Birmingham state herald., 1896-02-09
In the highways,
 In the byways, In the busy thoroughfare. In every nook,
 Where e'er you look. You'll find the drummer there.

The life of trade-the drummer.
 Never stuff a customers order for you are liable to lose his trade-and you ought to.
 Like a cable car in order to be suc- cessful on the road, the commercial traV- eler must not lose his grip.
 The travelling man has set up high standard for his own profession that re- quires manliness, shrewdness, sociability and, above all, reliability
 The man on the road who is ever wait ing for conditions and circumstances to become better lets the golden opportuni- ties of life pass by without result.
 The successes of today are not given to the imitator, but to the originator. It matters not how other men may succeed their success is theirs, not yours.
 Socially speaking, as a class the knight of the grip is a gallant and courtly gen. tleman, enjoying in common with all oth- CT brave and chivalrOus men an ardent and extravagant admiration for feminine purity and loveliness.
 The travelling salesman is often cussed. discussed and recussed, and yet it goes without saying that his most vindictive enemy has never truthfully hurled at him the denunciation, '"Thou art a fool" for the average man on the road isn't built that way.
 Opinions and prejudices are different things. An opinion gently insisted upon in the presence of a buyer, if well backed by good reasoning, will oftentimes result in making a sale, while prejudice is some thing which too often interferes with good salesmanship.
 Today the commercial travellers of the country are universally acknowledged to be the indispensable instrumentality to modern development, progress ana civilization. This verdict is the out growth of the best financial experience and represents the business wisdom of quarter of a century.
 There's always business to be had in exchange for push and energy. It may not be as large as some of the boys would like, nor yet as large an amount or pront as has been made at other times, put there's business and profit in exchange foriup-to-date or energetic push and well considered, strong, aggressive effort.
 One of the faults of travelling men, and a great fault at that, is their prone ness to push nice new goods to the ex- clusion of "back numbers" which the house is always anxious to get rid of, and hence a firm should not take into consideration entirely the amount of a mans sales but the class of goods he sells.
 There are two kinds of hustlers to be found on the road-the real and the imi- tation hustler The real hustler has all ways plenty of time for all legitimate purposes The imitation hustler is rat tied, fidgety, buzzing and fneHective. The one accomplishes much without ap- parent effort; the other is all effort without accomplishment.
 Every commercial traveller must deal justly with his customers if he desires success He should make it his business to be just as particular that his trade gets the value of their money for goods ordered through him as he would be to get the value of his money from people of whom he buys. If he can get his trade to believe he is giving them just treat ment he will very soon find that there will be no difficulty in getting them to purchase their goods of him.