Evening star., 1899-02-04
COLLECTING BAD DEBTS.
New and Unique Way Of Managing
the Matter.

The ingenuity of the collector" said an
old + street merchant yesterday, lis some
thing wonderful. 1 have several thousand
dollars tied UP in slow and bad accounts
and l keep working on them steadily year
after year-'keepng them alive, as they
say. and gradually wiping some of them
out. Most of the people who owe me are
as glad to pay up as | am to have them.
They are honest, but somehow have got be-
hind in the stress OF the hard times for
few years past.
.Au sorts of men have come to see me
to explain their methods of collecting, and
some OF them have been quite fetching. But
l nave kept OUT of them all and relied on
personal appeals by letter In the course
of time l shall save the collectors commits
SIOnS and my own reputation for good ma
ture Al least The latest device to push UP
a debtor was brought in here today by
sudppy little New York book agent. 1t
was a book with page for every account
ana blanks for names, dates, amounts and
references to the ledger or other books
usually kept in any ordinary business. At
the right-hand end of each page was
series of printed notices in glaring red
ink. These legends were all separated by
perforated lines, along which each one
could he torn off, and all the notices were
gummed on the back.
As soon as a store account got little
dusty and you began to wonder if it would
i'r pdlI Ol not you puL II III IHIS DtDh ne
first notice to be torn out and pasted on the
bill to be sent to the party read like this:
Please Oblige by an early settlement of
this account
sense of his duty after proper interval
of forhearance, the next shot was like this:
This account has. no doubt. escaped
your notice. Kindly favor us with Il
mittanCe in the course of few days
You see this is a little stronger and more
pushing than the first Well, if your man
doesn't respond to this you aim and fire
again. The third shot is this
Having again to remind you of this
account which is much overdue, mtfst
ask you for Il settlement by return Of mall
1t is q warm mail that returns a store
account of any standing nowadays. | keep
smelling salts at the bookkeeper's desk in
case of such a contingency. l know he
would faint away surely and l am little
doubtful about my own nerves in an acct
dent. If You do not get a reply-and as
sure as fate you dOn't-then you let loose
another dog of war in words TO this effect:
Again we are obliged to remind you of
this account, which is now much overdue.
Please make immediate settlement and
save further expense and unpleasantness.'
This is hot song. AS old Homer re-
marked, What a word has escaped the
hedge of your teeth, 0 Telenachus.' You
have got the air reeking with danger now
and your game is expected to come down
like Zaccheus or Capt. Martin SCott's coon.
If he should not, lastly and finally. my
brethren here is your Waterloo and Sanu
ago. Again. as ever, in red ink, breathing
war. carnage. death and desolation:
Several demands have been made for
payment of this account, and unless it re-
ceiVes attention before it will be
placed in the hands of an attorney to be
dealt with.
".FTNAL. APPLICATION
Now he must come out with a flag of
truce and propose protocol or uncondi-
tional surrender of the good coin of the
rt n Of is
ingenious. simple and, to me- very interest
ing. Jones, next door, has invested In IL
and l am going to see how he makes out
with it