The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1899-03-30
BENTON. LOUISIANA. THURSDAY, MARCH 3d. 1899.

sight. and let him devote TO valuable
reading the time not actually occupied
in commercial errand, and in six years
he will be qualified for any position for
which he is ambitious.
Be ashamed to sell foreign fabrics or
fruits unless you know something
| about the looms that wove them or the
vineyards that grew them. Understand
all about the laws that control COM
mercial life, about banking, about
tariffs. about markets, about naviga-
ton, about foreign people-their char
acteristics and their political revolu-
tions as they affect ours; about the
| harvests of Russia. the vineyards of
| Italy, the teafields of China. Learn
| about the great commercial centers of
| Carthage and Assyria and Phoenicia.
| Read all about the Medici of Florence,
| mighty in trade. mightier in philan-
thropies. You belong to the royal
family of merchants. Be worthy of
that royal family. Oh. take my advice
and turn the years of weariness into
years of luxury. Take those hours You
spend at the depot waiting for the de-
| layed 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 twenti-
| OF 4 IN bo %l~,, = I,
train is coming, bothering the ticket
agent and telegraph operator with ques-
lions which you ask merely because you
| want to pass away the time. But rather
summon up the great essayists and
| philosophers and story tellers and
thinkers of the ages and have them en-
tertain you.
But you have come now near the end
of your railroad travel. | 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. ''All OUT" cries the
| conductor. You dismount from the
| train. You reach the hotel The land
| lord is glad to see you-very glad! He
| stretches out his hand across the reg
| istry book with all the disinterested
| warmth of a brother! You are assigned
an apartment. In that uninviting
apartment you stay only long enough
to make yourself presentable. You
descend then into the reading-room,
| and there you find the commercial trav-
elers sitting around a long table with
| a great elevation in the center covered
with advertisements, while there are
| inkstands sunken in the bed of the
table, and scattered all around rusty
steel pens and patches of blotting pa
per. Of course you will not stay there.
You saunter out among the merchants.
You present your letters of introduc-
| ton and authority. You begin bust
! ness. Now. let me say. there are two
or three things you ought to remember.
First, that all the trade you get by the
practice of ''treatih g" will not stick.
| If you cannot get custom except by tip
! ping wine glass with somebody. you
had better not get his custom. An old
commercial traveller gives as his ex-
perience that trade got by treating"
always damages the house that gets it
| in one way or the other.
Again. l charge you. tell the whole
truth about anything you sell. Lying
commercial travellers will precede you.
| Lying commercial travellers will come
right after you into the same store.
Do not let their unfair competition
! tempt you from the straight line. 1t
is an awful bargain that a man makes
when he sells his goods and his soul at
the same time. \ young man in one of
| the stores of New York was selling
some silks. He was binding them up
when he said to the lady customer: ut
is my duty to show you that there is a
| fracture in that silk" She looked at it
and rejected the goods. The head man
of the firm. hearing of it, wrote to the
father of the young man in the coun-
try, saying: Come and take your son
away. He will never make a mer-
chant" The father came in agitation,
wondering what his boy had been do
ing. and the head man of the firm said:
"Why. your son stood here at this coun-
1
silk, and of course the lady wouldn't t
take it. We are not responsible for the
ignorance of customers. Customers
must look out for themselves, and we
look out for ourselves. Your son will
| never make merchant" rs that all %
said the father. "Ah! l am prouder of
my boy than l ever was. John, get
your hat and come home
But it is almost night, and you go
back to the hotel. Now comes the
mighty tug for the commercial travel
er. Tell Inc where he spends his even
ings. and / will tell you where he will
spend eternity, and will tell you what
will be his worldly prospects. There is
an abundance of choice. There is your
room with the books. There are the
Young Mems Christian association
rooms. There are the week night serv-
ices of the Christian churches. There
is the gambling saloon. There is the