The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1901-09-13
SWAPPING CUSTOMERS.
One Phase of the Laundry business
That Is Out of the Or
binary.


"Talk about wireless telegrapky,"
said man in downtown store the
other day while waiting for his change,
reports the Washington Star, "thereis
game going on in this town that beats
it hollow. 1t may be worked in other
cities as well, but 1 have never heard
of it. You are a patron of a certain
steam laundry in town and have an
arrangement whereby the wagon will
call for your bundle of soiled linen once
week. The bag is always ready on
Mondays. After two or three weeks of
pretty regular service one day the
bundle comes home from another laun-
dry You inquire of your wife or the
servant and get little satisfaction. No
one has changed the orders. A wagon
came and got the stuff and later in the
day another wagon came for it, too.
There had apparently been misun-
derstanding and you are glad to get
your goods back. Next week the old
laundry wagon comes back. Mean
while you have been called up on the
telephone and some one representing
the laundry that did your washing by
mistake will apologize to you for the
blunder and softly suggest that per-
haps you would like to continue. You
switch off without reaching bargain.
The prices are all the same, you see.
Then for few weeks you get the bun
die back, some times from one estab-
lishment and some times from another.
Then, perhaps, for an experiment, you
switch off to scrubbing bureau which
has not yet broken into the game, just
to get things Strengthened out, and
behold! you have not had single col
lar worn to shreds by this establish
ment before the same process is on.
eff you carry the matter to head
quarters yourself you will be told that
the laundry you have been patronizing
has recently discharged drivers and
that these men have been stealing
their trade. My experience would
seem to suggest that the explanation
lies deeper. l have watched the faces
of these laundry drivers and have be-
come pretty familiar with them. l
have ordered service of one place and
have had one call from its wagon, and
the next week have been waited on
by man whom l have never seen be-
fore. You see, | became so Interested
in the game that | studied it at first
hand during one vacation had to spend
in town for financial reasons. The fact
l found was that the drivers don't
shift places as rapidly as the laundry
managers would have you think. l
cannot avoid the conclusion that there
is system of buying and selling in
formation in vogue whereby these
drivers get a handsome rake-otf. |
may be doing them an injustice, but
there is no other way to account for
the otherwise mysterious manner in
which your laundry bundle will slip
from one establishment to the other
What is to prevent the driver of one
of these wagons from tipping off a
rival laundry whenever he calls on a
new customer? Of course, the game
is worked on all sides, if at all, and it
is possible that most of the drivers in
town are on the same lay. If so, each
laundry is both buying the secrets of
others and is losing customers in the
same manner. For it is game for is
many players as can sit around the
table.
SIT is matter of comparatively
slight Importance, except that once in
awhile man gets hold of a cleaning
joint where his linen will last some
thing like its natural life, and he hates
to lose it. There is one branch of the
laundry business which has not yet
been tainted by these methods of trade
rivalry, as far as / have been able to
Judge. The Cinnamon don't try to
drum up business. They take all they
can get and smile whenever more
comes, and when no more is to be had
they smile again and take nap behind
the partition and then wake up to
mark tickets. There seems to be lots
of interesting variety to the life of the
laundryman."