The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1895-07-18
A FIRM DISSOLVED.
BY ROBERT BARR.

walking for the first time through
London sees on the sides of the houses
many names with which he has long
been familiar. His precognition has
cost the firms those names represent
much money in advertising. The
stranger has had the names before him
for years in newspapers and maya
zines, on the hoardings and on boards
by the railway side, paying little heed
to them at the time; yet they have
been indeibly impressed on his brain,
and when he wishes soap or pills his
lips almost automatically frame the
words most familiar to them. Thus
are the lavish sums spent in adver-
Using justified, and thus are many ex-
cellent publications made possible.
When you come to ponder over the
matter, it seems strange that there
should ever be any real man behind
the names so lavishly advertised; that
there should be genuine Smith or
Jones whose justly celebrated medi-
cines work such wonders, or whose
soap will clean even guilty con-
science. Granting the actual exist
ence of these persons and probing still
further into the mystery. can anyone
imagine that the excellent Smith to
whom thousands of former sufferers
send entirely unsolicited testimonials,
or the admirable Jones whom prima
donnas love because his soap pre-
serves their dainty compleXions-ca
anyone credit the fact that Smith and
Jones have passions like other men,
have hatreds, likes and dislikes?
Such a condition of things, incred
ible as it may appear, exists in Lon
don. There are men in the metropolis,
utterly unknown personally, whose
names are more widely spread over
the earth than the names of the great
est novelists, living or dead, and these
men have feeling and form like unto
ourselves.
There was the firm of Dandy &
Strong, for instance. The name may
mean nothing to any reader of these
pages, but there was a time when it
was well known and widely advertised,
not only in England, but over the
greater part of the world. They did
great business. as every firm that
spends a fortune every year in adver-
Using is bound to do. 1t was in the
old paper collar days. There actually
was time when the majority of men
wore paper collars, and when you
come to think of it, the wonder is that
the paper collar trade ever fell away
as it did, when you consider with what
vile laundries London is and always has
been cursed. Take the Dandy e Strong
collars, for instance, advertised as being
SO similar to linen that only an expert
could tell the difference. That was
Strong's invention. Before he invented
the Piccadilly collar, so-called, paper
collars had brilliant glaze that would
not have deceived the most recent ar
rival from the most remote shire in the
country. Strong devised some method
by which a slight linen film was put
on the paper, adding strength to the
collar and giving it the appearance of
the genuine article. You bought
pasteboard box containing a dozen of
these collars for something like the
price you paid for the washing of
half a dozen linen ones. The Dandy e
Strong Piccadilly collar jumped at
once into great popularity, and the
wonder is that the linen collar ever re-
covered from the blow dealt by this
ingenious invention.
Curlously enough, during the time
the firm was struggling to establish it
self, the two members were the best
of friends, but when prosperity came
to them causes of differences arose,
and their relations, as the papers say
of warlike nations, became strained.
Whether the fault lay with John
Dandy or with William Strong, no one
has ever been able to find out. They
had mutual friends who claimed that
each of them was a good fellow, but
each of those friends always added
that Strong & Dandy did not hit it
off"
Strong was a bitter man when
aroused, and could generally be
counted upon to use harsh language.
Dandy was quieter, but there was
sullen streak of stubbornness in him
that did not tend to the making up of
the quarrel. They had been past the
speaking point for more than year
when there came a crisis in their re-
lations with each other that ended in
disaster to the business carried on I'M
der the title of Dandy & Strong.
Neither man would bulge, and be-
tween them the business sunk to ruin.
Where competition is fierce no firm
can stand against it if there is internal
dissension. Dandy held his ground
quietly but firmly, Strong ragged and
cursed, but was equally steadfast in
not yielding point Each hated the
other SO bitterly that each was willing
to lose his own share in profitable
business, if by doing so he could bring
ruin on his partner.
We are all rather prone to be misled
by appearances. AS one walks down
Piccadilly, or the Strand, or Fleet
street and meets numerous ire proach-
ably dressed men with glossy tall hats
and polished boots, with affable man
ners and courteous way of deporting
themselves towards their fellows, we
are apt to fall into the falacy of be-
lieving that these gentlemen are civil
lized. We fail to realize that if you
probe in the right direction you will
come upon possibilities of savagery
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