Peninsula enterprise. [volume] (Accomac, Va.) 1881-1965, 1899-02-25

Dut II IS no excuse. I0ere WIS u blu'e,
my brother, when you had no taste for
cigars; they made you very sick, but
you persevered until cigars have become
to you luxury. Now, if you can afford
to struggle on to get bad habit, is it
not worth while to struggle on to get q
good habit like that of reading2 l am
amazed to find how many merchants
and commercial travellers preserve their
ignorance from year to year notwith-
all their opportunities. 1t was
well illustrated by one who had been
largely successful and who wanted the
show of a library at home, and he wrote
to book merchant in London. saying,
"Send me six feet of theology and about
as much metaphysics and near yard
of civil law in old foliol" There is no
excuse for a man lacking information
if he have the rare opportunities OF a
commercial traveller. Improve your
mind. Remember the Learned Black
smith," who, while blowing the bel
lows, set his book up against the brick
work and became acquainted with 80
languages. Remember the scholarly
Clifford, who, while an apprentice,
wrought out the arithmetical problem
with his awl on a piece Of leather Re
member Abercrombie, who snatched
here and there fragmentary five min
utes from an exhansting profession and
wrote immortal treatises on ethics.
study Laws of Commerce.
Be ashamed to sell foreign fabrics or
fruits unless you know something about
the looms that wove them or the vine
yards that grew them. Understand all
about the laws that control commercial
life, about banking about tariffs, about
about navigation, about for
eign people-their characteristics and
their political revolutions as they affect
ours; about the harvests Of Russia, the
vineyards of Italy, the teatields Of
China. Learn about the great CONNER
cial centers of Carthage and Assyria
and Phenicia. Read all about the Medici
of Florence, mighty in trade, mightier
in philanthropies. You belong to the
royal family of merchants. BE worthy
of that royal family. Oh, take my ad-
vice and turn the years of WEAKNESS
into years of luxury. Take those hours
you spend at the depot waiting for the
delayed train and make them Pisgah
heights from which you can view the
promised land. When you are waiting
for the train hour after hour in the
depot, do not spend your time reading
the sewing machine advertisements and
looking up the time tables of routes you
will never take, going the twentieth
time to the door to see whether the
train is coming, bothering the ticket
agent and telegraph operator with ques-
tions which you ask merely because you
want to pass away the time. Butrather
summon up the great essayists and
and story tellers and think
ers of the ages and have them entertain
you.
But you have come now near the end
of your railroad travel. 1 can tell by
the motion of the car that they are
pulling the patent brakes down. The
engineer rings the bell at the crossing.
The train stops Cali outl' cries the
conductor. You dismcunt from the
train. You reach the hotel. The land
lord is glad to see you-very glad lie
stretches out his hand across the regis
try book with all the disinterested
warmth of q brother. You are assigned
an apartment In that uninviting apart
ment you stay only long enough to
make yourself presentable. You descend
then into the reading room, and there
you find the commercial travellers sit
ting around >long table, with a great
elevation in the center covered with adj
yertisements, while there are inkstands
sur ken in the bed of the table and
scattered all around rusty steel pens
and patches of plotting paper. Or
course you will not stay there. You
saunter out among the merchants You
present your letters Of introduction and
authority. You begin business. Now,
let me say, there are two or three
things you ought to remember. First,
that all the trade you get by the prac-
tice of treating" will not stick. If you
cannot get custom except by tipping a
wineglass with somebody, you had bet
ter not get his custom. An old CONNER
cial traveller gives as his experience
that trade got by treating" always
damages the house that gets it in one
way or the other.
Besides that you cannot afford to in
jure yourself for the purpose of benefit
ing your employers. Your common
sense tells you that you cannot get into
the habit of taking strong drink to
please others without getting that habit
fastened on you. l do not know whether
to tell it or not. think will. A close
carriage came to the door of my church
in Brooklyn one night at the close Of a
religious service Some one said, ga
gentleman in that carriage wants to see
you. I looked into the carriage, and
there sat as fine salesman and as ele-
CANT a gentleman as New York ever
saw, but that night he was intoxicated.
He said he wanted to put himself under
nv care He said he had left home, and
he never meant to go back again. got
into the carriage with him and rode with
him until after midnight, trying to
persuade him to go home. l have been
scores Of times to Greenwood, following
the dead, but that was the most doleful
ride 1 ever took. After midnight l per
suaded him to go home. We alighted
at his door. We walked through his
beautiful hall, his wife and daughter
standing back affrighted at his appear
ance. l took him to his room. I'M
dressed him. put him to bed. Where
is that home now2 All broken up.
Where are the wife and the daughter
Gone into the desolations of widowhood
and orphanage. Where is the man HIM
self? Dead by the violence of his own
hano.5
DO Not Ruin Your Soul.