The Birmingham age-herald., 1910-06-03


 But l do not look for any such adop- ton of the automatic store. Pride would be altogether too powerful factor. Even mechanic who makes his $250 day would be too proud to patronize one of these nickel-in-the-slots stores.
 | 'I have designed this automatic shop to meet the needs of the poor working man. the man who has to support him self and family on $150 a day.
 'The average well-to-do citizen has no idea of how many families there are who have to get along on $1.5O a day, and how big nickel Is to them. Why, there are men working in my factory who walk all the way from Newark to Orange and back again at night in order to save dime.
 | These people buy their food and coal in five-cent lots. That seems to be their limit. When a family buys it's coal by the scuttleful 1t means that on account of the extra handling and attendance the coal dealer has got to charge at the rate of s2o a ton. The same ratio holds good in all the necessities of life It simply means that the poor man must pay far more than the rich man. We hear a good deal these days from people in comforta- | ble circumstances about the increased cost of living, but how do you suppos, this rise in prices has hit the poor wo- man going to m;0ket with a nickel in her hand?
 This is the class that the automatic store will help. It will retail goods only In five-cent lots Of course, if there should be any demand for an extension l of this plan, automatic shops retailing goods in ten-cent, quarter or half dollar lots depending on the financial status of their patronage, could be equipped. If the cost of living keeps on going up it may be that the well-to-do will be will ing to lay aside their pride and patronize | anything, even an automatic shop, if it will save them money.
 Tn the automatic store of the future there will be no shopkeepers, no clerks, no boy to wrap up packages. On entering | the shop the intending purchaser will see no one, unless it be some other pur- chaser. There will be no counters, no scales, no shelves lined with goods, no showcases
 | Tn the walls of the shops there will be dozens and dozens of little openings. Above every opening there will be small sign. This sign will tell in half dozen different languages what particular arti- cle that peculiar opening will deliver. | Suppose patron wants beans He will go to the series of openings that rep resent the vegetable department. He will look for the sign bearing the legend Beans. He drops a nickel in the slot and neatly tied package containing five cents worth of beans will drop through the opening.
 there will be no wasting of time in talk, no pricing of articles nor any sampling. Shopping will be an exact. speedy and business-like proposition
 And here Is another great merit in an automatic shop: It will be a strictly cash proposition. The shopkeeper's credit book will be automatically closed every night when he goes around and collects the nickels from the various slots.
 "A storekeeper selling goods over a counter may have a dozen big signs tackled up around his shop bearing the warning, No Credit Given Here, but he is frequently obliged to break his rule for | fear of offending and losing customer. | But in an automatic store the personal element would be lacking. A man can't ask credit from slot machine. If he gets the goods he's got to have 8 nickel.
 The upper part of the automatic store will be simple adaptation of machines that are already in use. There will be rows of bins in which the various arti- cles will be emptied as they are purchased from the farmer or the manufacturer. Chutes will lead from each of these bins down to machines which will automatic ally weigh out and neatly tie up the va rious articles in fve-cent packages. From each of the machines chute will carry the various packages down the store, and only nickel dropped in the slot is nec- essary to have one of the packages de- livered into the customers hand Machines that automatically weigh and and tie up goods have been in some time Many big grocery concerns use them to make up their five, ten and fifteen pound packages of four sugar. and similar goods. A few electro-mag- nets controlling chutes and hoppers. and