The Hope pioneer. [volume] (Hope, N.D.) 1882-1964, 1906-02-01
DEVELOPING COUNTRY TOWNS
Organize and Educate Your Neighbors to Buy at Home
Boycott the Catalogue l1ouses-The Mail
Order Extract Evil.
Order Extract Evil.

| state food law will always be impO-
tent, and that is the sale OF adulter.
ated stuff by mail order houses. For
instance, I have before me the expan-
sive advertisement of a Chicago con
Germ which sells extracts. They ad.
vertise an old scheme-premiums to
agents who sell various quantities
Here is the scheme as described by
the concern in its own advertisement:
Ladies and Girls: We want you to
help us introduce among your friends
our celebrated Red Cross" flavoring
extracts and earn any of these pre-
miums or your choice of several hun
dred others. Our extracts sell at 20
cents and are quickly sold, because
extracts are used in every family.
Ours once bought are always asked
for again-and our first customers are
III best ones. We sell them on a
guarantee-money back if not salts.
factory.
In this advertisement we illustrate
a few of the many hundred premiums
we give, which are fully described in
our new $50 page catalogue.
We have premiums for selling n
dozen up to forty dozen, and you are
at liberty to stop work at any time
and select your premium from this big
assortment. We believe our offer to
be the most liberal ever made by a re-
liable firm. You will be surprised to
find how pleasant the work is, and
how quickly you can sell the extracts.
BY our plan you are not overstocked
with goods until you a find for
yourself how many can be sold.
No money required in advance,
Your credit is good with us. Send us
| your name and address; we will then
send you by mail, postpaid, one dozen
assorted "Red Cross f1avoring ex.
tracts to commence with; also Jul big
premium catalogue. If you can't sell
them we will take them back; but
there's no can't about it-you can. DC
it now.
Surrounding this appeared small
cuts of various of the premiums given
Take these as examples:
Women's Melton coat, AZ inches
long, velvet trimmed, for selling four
dozen. Extension dining room table,
for selling four dozen. Tea or dinner
set, Sc pieces, for selling three dozen.
Combination desk and bookcase, for
selling five dozen. Velour couch for
selling four dozen. C%hiffonier, solid
oak, for selling five dozen.
And so on. There were a lot more.
to be given for selling from one dozen
up to even dozen.
Now let's do a little figuring. These
extracts, the firm says, retail at 20
cents a bottle. That means $2.40 per
dozen.
The woman who sells only four doz-
en- bottles, meaning $3.50. can get for
her work a cloth coat. I have some
acquaintance with the retail cost OF
women's garments-let us put the
value of this coat. at only S., which
admittedly would not buy anything
but the merest shoddy.
That leaves $3.50 to the firm for its
four dozen extracts, or less than 10
cents a bottle. Can absolutely pure
extracts be sold for this with a profit
to the manufacturer? sd
Assuredly they can't, and there's
still another thing to say-the concern
whose advertisement this is are not
manufacturers, according to the mer-
camille agency books. AS q matter Of
fact, they aren't rated at all, But such
concerns are always dealers, rather
than makers, and that means q second
profit to be figured.
1t is certain beyond a reasonable
doubt that these goods are a%dulterated
and sold in violation Of the law.
The certainty is, too, that very
large quantities of them are sold.
Every town and city hasFnagging WON
en- and children ringing its doorbells
to sell somebody's extracts or baking
powder. These sales are small, but
they are legion. The aggregate, be
sure, is enormous.
Admittedly beyond reach Of food
laws, these, impure goods compete
with every grocer in business. They
rob him Of trade by the hundreds of
dollars worth. Yet it is just as Inn
possible for the food authorities to
reach them as it would be to enter
each home in the land and take sam.
pies from every table.
The sellers have no places of bust
| ness. They are not merchants. Their
sales for the most part are made with
out witnesses and in private. The
buyer is without mean Of detecting
the fraud and knows not whether her
purchase is perfectly pure or wholly
spurious.
Whether a. federal food law would
reach these long-distance fakes is I'M
certain. The chance is that some way
Of doing it could be figured out un-
der the interstate commerce clause.
Certain is it that no state law will
ever reach them.-St. Paul Trade
Journal.
/ generous flakes and enveloped the
earth with a aeecy garb suggestive of
purity. The matronly seeress wiped
her bedimmed optics, broke a stolen