The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1915-10-06
statesmen
FIND BUSINESS BOOMING

Business conditions throughout the
south are returning to normal with
,apidity greater than at any time
,irce the turning point of the recent
business depression was rea, a,hed. This
vas the consensus of opinion giver
~ nineteen travelling salesnen last
week, no two of whom carries the
same line.
Retailers in all lines are feeling
he return of normal times and pros
oerity in the tangible form of steadily
increasing sales, and the wholesalers
ne busy now supplying the steady
iemand for new stocks for tile retail
,rs, according to the statesmen. In
he South now as we'll as in the
North and generally throughout the
nation manufacturing enterprises
that suspended operation during the
greatest depression have resumed,
generally on full time.
When the retail trade is good, the
travelling salesman is busy, and each
IF the nineteen salesmen interviewed
talked only of great jumps d lring the
last four weeks in the aggregate sales
for immediate delivery. The business
for future deliveries has not been so
good, but in no instance was COM
rlaint made of unsatisfactory busi-
ress in any line
Change in Conditions.
Another condition that has pre-
vailed to marked extent during the
lest ten months has changed. That
condition was the failure of the big
houses of the North and East to send
their men as far South as Atlanta, the
Gulf States and the Southeast. Some
cf the statesmen interviewed said con-
dltions had been worse in the Gulf
and, Southwest sections than in Geor-
gla, the Carolinas, Tennessee and the
%irginias. But now they often find it
difficult to obtain sample rooms in the
Letter known hotels in the larger
cities in those sections.
In this connection, one salesman
said he had been forced to wait four
days at Birmingham before he could
obtain a sample room at hotel,
which six months ago was on the
verge of bankruptcy because the
travelling men visiting that city had
quit coming there.
In Georgia and Atlanta, as well in
those States to the Southwest, the
merchants and buyers show an in
creased optimism and a renewed faith
; of the early return of normal condi-
tions in the trade world. Business in
certain lines has been held back by
the continued warm weather partic-
ularly the shoe business. This condi-
tion is not so bad now, however, as it
would have been under normal condi-
tlons, for a majority of the merchants
have waited until the last moment
before purchasing their fall stocks of
shoes. The merchants, like men in
every other line of business in the
South, did not foresee the remarkable
advance in the price of cotton.
How Business Is Reviving.
In the soap business a wonderful
increase in sales in the South was
reported by the sales manager of a
Cincinnati manufacturing company.
Sixteen salesmen Of this concern
working out of Atlanta are enjoying
fall business equal to the best in
the history of this long established
company. The same was reported
true regarding the syrup trade, the
demand exceeding the supply of the
Louisiana, Georgia and Alabama
syrup manufacturers.
The ready-to-wear lines are selling
readily for immediate delivery, but,
in this line, much Ike in all others,
there are very few orders being
placed for delivery at a time later
than two months off. There seems to
te yet just vestige of thar summer
doubt in the prosperity of the future,
particularly doubling the first few