtained currency. "Steel
hatchets," made of cheap iron, are sold
at Is cents, and the substitution of iron
for steel runs through all the trade
The merchant gauges his customer and
offers the counterfeit or the real, as the
case seems to demand, without any
sense Of dishonesty. Electroplated iron
goes for bronze and cast iron goes for
wrought iron. The fraud is so trans
parent to any one buying with his eyes
open that 1t scarcely seems worth quar-
reling about. The merchant acknowl-
edges the nature Of the counterfeit
when pressed, and takes no shame in
the acknowledgement. Perhaps some
of them never see the real thing and are
innocent Of even constructive fraud.
When 1t comes to leather goods the
same system Of counterfeting pre-
walls. You may get what is technically
called an alligator skin" travelling bag
at any price you wish to pay, but no
man with an eye in his head is ever de-
ceived by the transparent device, and
the dealers deem it an innocent trick
to please persons in search of what
they cannot buy.
Every line Of trade is thus supplied
with its counterfeits and limitations,
and those who want the real article, il
it can be found, will have to pay more
elaborate price than usually asked for
its namesake.
NapoIeon's Booty I'm Ono Campaign.
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