The Cape Girardeau Democrat. (Cape Girardeau, Mo.) 1876-1909, 1897-08-28
P~RosPERiTY'S WAVE.

The Boom Strikes st. Louis and ComPeis
Doubtsrs to Belieye-No Such Business
Has Been Done since 1899, Which Was
the Banner Year In the Business Interests
of the City.
ST. LOUIS, Aug.2S.-The Republic de-
votes much space to the wonderful In
crease in business throughout the en-
tire country. OF this increase IN this
city it yesterday had this to say:
There has been a great deal written
about the increased business, but the
figures themselves tell the story better
than it can be told in any other way.
A number of Republic reporters were
assigned Saturday to go among the
different business interests of St Louis
and secure carefully estimated figures
on the business increase as compared
with last year.
No such business has been done since
1892, which was the banner year in the
business history of the city. The larg-
est transactions have been IN dry
goods, clothing, boots and shoes and
hats and caps. There has also been q
very heavy business in wagons and
farm implements
The branches of business which
show the largest increase over last
year are in dry goods and clothing.
Visits to all the leading houses in these
lines disclose the fact that there Is an
increase of fully 30 per cent over last
year in each line. Next to these come
the hat and cap business, which shows
a clean gain of Is per cent. 1t might
be mentioned in connection with this
line of business, that buyers claim
that that they can get better results
from buying hats and caps in this city
than anywhere else in the United
States. There are two houses here,
each of which carries 4 more complete
line of goods than any house of a sim
liar kind in the country.
The big millinery houses were visi ted
and the proprietors report that their
business has picked up wonderfully,
there being an increase of from IL to
10 per cent. over the business OF last
year. Next in the order of increase
comes boots and shoes, with II per
cent; groceries, with ten per cent land
hardware, with from eight to ten per
cent. In the retail dry goods business
there has been an increase OF fully ten
per cent, and this in itself demon
strates the fact hat the wave of pros
perity has struck the city. There is
not a line of business represented in
the city which does not show a decided
gain over the amount of business done
in 1896, and some of the figures are al
most startling.
During the past week there were in
st. LOUIS about 1000 country buyers
from this and other states in the west
and southwest, all of whom took ad-
vantage of the one and one-third rate
of fare secured from the railroads
through the efforts of the Interstate
Merchants association. They came
prepared to buy and they did
buy as never before. The gen.
eral buyers as they arrived m
most cases visited the dry goods stores
first, and after they had finished there
went to the hats and caps houses, and
from there to the boot and shoe houses.
This seemed to be the order generally
followed. There was no trouble any
where over the prices except in the
latter industry, where the old diff
Guilty apparently remains, the deal
ers being unwilling to buy largely
at the prices which the manu-
f~acturers now ask, although dur-
ing the past week the only change has
been a slight advance on calf boots.
The manufacturers of dry goods are
asking prices a little higher, and this
is owing to the curtailment in the pro-
duction of cottonS.