The Jersey City news. (Jersey City [N.J.]) 1889-1906, 1902-06-09
BARGAIN MOB
Police Called Out to Protec
Brown & Van Anglen
From Women.
PLATE GLASS IN JEOPARDY
Firms Established Fame for
First Glass Goods Brings
Unmanageable Crowd.

Brown Van Anglen's big dry goods
store on Montgomery street was the Scene
Of a woman's Monte Carlo this morning
with hundreds Of feminines pushing,
showing, crowding. grumbling and faint
ing in one mad effort to get at the bar
gains.
Long before the doors opened at nine
O'clock they began to arrive, these bar
gain hunters. and with faces against the
pane to watch with impatienc the move
ments of those inside BY nine O'Clock
there was regular mob, which ffocked
in the moment the doors were opened. TIL
the store might have been a King Edward
coronation scene with but sixteen inches
to a person. In fear OF panic the doors
were ordered closed but this was easier
sib.e to stem the oneoming tide.
There, you'll have to .et me in any
way cried one woman when the door
was at last closed and locked, you've
got half my skirt.
So the door was opened just little to
let her through, and it was with rne
greatest difficulty closed again after a
dozen had squeezed in.
Let me out, I'm fainting! / tell you
let me out was the constant cry as the
crowd outside pushed against the big
plate glass windows, and two women did
faint, thereby gaining admission to the
bargains.
Mr.. Van Anglen was then seized with
another fear. Ny plate glass, he said,
is not insured against damage by bar
gains. Send for more police"
They were then letting the women in
one at time, and still the mob was
unmanageable. Mr.. Van Anglen thought
it out minute in his private office, then
sent down orders to lock the Montgomery
street door, using it for exit only, while
the doors on Newark avenue were to be
used for ingress. This made the mob
outside furious.
ITS mean shame, that's what it is,
was the exclamation when the announce
ment was made. Just to think we have to
lose. our place after holding it all this
time
Then they all went round the block and
fought and elbowed their way through
the crowd already there.
There were real bargains inside, goods
going for less than half. and as the lucky
first comers began slowly to come out,
their less lucky sisters got wind of it and
almost went wild.
The police had their hands full and their
toes trod on a hundred times minute.
..,They ought to send mounted police,
that what they ought We can't do a
thing" said one of the bluecoats. TITS
worse than a fire..
Inside the clerks had a no less enviable
position than the police. Everybody
wanted to see everything and be waited
on, all at once. BY noon they all looked
pretty well tired out and the sight of G
clerk going to lunch seemed to madden
the shoppers who had just entered after
waiting an hour or so for admittance.
Another thing that seemed TO madden
these shoppers was the sight of goods De-
ing tucked away on shelf. They were
ever suspicious that it was being saved
for some more favored purchasers.
Mr. Van Anglen said when seen by a
News" reporter, that he thought he had
made ample allowance for the crowd. The
corps of salespeople had been doubled.
and the ) was unexpected, though he
did exf a crowd.
The trouble was that the first class
quality of Brown & Van Anglens goods
is well known in Jersey City and people
know when bargains are advertised that
they are bargains. Tomorrow he hopes
to avert another mob. The sale will con-
tinue until all the present stock is sold
out AS yet nothing has been damaged,
nothing missed though what the days
reckoning viii bring cannot be foretold.
IT'S with those big middle-aged women
we have the trouble said one of the
policemen. "The younger, smaller women
we can get along with but the older
women viii pay no attention to US and
when one of them gets in the door
the sentence was unfinished, but his face
was expression itself.
narnasn fytn rfIaIrnRY