The daily morning journal and courier., 1902-06-05
SAMPLES COST MONEY.
FORTUNES SPENT BY BIG
 STORES

Loss of SsO,OOO Year 10 Ten Dry
 Goods Stores in ChtcngO.
 Ten big retail dry goods houses in
 down town Chicago send out every year
 22oOOO yards of woollen dress goods
 representing a retail price of 70 cents a
 yard, and only that an individual GUS
 tomer may satisfy herself as to what IS
 being worn, or--in one case out or hVe
 that she may order dress pattern
 from one of these samples. Eighty
 thousand yards of silk are cut into mih-
 ute triangles squares assparallelo-
 grams, meaning retail loss ot $So'ooo
 year to these ten stores. And, on top
 of this, nearly every line of goods Tn a
 house suffers from the shears or the
 sample cutting department, aggregat-
 ing in these ten stores more than $loO,-
 900 a. year. These totals amount to
 SS17, 1000.
 And in the face of these figures 1t
 may be said that the sample craze,
 as it existed in the time of the crazy
 quilt, is virtually dead fad.
 Few people realize the extent of the
 sampling department of the modern re-
 tail dry goods house. Fewer still real
 ize that when bolt of dress goods
 comes into the house and is unpacked,
 the first thing done with it is to snip
 off a full yard from the bolt ranging
 from twenty-five to fifty yards, and
 perhaps two yards from the bolt that
 runs longer than this. As much of this
 goods is fifty-four to sixty inches wide, the average of one yard to the bolt is
 low, as is the price fixed at 75 cents.
 From one-third to one-half yard of this clipping goes directly to the sam
 ple cutting room. In sending up these clippings they are punched according to values and without reference to colors or shades.
 There may be ten strips from as many pieces of goods, the whole bunch held together by a tag on which the cost price is marked The manager of the cutting department receives this, and with some general directions the goods are turned over to the boy who is to do the cutting. The average width of the strips into which this cloth is cut is 1% inches, and the average length of the samples cut from these strips is three inches. Before cutting into sections the peiiPo cl NAp'if, tiiIdpo OLA bSSPi piC stuck through with the pins of the price tag and at the interval of three inches. Then the strips are cut across just above the tag.
 Thus the manager of the department has on the table before him the little punches of cloth of various shades and colors but of uniform price. They are classed as to material, also, so that yon~ Co, ;,, just what kind of goods she wants, and out of the selection of shades and col ors sent to her she may chose some thing to suit her Cutting these goods on another scale for dressmakers, the samples sent out are by 6 inches and | frequently in some goods of peculiar pattern in the weaving the shape of the | sample must be altered in order to show the novelty. Sticking a pair of pin points through six or eight thicknesses of woolen dress goods is easy, but to stick them through as many pieces of | cotton goods is another task, and in or der to make this easy the cutter jabs | the pins into cake of soap before him, | the soap acting as lubricant without | breasing the samples. The tag which is pierced by these pin points and so held to place bear the name of the dry goods firm in miniature, and on it are marked the price and width of the goods.
 There are Chicago houses which have q steady call for these samples from Maine to California, and from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico. In filling these requests, too, envelopes weighing one to eight ounces are sent out, the average being about four ounces at one cent an ounce As probable reaction from the times of the crazy quilt" about one- fifth of these samples sent out come back to the house sending them. There is seldom any request made that this be done, and there are few of these samples that are of any use to the { house when they have come back. There are two reasons for it: First the sam ples have been tossed and fingered so much that they are not presentable, { and, on the other hand, many pieces ( by samples that have gone put for weeks before, already have been { sold out. { A few houses which send out silks | l rom sample-cutting department. 1owever, ask for their return, on pain ,f not sending out to the delinquent of { he houses next catalogue. In most t ,ases, however silk samples are cut at 1 he retail silk counters and sent up to ( he mailing rom and when so cut the I salesman below cut his mark into the I samples In such a way as not only to I identify it, but to spoil 1t for any crazy ! luilting bee. In spite of the large piece r if goods, cut especially for the sample department too there is scarcely a bolt f dressmaking goods in a downtown louse which has not been shipped and < lacked at it's end, the samples being ,assed over the counters.
 On piece of goods that retails from B 250 to $6 a yard, these further inches ut from a bolt that is only twenty five ards long represent an appreciable roportion of loss. In every such case his nicked end must be subtracted rom the total cost of the original bolt i bolt of goods twenty-five yards long 7ill make about three dresses, while rom five of these bolts the making of ' ne dress easily may be lost to sam les, In one of the largest retail houses in