Brownsville herald. [volume] (Brownsville, Tex.) 1910-current, 1912-08-07
LIKE CAUSES.

x LIKE CAUSES. =
z x x x x ~ x x x x x = =
The late Jaques Futrelle. unhap-
PLY drowned when the Titanic went
down, once wrote a series of stories
under the title of THE. Thinking
Machine" The Thinking Machine
was a professional solver of mys-
tteries too deep for the police, and
in some ways was an improvement
on Sherlock Holmes. He had a
maxim the purport of which was
that two and two invariably make
four, never anything greater or less.
He meant to say that there are GER
tain "invariable laws in this world,
and that a recognition Of these un-
varying laws lies at the root Of all
sound reasoning; that all logical
deduction must rest upon some
axiom or upon some proposition
automatic in its character. We
commend his philosophy to any maj
who has many hard problems to
solve.
Take this proposition for example:
Like causes produce like effects
What a good, old, h~ackneyed,
~threadbare proposition it is. How
extremely commonplace. Yet how
calmly it is ignored by people who
should never forget it.
Quite recently The Herald had
something to say on the subject Of
the catalogue man and his methods.
We said that his shadow "a owe
the business Of every retail mer-
chant from Alaska to Key West. II
we are mistaken in the assertion we
have bden previously misled by
some retail merchants themselves.
Proceeding on the assupmtion that
the catalogue man gets an undue
share Of the trade which ought to
come to the local retail merchant,
the question arises: "How shall the
local merchant get it back again,
and, having got it back, how shall
he hold it,"
BY keeping in mind the fact that
like causes produce like effects-not
occasionally, or here and there, but
always and everywhere. Every day
in the week, and every hour in the
day, in all ages and in all lands, like
causes produce like effects. Bearing
this in mind we easily reach the
next step in the solution of the
problem. The business must be re-
claimed from the catalogue man by
the same Cor like methods by
which he got it away from the local
dealer.
Just one word explains the sue
cess Of the catalogue man. The
word is Advertisement. That is alb
solutely all there is to it,. His cat
alogue is an advertisement, skill
fully and carefully prepared. In
one way it is a model of advertising
skill. He has a low price. or what
seems to be a low price for every
thing in the whole range Of retail
business, from a threshing machine
to a rubber doll. He succeeds in
impressing the over hasty customer
with the notion that the home mer-
chant ear not meet those prices.
What's the answer? The answer
is that like causes produce like eff
lfects; that if well-thought-out, care
fully worded and at+ractively pre-
scented advertising will get business
for Tom it will get it for Dick and
Harry.
Shall Dick and Harry then com
pile and distribute catalogues? Not
necessarily. That might be to con-
found the vehicle with the thing
conveyed, the container with the
thing contained. 1t is a clumsy
Continuance at the best. When the
plates are stereotyped they a not
be changed during the life Of that
catalogue. 1t is printed necessaril y
on light paper, and the cuts mis-
represent very often the things they
are intended 10 represent. The
print is usually bad, partly because
the type is small. and partly because
the paper is poor. Also it is ex-
pensive. So expensive, in fact, that
its publishers usually contrive to