The Birmingham age-herald., 1908-02-29

For the past few weeks the street com missioner has been engaged in an active campaign on ditches. An effort is being made to put every cherted street in good condition.
 As is well known, the rains of one sea son wash down the ditches from two to six inches, and at this time streets every where are in the worst condition of the year. Numerous complains are expect ed, and every one will be given careful at- tention.
 1907, standard tomatoes, three-pound cans, were sold to the jobber by the manufact- urer at 95 cents a case. The current quotation is 75 cents a case. There is reduction of about 20 per cent. Hominy was quoted on the same date at 75 cents per case for standard three-pound cans. Today, according to the statement of the jobber, the prevailing price Is 45 cents. This shows a reduction of over 30 per cent. Should not the consumer receive some benefit from this reduction?
 With an eye out for such things one can find many similar cases. The above ace only a few instances to which att ention has been called.
 OHuSISchin9 LiStco rTiCcS'
 With reference to manufacturers un- derselling listed prices to wholesalers who are not members of the Southern Whole- sale Grocers' association, the following letters were left at the office of The Age-Herald yesterday by T. J. Daniel of the Jebeles & Colias Confectionery Go. The first is from Henry Heide, a con fectioner of New York:
 New York; February 15, 1908. TaI.a Q. tAIf ID ,,.~l,a A To
 Gentlemen:-I have your favor of the 9th inst, enclosing check In settlement of your account to date, for which I beg to thank you.
 In answer to your inquiry as to why I have discontinued selling you, beg leave to say with regret that I found such action necessary, having received fur ther complaints that you continue to undersell my goods. You will recall that we have had some little correspondence on the subject, and l requested that, to our mutual interests, you uphold prices on my goods. It seems, however. that you have not done so, and therefore I cannot see my way clear to accept fur ther orders from you
 Hoping you will appreciate my position in the matter, I remain, yours very truly,
 HENRY HEIDE.
 Jebeles & Collas replied to the above letter follows
 Answer To Letter.
 Birmingham, Ala, Feb. IT, 1903. MT. Henry Helde, New York, N. Y.
 Dear Sir--We are in receipt of your letter of the 18th inst, in which yon set forth at some length your reasons for declining to fill our further orders, and between the lines of which we fancy may be traced the fine Italian hand of an erstwhile friendly compet- ttp,. on1 meets with our entire satisfaction.
 The fact is our only excuse for fur ther prolonging the correspondence is that we feel that we owe it to you to tender our most sincere thanks for what we consider to be the best free advertisement it has ever before been our good pleasure to receive unsoli- cited.
 In this connection. however, we can not refrain from saying, in justice to ourselves, that our ability to meet our obligations promptly during all these years in business should be sufficient guarantee to any fairminded business man that we make legitimate profit on what we sell, and are not merely Tn business for the purpose of worrying some one else. If you will take the trouble to investigate you will doubt less find that our labors have been re-
 
 which we attribute to the fact that we have ever made it rule to attend strictly to our own business. We em- ploy and send on the road experienced men who possess the ability to sell goods without "knocking;" and we have never in one single instance taken unfair advantage of competitor; though we have long known that some of their representatives never let an xrl,nf hsAU nn liver a blow under the belt. even re- sorting to such interruptions methods as referring to us as aliens with no interest in this country save that of acquiring wealth. To the former charge we plead guilty, not being to the man. ner born: but the latter we denounce as false. We are naturalized American citizens, own our own property here in Birmingham, where we have been in business for several years, and pay more taxes than some of those who have undertaken to put us out of bus mess.
 It has ever been our desire to work together harmoniously with other deal CTS in our line, at least to the extent of promoting friendly relations between salesmen, but now that some of them have seen fit to throw down the gaunt- let, we do not hesitate to pick it up: and to convince you that when we fgnt 1t Is only in the open, we are frank enough to confess that we have pro- vided each of our statesmen with a copy of your letter and instructed them tn use same for all it is worth, and as the merchants in this section are not by any manner of means partial to listed goods" we think it will really be worth while.
 Again thanking you for such cal did explanation, we remain, yours, still in business,
 JEBELES & COLIAS COMFY co. NICHOLAS COLlAS, Vice President.
 The following. under date of Febru- ary 26, 1908, was received by Jebeles & Colias from Hawley & Hoops of New York:
 Messrs. Jebeles & Colias. Birmingham.
 Ala.
 GentIemen-A number of our custom CTS in your section are complaining that you are cutting the prices on our goods, and threaten to discontinue handling them unless you discontinue cutting prices.
 We think it only fair that you should be told of this, and we would apprs- ciate 1t if you would write us on ths subject. Yours truly,
 HAWLEY & HOOPS.