The herald., 1896-09-04
Local, Eastern and For eign
Commercial Dealings
WALL STREET SPECULATION
A Merchant Tells Why Cheap Goods
Sell
Poor Stationery and Careless Habits ~ In
dices Of q Bad Business nsn-Per Cent
of Business Failures

A business man speaking of how he
judges his customers standing and busi-
ness ability says:
Poor stationery indicates either fatal
carelessness or, at least, an undesirable
condition of business on the part of the
one using 1t. The chances are a hundred
to one that the business man who Is too
poor or too careless to look after this de-
tail is equally negligent in the matter of
properly furnishing his store or carrying
such a stock as is calculated to enable him
to conduct a successful business" Con-
tinuing he said: II once collected twenty
hve such letter heads as indicated by their
general appearance that those who used
them were not worthy of any very consid-
erable line Of credit, and made a visit to
those stores to see how correct my judg-
ment in the matter was. The result showed
that in twenty-three cases my previous
conclusions were strengthened. Another
important guide Is the lack of a number
on a check. 1t shows that the one who
drew it is evidently careless about his bank
account 1t is likely to be overdrawn, or he
may not even know how he does stand"
An eastern drygoods merchant speaking
OF Ihe run on cheap goods alleges that
halt tSs .9e iscr trouble lies IN the salesman He
any woman, for they are all fond of nice
unHdesrWearaand sH srS let her go into store and
doh lOI uIutTWedT. Inc clerk lnVarldDlY
pulls out the cheap kind first. In hosiery
another weakness in women, the first thing
that VIII be shown her is the % cent kind
we e,Ea also ;ao kn6w that many people come into
ing cheap article. II a clerk were to use
Just little Of the capability and judgment
to the customer that the better goods would
be cheaper after all and the customer would
be, be thankful; There seems to be q conta-
Show pnn1 nlprRhnn6iGa
Judge from my own experience. ! go into
places where formerly, dealt and ask for
me is the very cheap goods, and the same
would would happen to you or any one else whose
rs shown nfn at a ne No rRers
as the busy. thorng might have led one to
IS all Gneap h That
case Of the bicycle. We all know that BIZ
sjy1 cyeles are made to sell for $50; s65, SIS and
sells best. This certainly gives room for
deliberation. Who is it can tell the differ
ence in the mechanism of these various
Just as well on these 500 wheels if they sold
for $50? But the very fact that these
wheels are held to their price commands
pend sl6O for one Of these silent steeds.''
number of firms. individuals and corpora
tioilS Ill BUSINESS, tOketHeT WITH tHe tOIat
number of failures in years preceding 1899
indicates that the total number of failures
in business of both kinds-that is. those
falling to pay what they owe and those who
merely fail to succeed--amounted to about
eleven per cent annually Of the total num-
ber of concerns recorded as having an es-
tablshed place in business. while the total
number of those failing. owing more than
they could pay, was only fraction more
teresting and valuable statistical discover
les Is made plain the untruthfulness of a
statistical lie, which has Travelled so far
and wide for many years that '95 out of
every 100 concerns fall AS has been
pointed out, the total number of concerns
failing in business annually, unable to pay
their total Indebtedness. is a fraction over
one per cent or, we may say. 1.15 per cent
or 1.20 per, cent, This being the annual
commercial death rate who shall pre-
sumo to say what the Commercial lifetime
is? If one chooses to arbitrarily define
a commercial lifetime as twenty-five
years. it would follow that the proportion
of failures during the commercial lifetime
In question would be about 80 per cent of
the total number in business. OF. thirty in
100 of those having an established place
in Observation-Disclosures