Waterbury evening Democrat., 1907-11-23
HOLIDAY BUSINESS
Merchants Think Money Strin.
 qeDcy Will Not Affect It.


 withstanding the talk about strin
 gency in the money market and dul
 times, the indications point to rusf
 in all lines of trade. Things are
 quite different now in Waterbury
 compared with what they used to be
 when the town was smaller, and z
 dull spell, no matter how brief. al
 most scared the wits out of every l body. In those days there were bu,
 few places where any great number
 of help was employed and when these
 shut down everything stopped and
 nobody did anything but stew and
 fret until they heard the whistles al
 the usual time oEce more. In addi.
 tien to that everybody knew his
 neighbors and they fooled away a
 lot of time telling each other of
 their woes. Now there are more places of employment and nearly
 every family has more than one per son bringing in a dollar, and people ! don't know half as many as former ly. so that they are relieved of the
 worry of listering to tales of hard luck.
 Better than all, the working peo- pie have in the neighborhood of $10,-
 000,000 or $12,0OO,00O in the local
 banks and more in other places of the kind all over the state, so that Waterbury is pretty we'll fixed and has no reason to weep over titles. It. is in a position to take care of it. self. This includes a due regard for the poor, who will always have to Dc provided for by their more for tunate fellow men.
 In the past every man maintained his own family, and having no back doors, he made it point to be pre- pared for emergencies. But thls has rot been so in tho past thirty or forty years, so that under existing condi- tons few families are looking to one person to keep the house. There are more ways of earning an honest dol lar, and while a dull season would be felt in many homes, it would not bring the general alarm that pre- vailed in the times when there was but one source of revenue, the head of the house, and when he lost his employment or failed to meet his ob- legations for any reason, things were in bad shape for a season. And again, the head of the house is not missed now so keenly as he used to be when he dled without leaving enough money to pay his funeral ex- penses. Such cases are rare now Most men carry as much insurance as they possibly can afford and in this way when one is called away his family has sufficient coming to them to tide things along until they grow up and are able to care for each other Then people have the assurance that there is lots of work, but owing to the mixed condition of affairs in the copper market it is al- most out of the question to get ma terial; but if this is the only trouble it is safe to predict that it will right itself before long and all who are willing to work will find something to do before their savings have dis apepared. Some may say this is fanciful view of the situation, and maybe it is, but that is the way very large portion of the community take 1t, and as q consequence busi- ness men and others who ought to know are not in any way disturbed and take a hopeful view of the fu- ture. In any case, the markets are stocked with good things for the holidays, and judging by the num- Der of purchasers seen hurrying to and fro, many have money and they are not afraid to pass it out for such things as they feel they ought to have and can afford.
 A few days ago somebody said there would be q scarcity of fowl for the holiday trade, but it doesn't seem so now. The show windows display the finest breeds of turkeys, ducks and chickens ever seen in Wa terbury at prices that are not un- reasonable. The white turkey, not always very common in Waterbury, is much in evidence now, and the family that would need more than one of them for Christmas must be large and possessed of wonderful ap- petites. The Chinese duck, until quite recently an unknown quantity in this part of the country, can be had almost any place to-day. It is twice as large aC the old New Eng land fowl of that species and doesn't make half so much noise, although it costs but trifle more. The same thing might be said with reference to chickens. They are bigger and fatter than the old barnyard hens O. the past that in most cases were more than a bunch of feath- CTS, skin and bone, and would con- sume almost as much fire to cook as the pesky things were worth. These and other things in that line now in the local markets and the demand that exists for them prove better than anything that might be men, tioned could that the people of this town are prosperous and happy and that the little excitement caused by the temporary suspension of business in some places has no appreciable ef- feet on them. although, to be sure, prudent folks may look at a dollar more closely than formerly Lefore parting with 1t. and in so doing they simply emphasize what has frequent- ly been said. that the average resi- dent of the Brass city wants to know what he is getting for his money be- fore he allows himself to be separ- ated from it, and no doubt this ex-