The Ordway new era., 1921-03-25
Ordway Girl Visits
Mail Order House

1880 "Ah6 10 AAOLu a IeLI6I IrOm
Frances Strever. and may be of inter-
est to some who have never visited a
large mail order house. She says:
Twelve OF us went thru part of
one OF tho National mail order plants
Yesterday. March 50 and 1t vas
really a wondorful trip. 1t is very
interesting to understand how they
GO their great amount OF business.
hey sell nothing over the coun-
Ter. The first room YOU enter ia
hicely furnished and around the sides
are glass case. in which are display
cd few OF their goods marked with
catalog page and number. There
arc greet many chairs with a cata-
log table attached and :, pad of order
blanks. so ono can make out an ord
er there end h.,ve it shipped. Their
splendid system is tcc detailed to de-
scribe here but is So arranged that
every item of your order gets back
tc its appointed place at certain
time. The different packages are
tlfen assembled and wrapped ready
for shipping. They are placed on a
moving belt which takes them to a
sectiOn whero they are weighed al d
stamped.
There is p. o. Department i,
tho building with government en-
ployees which handle the mail Af-
ter stamping, The packages are sent
" VOLTS to this postOffice where
tlic aro assorted according to rail-
roads put in mail bags and dropped44
thr', trap doors, down shutes into
wa, Yg trucks.
I'VE were much surprised at the
fine ventilation system. The guide
n11 ~ hot ..., frD
above he building and from above
tho dust and smoke to the basement
where big fans, cent it thru pipes
throughout the building.
"The fire protection lis also fine. |
Fastened TO the ceiling and running
rbout eight feet apart are pipes with
valvo sprinklers every few feet. In
case of fire in any part Of building the
netal cans on tie valves near the
fro VII he melted by the heat. this
automatically starts the sprinkler,
closes the doors OF that particular
section so the fire will not spread,
sends in an alarm to the fire protec- /
tive association, SO even III the night
there is very small danger Of a big
fire gett ing started. 1t seems al |
moe' humUn in the way it works.
1.-THE recrea'icral facilities for en-
rlaveG arc splendid. There are sew
ora, large rooms for the girls, beauti-
fully furnished with wicker easy |
chairs and lounges. piano and talk
ing machines. They have 16 fine
tennis courts, near the buildings. also
= large track field and ball ground.
In the administration building they !
have plates with names CT 100 OF
their boys who were in tho late war,
,of, Inn q
thev returned.
"Affer looking over as much as our
time permitted, we were taken to
their lunch room and served with !
fire three-course luncheon. 1t is
only special groups of visitors who
receive this honor. They serve about
G6n0 employees every noon at their
cafeteria and restaurant.
FROM there some of US went to an |
other h'g store to see the exhibition
Of the Japanese silk-worm commits
SION. This exhibit has been at the
Silk Show in New York I
Japanese girls in native costume were
in spinning the silk from the
cocoons into large skeins. First the
cocoons were PUT in hot water ana
stirred around with brush till the
end of the long silk thread was loos-
ened, it was then attached to the reel
and wound off, first on to small reel
then onto large one, after which'it
was made into skeins. The Japan
csc cocoons, white, are about as large
as the first joint of the thumb and
about 900 or 700 yards of silk are
wound from them. The Italian co,
coons. yellow, are little larger and
have 1900 or 400 yards in them.
The thread is SO fine as to be almost
invisible but is as strong as steer
thread of the same size would pe.
After 1t is in the skein it is wiry to
the touch, something like hair wouid
be-"