The daily morning journal and courier., 1904-03-19
A DRUMMER IN BRIDGES.
COMMERCIAL TRATELER WHO
 SELLS HEAVY LINE GOODS.
He Mutt be Fearless Fellow, Who Can Ride and shoot and Must be Prepared to stand All Climates.

He Mutt be a Fearless Fellow, Who
 Can Ride and shoot and Must be
 Prepared to stand All Climates.
 He looked more like a soldier or an explorer than a commercial traveller as he sat in the smoking compartment of the sleeper running between New York and Buffalo. Therefore, when one of the simon-pure drummers asked him what his business was, and he replied that he was drummer like the rest, it was natural that some one should in- quire with interest what line of goods he carried
 He laughed and said: T don't carry any goods. not even samples. couldn't very well carry a satisfactory sample of my line unless I were to hire freight car to accompany me on my travels. The fact is that I am a drummer for a bridge building concern.
 Yes" he continued, in response to another remark, its mighty interest ing business, and it gives man lots of variety. There's too much of it some times, for I've just had the experience of hurrying from the damp heat of a tropical forest to the somewhat bleak coasts of New Foundland, where we got a big contract unexpectedly
 Well, you're lucky in one way, though" said one of his listeners. You haven't got the competition we have. Here are four of us in the same car, all selling the same kind of goods, and all bound for the same town and the same customers. take it that bridge salesmen aren't as thick as blackberries.
 NO, they aren't as thick as that" said the bridge salesman. But to make up for it, the rivalry for big bridge contract is on as enormous a scale as the business itself. and the competing firms won't hesitate at any risk to land the business. Consequently they send out men who can ride and shoot and command savages, and they expect them to go at it exactly as if they were leading an exploring expedi- tion.
 That's about what it amounts to, in many cases. You see, the only way for a concern to figure intelligently on a bridge building job is to know just ex- actly what it may have to do. It never pays to take the word of somebody who has been in the place, because, no mat ter how good traveller and how faith full an observer he may be. unless he has taken notes with especial reference to bridge building, his knowledge of the country isn't apt to be worth much for our purposes
 Therefore, the minute the various bridge companies of the world hear of a good chance, each strives to get its own trusted experts to the. place first, so ure on the job.
 At the same moment, determined men may start from Berlin, Essen, Liv- erpool Biringham, Pittsburg, New York and Philadelphia, all bound for some tiny spot of land lying half known and half guessed at in a wilderness that may only have been opened to the white man for a few months
 As our routes begin to converge, we begin to sget news of each other-gene- rally just enough to keep each one guessing. Then, If we all happen to land in the same port, we have a noble scrap to get our guides and men for the journey into the interior The natives generally are quick enough to perceive that they are going to be in demand, for when half dozen white men sud- denly drop into a little town on the fringe of civilization somewhere, it doesn't take long for anybody to discov- CT that something is up.
 Well, after we get away the fight has only begun One man will go one way; one another. Now, after you strike out into a wilderness and find yourself blowing and Nwading and climbing and struggling through unknown country you are likely to put in some tough days wondering if you haven't picked out the worst road and if the other fellow won't get in and finish his work before you get through toiling amid the jungle.
 Then, of course, there is the constant need for watchfulness, for the new countries through which railroads are to be run are not usually as orderly and peaceful as a town in New England. Some of us bridge drummers have had to fight our way literally to the scene of our sales, using repeating rifles instead of sample cases.
 The final sale, to be sure, is made af- ter we get through, and it is not con- cluded in the heart of an African jun gle, but in a nice, quiet, orderly office in England or America or Germany. But the real sale, the work that makes
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