The midland journal., 1914-12-11


each. The whole plan was actually q
fraud. There was no John Smith or
whatever name they used. in any OF
the towns. The watches were bright
and kept fair time.
It was all trick to sell to the ex-
press agents in hundreds Of small
towns So watches at $3.50 each. 1t
was q great trick, the success OF
which depended on the skillful knowl-
edge of human nature possessed by
my two clever bosses.
In a few days after we began send
ing out the letters the returns came
In. Express orders, money orders.
checks and currency. We realized
about 81 from each watch after de.
Quoting the express and c. D. d
charges. So we kept it up until we
had marketed thousands of watches
In this way.
II believe those fellows will buy
stuff straight" remarked one OF my
bosses to the other one day. They
have fallen for the watches and other
things" For we had sent out other ar.
ticles of jewelry on the same plan and
had discovered an especial demand for
revolvers, guns. etc.
We moved into more commodious
quarters. We prepared little an
nouncement ON a single sheet of pa
per, the size of a letter sheet, giving
Illustrations of the articles for which
we had discovered the demand and
printing the price, together with a.
stated value greatly in excess of the
market price It was miniature cata-
logue. mail order catalogue, because
we sent it only to the addresses of
those who lived in the small towns
and in the country.
But we suffered for lack of names.
We must have names, as the express
agents and railroad agents had been
loaded up. They were on to the
game now. So we selected one or two
weekly newspapers which had cir
culation in the small towns and among
the farmers and we inserted an adyer-
tisement in which we announced q
fine revolver at very low price.
Yet this price gave Us more than one
hundred per, cent on the cost to. us.
Wesselected other newspapers and ad.
vertised watches, guns, jewelry. etc.
As the names came In we filled the
orders and sent to each customer our
little catalogue leafiet. The orders
came in by the hundreds. by the thou
sands.
My salary was increased. It rose to
$40. to $12. to SIS, to $25 a week. /
wore no more secondhand clothing.
I went to. night school, where +
studied hard. learned shorthand,
and typewriting. My value to the
business was increasing all the time.
My bosses made thousands of dollars.
Our catalogue leafiet increased page
by page as we added various articles.
But we did not carry these articles
in stock. oh, no. We had arrange
ments with various wholesale houses
to fill our orders when they came In.
We never bought dollars worth of
goods until we had the money in.
hand. We were doing business on
other peoples money. Can you imag,
inc anything SO easy and so profitable?
A customer would send us $40 with
which to fill an order. We would go
to the wholesale house and pay $4 or
SIS for the article, send it to the Gus
toner and keep the difference, which
was our profit. OF course, there we're
Office expenses to pay. There were
printing bills and postage bills, but
they were merely incidental to the
great profits which we were placing
in the bank.
We planned all sorts Of things. We
discovered that the woman in the
household was the easy one to deal
with, SO we played up to the female
contingent. We appealed to her vanity,
to her love of home decoration, to
her love Of her children, etc. We
wrote out carefully our catalogue con-
tents and then we worked it over a
dozen times to get the best talking
points for the women. We laughed
lOHGA ~. WO SAOulCU dlOuU WuEu some
particularly apt phrase or sentence
would be evolved which sounded as
though it would hit the spot.
oh, yes, we studied human nature.
We laughed at the poor country mer-
chants who found their trade slipping
away from their stores and diverted
to us by the clever printed matter
which we sent out. There would be
q. big laugh whenever we would get
an order from a country merchant
himself, but these were few and far be-
tween, because we realized that the
poor country merchant had but little
cash to spend. We were getting all
of his profits. and we knew It, long be-
fore he began to realize it.
AS Students Of human nature we
became adopts. An office was opened
in a big eastern city. Then we dis
covered that people took a pride in
receiving letters and packages from a
hie effv Wa found o,,< @ho+ ,a-..1.~