Connecticut western news., 1899-02-23


 markets, 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 commer- 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- 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. But rather summon up the great essayists and philosophers and story tellers and think CTS of the ages and have them entertain you.
 But you have come now near the end of your railroad travel I 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 outr' 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 regis try book with all the disinterested warmth of 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 ad- vertisements, while there are inkstands sunken in the bed of the table and scattered all around rusty steel pens and patches of plotting paper. Of course you will not stay there. You sumter 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 wineglass with somebody, you had bet ter not get his custom. An old commer- 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- iure 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 l fastened on you. do not know whether to tell it or not. I think will A close carriage came to the door of my church in Brooklyn one night at the close of religious service. Some one said, "A gentleman in that carriage wants to see you" I looked into the carriage, and i there sat as fine salesman and as ele- gant a gentleman as New York ever saw, but that night he was intoxicated. He said he wanted to put himself under my care. He said he had left home, and he never meant to go back again I got into the carriage with him and rode with him until after midnight. trying to persuade him to go home I have been scores of times to Greenwood, following the dead, but that was the most doleful ride I ever took. After Aidnight 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. took him to his room. I un- dressed him. put him to bed. Where s that home nowf All broken up. Where are the wife and the daughter Gone into the desolations of widowhood md orphanage. Where is the man him. ,elf2 Dead by the violence of his own hand.
 Do Not Ruin Your Soul.
 O commercial traveller, though your firm may give you the largest salary of
 
 might give you 10 per cent of all you sell, or 20 per cent or 50 per cent or 89 per cent, they cannot pay enough to make it worth your while to ruin your souli Besides that, a commercial house never compensates man who has been morally ruined in their employ. A young man in Philadelphia was turned out from his employ because of inebria- ton got in the service of the mer- chant who employed him, and here is the letter he wrote to his employer:
 "Sir-I came into your service un- corrupt in principles and in morals, but the rules of your house required me to spend my evenings at places of public entertainment and amusement in search of customers To accomplish my work in your service was obliged to drink with them and join them in their pur- suits of pleasure. It was not my choice, but the rule of the house. I went with them to the theater and the billiard ta- ble, but it was not my choice. did not wish to go; went in your service. It was not my pleasure so to do, but was the conductor and companion of the Outo, fOlu dllh0 Ol ing and of principle, in their sinful pleasures and deeds of deeper darkness. that I might retain them as your cus- toners. Your interest required it. I have added thousands of dollars to the profits of your trade, but at what ex- pense you now see, and know too well You have become wealthy, but I am poor indeed, and now this cruel dis missal from your employ is the recom- pense I receive for a character ruined and prospects blasted in helping to make you rich manl' Alas for the man who gets such a letter as that
 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