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BY NIAGK A reprint of the articles on departmental stores that have appeared in Toronto Satur- day Night from February 13 to April 24, 1897, Toronto : The Sheppard Publishing Company, Ltd, 1897. u/ -^ Fso)z>. /f/y Ba.C^ (^ ] ■> I ^ Q (I) N o cu o o ^ (^ f ^ I III a f ! ( "' — ^ SO. T.— THE QUESTION OF POSTAOE ON NIOWS- PAPEllS IN UKLATION TO CENTllAl.IZA TION OF 'I'llAUE. AT the meeting of the Press Associatioii held here recently the editor of a country paper said that it was only the city publishers who favored the proposal to charge postage on newspapers. This is not quite true, because many country papers have declared in favor of paying postage, but it is so nearly true that we may call it a fact. It is, however, a peculiar fact, and any peculiar fact is worth looking into. Why should a city newspaper with a daily circulation of twenty or thirty thousand copies, ask the Government to charge postage on newspapers? It would mean a very heavy daily expenditure of money, and tlie man who asks it must see gain somewhere. The city publisher is not so rich that he does not know what to do with his money. He has other reasons for inviting postage, and he con- siders them good reasons. The question is, Should the country publisher aid or resist him? A postal rate that would cost $50 per annum for a thousand papers sent out every week, is proposed. This means about one dollar per thousand per issue. The city publisher then would pay on a daily circulation of twenty thousand copies the sum of $(5,240 per annum in postage. The weekly paper with one thou- sand of a circulation would pay $50 per annum in postage. If there are ends to be gained worth $6,240 a year to the city publisher, the country publisher should consider it worth while to see whether the advantages would not be worth $50 a year to him. It is an instinctive fear of an approaching danger that causes the city publisher to invite postage, but I think that not only future dangers, but evils already here, should cause country publishers to stand up in a row and /=50-/95'7 unanimously shout for postapje. Type-setting machines, fast presses, cheaper paper, and free postage have caused the size of dally news- papers to double and the price of them to be cut in half In the past four years. Evening papers that cost three or four dollars a year not long ago, are now selling for one dollar per year, and are almost double their former size. Immense papers from across the boundary lines are coming in— great factory-made papers, as cheap in merit as in price. The thing has only begun. City publishers are unable to decide where it will all end. They know that they are being overwhelmed by a new tendency towards bulk and cheapness, and that the safety and credit of the publishing business demand that some sort of a check must be devised, some brake must be put on. On my desk lies a thirty-two-column newspaper, con- taining only one column of live matter, the • rest being boiler-plate. The plan of this sheet is to get a big advertisement for some depart- mental store or patent medicine firm, and send out five or ten thousand copies free by mail to approved addresses for a lump sum. This represents the other evil— the fake newspaper that competes with the legitimate daily. The city publisher, then, seeing the evils that are here and those that threaten, favors postage. Not publishing a daily paper, I can be candid as regards the rural press. It is perhaps safe to say that for each copy of a daily paper that went into the villages of Ontario four years ago, there are now fifteen. The dollar daily has only begun to get in its fine work. The local paper can never be crowded out, you say with much truth, for the local paper has a powerful hold. But it is walking into an am- bush. The editor of a village weekly if offered an advertisement by a Toronto departmental store will refuse it in loyalty to local business bouses. But yet, refusing the revenue that he could thus derive, he runs for nothing on errands for the departmental store by clubbing hla paper with a dollar dally that contains no- thing so conspicuous as the advertisement of the departmental store. By clubbing with and freely advertising the dollar dally, he places lu the hands of his readers and the customers of his own advertisers an advertisement quoting cunning prices and Instructing them how to do business by mall with the departmental store. Thus the mall carries free Into his field the literature of the departmental stores of Toronto, and the malls carry also, for next to nothing, the merchandise of those Institutions. The mall order business of one departmental store In Toronto runs weekly away up Into many thousands of dollars. It is the com- petitor of eveiy store In the province, and the scheme is only half developed as yet. Where will the local paper be when outside advertisers can cover its field in the dollar dally or the fifty-cent daily, and when the departmental stores have succeeded in smothering the local trade of all towns as the towns within touch- ing distance of Toronto are already smothered ? The props that keep up the local press will have been pulled away. This matter of postage, then, is not one that interests only the country editor, but the country merchant, who, while postage of newspapers is free, is submitting to a tax that assists the departmental stores to place their bait under the noses of the people in every hamlet in Canada. II.— nKTAILERH MUST EITHER MNE UV FOR BATTLE OH LIE DOWN TO HE MAHMAt'HEI). IT is my belief tlmt if tlie tnen who run the great departmental ntorew in Toronto were to come tOKether to draft a Het of postal law8 for tlie Dominion, they could scarcely -uggest any alterations that would make the postal service of this country more completely subservient to their interests than it is now. The postal law permits newspapers to be (tarried free; and without free postage there could be no dollar daily newspaper crowding in, or ))eing sent in to every town and village without any cost whatever, carrying the ex- pansive and seductive advertisements of the mammoth stores of Toronto. Without free postage the fake newspapers that exist only for the advertisements they contain, could not be circulated. The parcel postage rate was fixed in order to meet the convenience of the public ; it is being used as the distributing agency of a few monopolies in Toronto intent upon seizing the mercantile trade of all Canada.. The book postage rate was made lower still, so that knowledge might not be hampered in its movements; it is being used for nothing so much as for the bulky packages of depart- mental store catalogues which are sent out in tons to addresses in every town and township in English-speaking Canada. Postmaster-General Mulock is known to be working on a revision of the postal laws. If the departmental store men are able to perceive any way or ways in which the postal service of Canada may be made to still more faithfully serve their interests, rest assured that those changes will be urged upon Hon. Mr. Mulock. It will be done adroitly. The arguments will be plausible. The voice of the petitioners will sound like the voice of the people. Therefore, those who behove that the mail cars of this country should not be the delivery wagons of a few stores In Toronto and Montreal, must stand up right now and make vigorous protests. So far the departnumtal stores have mot with no resistance. They have merely been yelled at. Such attacks as have been made upon them by newspapers have ceased when those papers secured advertising contracts. Toronto has seen all the old- established forms of trade shaken or over- turned by a new shape of opposition, but, she has been unable to voice her alarm. The silence of the press has misled the people in the city and throughout the province. Toronto Saturday Night would have broken silence long ago, only that no plan of action presented Itself. Now, however, there Is work to be done. The interests of the i)eople require to be protected in the revision of the postal laws, not only as regards newspaper postage, but also parcel and book post. The whole mail system of the Dominion, main- tained at great cost by the nation, must not become an arm in the vast organization of a departmental store monopoly. It is almost that now. There are projects on fooc aiming to make every mail clerk, postman and mail driver in the land the errand boy and burden- bearer of the departmental store. The time has come when retailers must either line up for battle or lie down to be massacred. Every newspaper editor who is not securely jailed in by his advertising manager should break loose and set fire to local sentiment, and every merchant who has trade to lose should come forward to protect his business. Talk about a National Policy! There is a Personal Policy, anciently described as the law of self-preservation, and the salvation of ten thousand merchants and the business welfare of a thousand towns depend upon the capacity of these scattered perrons to be wise and united for once in defending their interests. In this 8 city there Is a Retail Merchants* Association, organized specially to combat the departmental Ptcres, and every storekeeper in Ontario ahould become a member of it. Two hundred and fifty of the best retail merchants of Toronto • belonR to this Association, for they know that a departmental store is a powerful organization and must be met by an organization yet more powerful Honest enterprise is commendable, but any one enterprise that destroys ten others should be very carefully examined to see if it is honest. If it can be shown that the very people who are being financially destroyed by the depart- mental stores are iaxed to make their exter- mination easy If it can be shown that the departmental stores have reduced the wages of working people in Toronto and in factories throughout the province without increasing the purchas- mg power of money as regards the real neces saries of life If it can be shown that depaicmental stores have arrested building opera^.ions and other Imes of industrial activity in chis andadjoinine towns If it can be shown that a reputation for cheap- ness is gained by a clever manipulation of wares and words, and that the real profits of monopoly go to the monopolists If it can be shown, in short, that depart- mental stores aim at the overthrow of all the mercantile, financial and industrial conditions that at present prevail and the substitution of an entirely new order of things not provided for nor even dreamed of by those who framed the preaent municipal and commercial laws does it not irresistibly follow that there mu«t be new legislation suited to the new conditions ? And If revolutionary changes arc threateneti m&y not the multitude of people who wUl be '"^'"^^^■■-^^'^'^fU^i^i^ 9 prejudicially affected resist and preTent those changes ? The daily paper that derives ten thousand dollars a year from departmental stores is not likely to turn a too suspicious eye upon such good customers. The hope of the country is the provincial press, which has nothing to gain and everything to lose by these great, all- gobbling institutions. Last week I argued that country publishers should stand up in a row and shout for the imposition of postage upon newspapeis. The dollar daily is the natural child of free postage, and it is the well paid and disguised emissary of the depart- mental store. Once upon a time the advertise- ments in a newspaper clung timidly to the reading matter— now the reading matter hides precariously in whatever holes and corners the advertisers have despised. The dollar daily is not the newspaper that was granted free trans- mission through the mails ; it is an offspring of that privilege. The country publisher may write as eloquently as he pleases once a week in favor of supporting local merchants, but if he clubs with a dollar daily or booms it in his columns he defeats himself. The advertise- ment of the local merchant appears in the local paper and reaches the local public once a week. The dollar daily places the advertisement of the departmental store under the noses of the i ^stomers of the local merchant six times a Areek; and these advertisements are changed daily ; they are large and attractive, written by men who do nothing else and draw large salaries for writing one seductive advertise- ment every day. What chance has the local merchant in so unequal contest? Dollar dailies will perish the very day that they are required to pay postage, and in no other way can they be restricted. / n out-of-town correspondent, an ex-pub- lisher, writes as follows : f i 10 'ewer looa, advertiseSrhrci!;S,"y";S'p'e"rr-^ To the last ouesHnn ,.,„ OjiLooKBaj. companies in ttrci!cu,„r' P^^^" "^ express ™ay be said that retarh"'"^'''''"''-^''' •8 beiDK introduced .W . ^" " '*'"''"■ daUy •nail carries the fef ^o^i'ln °' ""'■•'«''' '"' "'hen the thing gors to K , n',*^" '*''-<'' but bundles are senf bv «^ "" '*'"«"> '"e big parts that sur^oLd'to'^nd'"" '"' ^'"^ cannot be reached bv T^ ^^PPort them covers these. We have th?'*''' "'"' '^^ ">«» Department showing7h„? 'T'' °' ""e Postal etel>teen hundrel ma 1 w"' """^ ""P^' "^^^ sixty-four bags per dL ^'t '" ™* ""nth, or made last week freleSd ." ""^ calculation twenty thousand sen though tl,TT'°'' "' rate of one cent per pou^d V ™*"^ *' *« mated that a daily wifhttlf.? " "'* ^^t'" circulation only Lid, « ^ thousand of a 'brough the mliinh s Cuid 'e""""'' "'"' outlay of $2,184 f^r posCe S ""/""""' lashers invite this tav fh « *' ""^ P"b- Publishers to enquire if .h "'""''' """"try advantageforthemTnnavitr 7°"'" ""» be annum. P^^'ng a tax of $50 per at large, I shall next takf '^'^ *^ ^^" ^^^^^^^y phase of the subject ^ ''°' Particular "He was a good neighbor," remains verv little more to be said praise. NO. III.— THE RELATION OF A MAN TO HIS NEIGHBORS. WHEN a man dies and the man who lived next door comes forward and says, there about the deceased in the way of No higher certificate of character could very well be given. The man next door had " neighbored " with him in the back yard as well as on the front stoop, and if there had been anything nasty about the late lamented gentleman the man next door would have found it out to his cost. A good neighbor is one who does not steal your wood, nor poison your dog, nor smash the fence for kindling, nor make noises in the night, nor let his hens into your flower-beds, nor tell tales of your private affairs. A good neighbor is one with whom you are on reciprocal terms in all the courtesies of life— exchange for each other's advantage all sorts of conveniences, doing for each other many thoughtful little things. A good neighbor does not merely stand on his own lot and refrain from doing you injury. ' You work each other mutual good. If your house catches fire he rushes in and warns you. He piles in with an enthusiasm equal to your own to quench the fire or to save your goods from loss. He does this because he knows you well, likes you and has your real welfare at heart. Moreover, your welfare and his own are in- separably locked together, because if your house is burned down his own will almost undoubtedly be consumed also. Even if his house is far enough away to be out of danger, the value of his home will be reduced if your house is replaced by a cellar full of ashes and burnt timbers. The proprietor of the depart- mental store is not your neighbor. Ten years ago there were great stretches of 18 p'"Zn 'the^uf ^^ Tl""^ -«<»' o, what 'hese commons have beenZm ^'""^ ""«". dences and places of b«f„. '" "P ^'"> «si. »^en„e north of Knox 00^' ^^^ ^P**"" That was open country no? *'' "" '"«'«»<=e. a town of itself. ThoT^T" ^°~"°^ >t ts there are interested in Th. ^ ■""• Property houses. Those who tXlr"'" "' '"""^ ""d the conveniences of IL T '"te^sted in drug store is a convenience T"'"'^'""^- ^he fam'Iy takes ill i„ th"'^^^«- « « member of the "nd ronse the druggist f^' ^^" ™° «° 'here you -vhat is needed If " *" ^'^ep to get oue's address yTJZ''\'""' *» And a^y consult the city dirSo^ 'vo,> ^'^^ ^ Phone now and then- vo^\ °" "^ his tele- f««- Heisamen?berofvn^T'*«««'»mp« »nd contributes to Tts su'r?' ^ ""'" "«»'• by -uvrovement taxes 'an'dT^^ ^ P^^' Joca! street smooth for vonr!^.- -"^ *° "ate the a« « your neighbor To "* ""■ ^O" bicycle other m ways y^ u do noTplr "^'""' to IJ^^ Yet when you go to ° r * '" "°"»'der. buy your perfumS, or soal" """*' ''°'* ^o omesafewcentsehekMrfr'^ l""" P'^'^nt medi destroy the vitality ofCr o^' "'""^ «""».yoi « h,s business declinerh ""^'shborhiW^ expenditures; he must 'rv' T'*^ '^duce ^ churohanditsschemesifrjr ?""'<' '»» he must shut his h»„H „ '°"*' charities • ^»iKu. the local butchtji IV' '"'"^d o £?o- on the dollar for wh f ^^^^' «et only Then they, too, mJZa^eV" °"^^ «""» up this loss. But perhanf v "'P* 'o make your brether may ckS^Ta^^" "^ ^""^ ««» or That "^'■<' "''" druggist t?""^" '^bole- That wholesale house fl! ^ *" account dcJIar frem that ZgS t' T."^' °» "be '-"- that" th?-wC-i:' ht "" " oouse must * of what nee then, ^ifch resi- ' Spadina instance, now it is property mds and nested in 5d. The 3r of the >o there ► to get id any- tore to is tele- stamps lear by 3 local ^e the icycle. each r. •re to nedi- i»you »ood. i his ocal ies; I to ►nly 3m. ike or •le- nt, he er to It 3t 18 assign also, and all its clerks and travelers be thrown out of employment. The trade cannot absorb them all. The rate of salaries is reduced by the fact that these expert applicants are trying to wedge in somewhere. One wholesale failure causes other houses to cut down expenses— they grow timid and parsimonious. They dismiss a couple of travelers. They double up work in the office and let men go. To follow through all their ramifications the consequences of these failures would be impos- sible, but it is safe to say this, that a tremor goes through every part of the business body of this city of Toronto. But to get back to your locality. There is an empty building there now instead of a drug store. The drugs, the telephone, the postage stamps, the estimable citizen and his family have moved away. The locality is that much poorer, that much less convenient to live in, that much less important as a portion of the city ; it is a limb that trails dependent upon the trunk of the towm. The loan company that has had the vacant store thrown on its hands, resists any attempt to have the street repaved. Those who used to come from another quarter to that drug store, now go else- where—passing other bake shops, other grocery stores, other meat stores. Some day they pause and deal in one of these, and are perhaps lost to the locality as purchasers within its area. The policy that can thus kill a drug store can kill off any other kind of local store, and the injury is almost as great. The concern that was patronized in preference to the local stores has no memory for faces. You may deal there twentV years, yet if you Hose your situation and are penniless in the midai of winter you could not get a loaf of bread on credit. Whether you flourish or perish is all one to the unseen power that owns the departmental store. It recog- ,r: \ f 14 nizes only one face— the face of the Queen on coin of the realm. Take a town fifty miles from Toronto. If you pay the local merchant ten dollars for axi overcoat, perhaps he pays it to the doctor for attendance, he to the druggist for drugs, he to the butcher for meat, he to the farmer for mut- ton, he to a laborer for digging a well, he to another, and so that ten-dollar bill serves the. purposes of trade in and around that town indefinitely. But if you send it away to a de- partmental store for an overcoat, that other overcoat lies on the local merchant's shelf, and that ten-dollar bill may never again enter your community. The real value of this point lies in the fact that the profit in the sale of the overcoat goes to an institution in a distant city— an Institu- tion that has nothing in common witli you- - and that profit is lost to the merchant who helps to keep up your schools and churches, your sidewalks and roads, the man to whom you can appeal in an emergency to play the part of a neighbor. In the year 1870 less than 19 per cent, of the population of Canada dwelt in cities, and in 1890 the rate had grown to nearly 29 per cent. This change was largely due to the develop- ment of agricultural machinery no doubt, yet if rural Ontario is to be deprived of a large and ever-growing percentage of its people, and if on top of this the cities are to draw away from the dwindling towns and villages an ever- increasing share of their shrinking trade ; and if the cities, growing ever more populous and dominant in the trade of the whole province, are to contain only three or four mammoth stores instead of three or four hundred, have we not here all the materials for such a mono- poly as the world has never seen ? What is to prevent a dozen millionaires form- ing a company to operate a chain of stores from 15 one end of Canada to the other, with a total capital of forty or fifty millions of dollars? Once the city of Toronto is at the mercy of three or four stores, it will be easy for them to secretly unite whilst keeping up a sham fight to deceive the public. Against such a tremen- dous combination of capital and against such an organization, no new store could make any headway. Having a monopolv here a move could be made on, let us say, London. In order to batter down all existing business houses there, the millionaires' combine could put in an enormous stock, advertise lavishly, and actually sell goods for less than cost, and lose five hun- dred thousand dollars in crowding all opposition aside. They would regard this as the cost of the frarichise. And it would be worth the money. Having conquered London and laid all Western Ontario under tribute, the company could speedily restore to capital account all that the franchise had cost, and then, pursuing, the same tactics, Montreal, Winnipeg, Van- couver, Quebec, Halifax, St. John, and a dozen other cities could be moved upon in succession, laid waste and remade to suit these new proprietors of the earth and its fulness. In the light of w hat we have already seen in Toronto, is there anything impossible in this unpleasant picture ? It is the privilege of sensible men to reflect upon the conditions that threaten us. If you are not conscious that this rapidly growing monopoly in the mercantile trade has so far injured you, it would be wise to enquire if your turn may not come next. Are you not blaming on "the hard times" some of the things directly caused by the fact that the trade that was once diffused over the whola city is now concentrated on a few acres in its that the profits that were once and M 16 divided among a hundred houses now enrich only two or three ? Where are the carpenters who a few years ago were almost constantly employed in build- ing stores in all corners of the city ? Some of them are idle ; some have left the city ; some have entered other lines of employment, causing labor to become a drug on the market and wages to fall. Where are those who once occupied the now vacant little stores? They, too, have joined the crowded ranks of the work-seekers. What does it profit a man that his wife can get bargains if he can no longer get work ? The price of labor and the price of all things produced by labor, watch each other with eyes that never wink, and they rise and fall to- gether, like the face of a man and its reflection in a mirror. There may be one bargain day in the week for the wife of the workingman, but every day in the year is bargain day for the owner of a departmental store when he buys products of labor to sell over his counters. I am told that when a great company was organized in San Francisco to run a monster departmental store, all the manufacturing houses, real estate, loan, insurance and other companies, and private employers who expected to be injured, simultaneously discharged all their employees, and re-engaged them on an agreement to pay each one so much wages on condition that the employee should not spend or allow any part of his wages to be spent in a nvince lUst be natter, 1 come mem- Jouncil at the build- jached ^e de- nental neces- sary building if burned down will be built again, but a building that is rendered unneces- sary is worse than ashes. (2). A departmental store by losing money in one line and making money in fifty other lines, can ruin all opposition in that one line. In furs, let us say, it can lose five or ten thousand dollars by selling for less than cost for a time, and thus crush all fur dealers, and then, with the monopoly of business purchased at this out- lay, can raise price* and win back ten times what it lost. The scheme is to luin all lelailers in rotation and own the trade of the city and province. Should any man or set of men, how^- ever gieat their capital, be free to operate thus? (3). Newspapers are cairied free through the mails at the public expense, yet wherever they go they are the canvassing agents of these ruin-working institutions. Parcel-post and book-post regulations made to suit a previous condition of affairs, assist these monopolies to the damage of all the towns in Canada. (4). Towns are now permitted to impose a license upon a transient trader who wishes to rush off a stock of goods and then flit to another town. In some places the license is almost prohibitory. In what way is the depart- mental store of Toronto less of an injury to a town in which it does business by mail and express, than the man who rushes in and slaughters a stock ? (5). Is the departmental store man entitled to rank as anything more than a transient trader even here in Toronto? One store when burned out some time ago claimed to have had a stock worth $500,000, yet that stock was only assessed at $60,000. Another of these stores claims to carry a stock worth $1,500,000, yet on being assessed at $400,000 it secured a private enquiry before the County Judge and had the assess- ment reduced to $100,000. The W. A. Murray Co., (not so far a departmental store), had its 24 stock insured for $373,000, which may be called ^S^^"': r°Vf ™'"*' '*»'' ™ 't was worth *75,000. Departmental stores claim that thev have not paid for all their stock, and are only taxable on what is paid for. Those g^ds are t.^:df T^h '"''■''"• *"'' """^ ^"ouidnCrA: for »1 ^''^y,'=»'»P«'e with goods that are paid (or and are taxed. They are protected from th eves by our police and from fire by our brigade and why sho, Id the maker in Ger many be allowed U> sell goods through our departmental stores on allowing them a coX mission without being taxed? ly th"ir oTn showing departmental stores seem to te ware bouses of foreign goods-they seem to be Tel ." ing foreign goods on commission. h, ;■"• •T^™"'' "'^^^ »'»■•«» are not merely foreign magnates, and if the assessor once a year can only cat«h $100,000 worth of assessable goods m a stock worth a million and a half and if three million dollar' worth of goods is turned over annuaUy, does it not follow that eight or ten times a year? (7). The statement is made (and a Legislative Commissioa could discover whether fhis and other statements are true) that a Toronto departmental store has tried to induced seu'sran'd T'""* ^""""^ that it could sell at $2o and make a profit. When he refused to manufacture anything so inferior, it is "aW be was asked to make wheels at $2^ea hand thest^ would sell them at the same flgu« He still refused, and no doubt some foreign TZnt^ W^ 7f''' *° •* "^^'-^--^ herein loronto. What does this mean! Is it not plain that public confidence in local bicyct makers and handlers is to be overthmwn tht Sa--"--'b '^ """'" "^ """-^ 'hat biovt' men a., .uobers auu only departmental stores 26 are honest ? Are the thousands of people hwo work in our bicycle factories and the thousands who have put up a share of the millions of money now interested in the local bicycle trade, to be destroyed in order to yield an advertise- ment to a departmental store and to keep one cheap foreign factory busy ? And who says we have no defence against so vast a scheme of destruction ? Yet men and women who depend on the bicycle business for their bread and butter spend their money in departmental stores. And it is the same in scores of other lines. Was there ever such a tragicomedy? <8). In Chicago the City Council unanimously passed a resolution calling upon the Legislature of Illinois to confer power upon the city of Chicago to exact a graduated scale of license fees from departmental stores, as follows : LICENSE. DBPTS. LICENSE. ft 100 9 $ 25,600 200 10 51,200 400 n 102,400 800 12 204,800 1,600 13 409,600 3,200 14 819,200 6,400 15 1,638,400 8 12,800 16 3,276,800 In publishing this I do not necessarily endorse the idea just as it stands, but it shows that the evil exists elsewhere and is not regarded as beyond the reach of a drastic remedy. (9). A despatch from Albany, N. Y., says: " Senator Guy has introduced a bill providing that no person or Arm shall advertise that they have any peculiar advantage in price over a competitor, such advertising being deemed a design to deceive the public. The bill is aimed to stop bargain-day advertising." (10). The Legislature of Minnesota is conduct- ing an investigation which is publicly laying baic^ the whole iniquity of departmental stores —their depressing influence on real estate, on the wages of laboring people, on the quality of merchandise and the unfair, ix not criminal, DEPTS. 1 2 3 4 5 6 I ■ ■Hi iR! _,. power enjoyed of crushing to the death one line of trade after another. A remedy will be devised. And now, before closing this chapter, I wish to warn the cities of London, Hamilton, Guelph, Brantford, Peterboro' and others, that it is easier to keep out departmental stores than to get them out once they are in. To those country editors who are discussing the war in Crete and the famine in India, I would say that there has now begun a war against departmental stores that is more im- portant to them than the war in Crete, and that if they do not carry themselves bravely in the fight there will result a famine much more important to them than the one in India. The Department Store is a scheme ivherehy capital makes the greatest profit out of the greatest riumber. m 5 1^ msm THE /iaily newspapers of Toronto preserve vacant minds on the question of depart- mental stores. They witness the great tragedy and give no sign of interest. They seem to think that they are not concerned in the injury that is being wrought. The World came out with a fight against the departmental stores. Many good articles w ere written and published. The ruin that was being done in Toronto was depicted with much truth and feeling. But the World dropped the fight, and instead began to publish the big advertisements of these all-gobbling monopolies. The News made a fight against departmental stores and demonstrated that they were very evil things, but the News dropped the fight and instead began to publish the big advertise- ments of these all-gobbling monopolies. The other Toronto daily papers have secured a share of the advertising funds of such stores without having to tell the truth about such places, their methods and the ruin they work. Newspaper men have better opportunities than others to know of the damage being done to Toronto and the towns of the province by departmental stores, and I feel safe in saying that eight out of ten newspaper men in Toronto are opposed to departmental stores, knowing them to be great gambling institu- tions devoted to the humbugging of the masses and to the ruining of the shopkeepers of the city. They know that the departmental store is the mother of sweat-shops and of a very large progeny of evils that have recently begun to infest life in Toronto. There is prob- ably not a newspaper in the city whose best writers would not jump a<^ a chance to rouse the city and the province from the hypnotic sleep in which they lie while being plundered. But newspapers are commercial enterprises. Chivalric notions may prevail in the editorial rooins, but not in the business oflices. 1 1 h!i i As commercial enterp:£>Ises, then, If all the loftier pretenses of journalism are to be openly abandoned, where do the newspapers stand in the matter? Ten years ago the News (as I am informed on good authority) used to derive over five thou- sand dollars a year from the advertisements of merchants on Queen street west of Bay. To- day*, practically every dollar of that has been out off. Ten, or even five years ago, the World's col- lector used to go west on Queen as far as Spadina, even to Bathurst; now he scarcely needs to step off Yonge street. The Telegram's business shows the same change. Queen street has been made like a stream of water, down which everything has floated until it reached Yonge street, and there everything has congested and piled up moun- tains high. On Saturday, March 6, 1886, eleven years ago, the Glohe was a sixteen-page paper and con- tained forty-three columns of display advertise- ments, exclusive of patent medicine and foreign announcements. Among the leading advertisers in that issue of the Glohe I notice : Jaffray & Ryan. Williamson & Co. Edward McKeown. T. Thompson & Son. ■ H. A. Neilson & Co. Ewing & Co. Woltz Bros. & Co. Withrow & Hillock. Samson, Kennedy & Co. Where are these firms and the hundreds o. others of eleven years ago that I could string out in a row if the facts were not known to everybody? Some of these firms quit busi- ness ; H. A. Neilson & Co. moved to Montreal ; most of them " failed." Last Saturday's Glohe, March 6, 1897, was a 28 page paper, and (if we leave out the bicycle I all the )e openly stand in >rmed on Ive thou- ments of Jay. To- bas been rld's col- s far as scarcely le same le like a tiing has >nd there p moun- ears ago, and con- dvertise- ine and leading [ notice: i 1 dreds o^ d string nown to lit busi- ontreal ; •7, was a e bicycle 29 and mining advertisements, which are extra- ordinary) we find that the Olobe only had 53i columns of advertisements. This means that although the Globe has nearly doubled Its size,has almost doubled its circulation, and Is published In a city that has, in those eleven years, almost doubled its population, yet Its ordinary adver- tising patronage has only Increased from 43 to 53i While the city, the size of the paper and the circulation of It, have doubled, or nearly so, the actual number of Its advertisers has de- creased, as shown by a comparison of those two issues, eleven years apart. In the 53i columns of advertisements In last Saturday s issue, W. A Murray & Co. had almost 4 columns; i. Eaton & Co. had 2 columns; F. X. Couslneau had 1 column. These were big advertisements by big stores. Among the other advertisements were many suggestive of the times, and I should begin by saying that Mr. Cousmeau ad- vertised the stock of McMaster & Co., liquidation. Then came BlocVi Sc Co., closing out sale. G. & J. Brown Mfg. Co. (Ltd.), in liquidation. J. SutclifTe, giving up business. Suckling & Co., dress goods auction. ♦• " stock 569 Yonge street. «« " stock from, Kingston. •• " stock from Windsor. •« " stock from Wingham. It Is not nice to talk shop, but there will be no shop to talk about after a while. Seigel, Cooper & Co., on opening in New York, re- ceived immense favors from the daily press, but after the great opening week, when the newspapers called for advertising contracts they were told that Seigel, Cooper & Co., of New York, had no use for newspapers. In- stead of advertising they intended to sell a great many things every day for less than cost, and so send away an army of women daily advertising the store by word of mouth. '\ I ' ! ! illli 80 When the trade of the city has once been made to flow, with the strength of Niagara, in one direction, and like the whirlpool circles around one spot at the core of the city, the newspapers will be told that they have served their turn and will be thrown aside like old shoes. The departmental stores will then issue daily catalogues, enlivened with funny pic- tures, telegraph despatches, city news, short stories, continued stories. Already one de- partmental store in Toronto has secured advice about the publishing of a daily news- paper. If the daily press of Toronto assists three or four monopolies to crush out all oppo- sition-and say what you will they are accom- plices in the crimes of bargain days-their own turn will come, and the thousands who are now underfoot and the thousands who are being overthrown will neither be able nor willing to stand by that institution which we call the "legitimate" press. Seigel, Cooper & Co., on their opening day in New York, sold bicycles at |20 each for which they had paid |90 cash. They sold thousands of wheels, on each one of which they lost $60. Their opening sale cost them perhaps two hun- dred thousand dollars-that is in lieu of news- paper advertising. I am convinced that several influential news- paper men in Toronto are "almost persuaded " by their own knowledge of the facts to throw down the gauntlet to departmental stores. The Toronto Board of Trade could cause them to act now if the Board would take up the question. Some dealers have associated in a demand that makers of certain articles shall refuse to sell to departmental stores on pain of being boycotted by all regular dealers. Don^t try to dig a well ,mth a teaspoon. Doiit he content to make war in so smalL a 81 once been Niagara, in Dol circles I city, the ,ve served e like old len issue Jnny pic- ws, short one de- secured ily news- jO assists all oppo- 'e acconi- :heir own who are who are able nor k^hich we ig day in or which 1 sands of lost $60, 3Wo hun- of news- al news- suaded " o throw stores, se them up the demand Bfuse to f being otspoon. small a WKjh Train nil your f/im». Call out the reserves. Let the local bicycle makers and tlie local agents o£ legititnate wheels whose businesses are to be damaged bv the importation and sale at cost of wheels manufactured and glued to- gether in prisons or in guy shops in the United States-let these legitimate local business men call upon each newspaper to choose which it will serve, the cause of honest business and honest wheels, or the cause of fake business and fake wheels. Let the wheelmen speak together and say: "It is preposterous that you newspaper men should expect to derive income from us and also from firms that bring in tin wheels which they sell at as good a profit as we get on ours, and advertise as being as good as ours. It is preposterous, we say again, and we are wise at last. Each newspaper may decide which it will do— our business or fake business." If, then, such wheels are not advertised in the newspapers but are sold in the stores to people who are lured thither by other bait, let each manager of a bicycle factory call his employees together and say : " Such and such a firm has importe''. so many thousand cheap wheels (stp>p whether they are prison-made or tpc. stead of stamped, or built of cullt)^ ^, as the case may be, being carefui . k the exact truth, for the truth is quite btxong enough) which are to be sold in this town. The purpose is to create the impres- sion that these wheels are as good as those made by us, and that everything is sold for half what is paid elsewhere. Our business is to be destroyed in order to draw crowds to buy other goods. In view of this fact it is preposterous that any part of the thousands of dollars paid by us to our employees should be spent in buy- ing dry goods, groceries or anything else in such a store. Every man of you must bear la ' ' mind that every dollar you or tout wICa ..>„ a In such a store strengtLsVTlZ^Z'^' us, and hastens the day when this faotZ "haS shut down. We are not making wSs for fun. We a«, making them for sail K we ^ attacked we must defend ourselves. We^ |.ure that the men of this factory will see th^ the,r own intere.,ts are threatened a ^^^1 a« the nterests of the firm, and so w"desi^ aU employees to unite with us In siKninTl^ agreement not to spend one cent, nor allow anyone to spend one cent of our money for anT punH,se in any store engaged In an effort to fh:'p7hlic.-- "' '" '""»'* '••""''"« -"->« "Pon Let everyone strengthen the hands and spur the courage of the bicycle people. Refuse to support the newspaper that sell, .self to the devil-flsh. Ityon\^tJ^^2 business with it, do so under protest, and enter your protest every time. Gain on; dai'v to your side; support it and withdraw yo.^ sun port from the others, and see what wiU happen' vite spends i war upon ctory shall wheels for If we are '• We are ill see that ks much as we desire i^ninf? an nor allow By for any effort to eels upon and spur ihat sells ced to do md enter daily to our sup- happen. TllK manner in which business men and newspiipers have taken up the flglit af^aiuht the new scheme whereby capital seeks to get a monopoly of all the avenues that communicate between the producer and consumer, is most encouraging. Letters are coming in from nearly every town between Montreal and Windsor, and presently an army of defence will have been organized, with local camps in every town and village that is not wholly resigned to its fate. Right here it is not out of place to devote soine space to those men who admit all the evils that are charged against departmental stores, bid us God-speed in our efforts, but say : " You can't really do anything." These people are worth reasoning with because they are honest, and I hope they will begin over again and think the matter out from the very basis of it, on into the future as far as they can see. It is iinportant that they shall be won over, for they do the cause more harm than any other class. " You might as well try to turn the St. Lawrence from its course," they say. It seems to me that that simile might be im- proved. Those of us who have gone into this crusade might better be described as trying to keep the St. Lawrence in its channel anri to defeat those who have dammed up the stream at a given point in order to inundate all the country above that point and to make an arid waste of all the country further down stream. To keep up the simile, it might be added that some very extensive and wonderful dyking has been done in Holland. The sea rolls as it likes along the sea-bottoms, but Holland belongs to the Dutch. The Don River twisted its way into the city over a coarse like the writhings of a snake— its channel w&s almost as crooked as the ways of that trade which we assail— but we straight- ened that channel. If, therefore, we look to 'Hi! I ill ,:?! hhe livei-H or the «ea for encouragement we 11 nd it. Suppose that a man claims that departmental stores cannot bo abolished, yet even then he should Join with us, for if we cannot do that, we can at least do these things : We can make the departmental store pay a lax bearing the same just relation to the Vmsl- ness done as the taxes formerly paid by other stores bore to the business done by them. We can regulate the employment of chil- dren in departmental stores, as we have done with regard to factories. We can, in the interests of the liuman family, make it imperative that girls and young women, if employed in such stores, shall be paid suflficient wages to buy food and clothing. We can amend our postal laws so that the mail cars shall not be the delivery wagons, the postman shall not be the messenger boys, nor the postofflce staff the shipping-clerks of de- partmental stores, whilst our mail service is maintained by the Government and run at the cost of an enormous annual deficit. We can see to it that the advertising matter of departmental stores shall pay its own way as it travels through the country, and not re- main as now a charge and burden upon the state. We can put a check upon the mendacity of those who issue advertisements calculated to injure or destroy other places of business, at least requiring that an advertisement shall be a valid basis of contract and not merely an irresponsible trick. We can insist upon and secure a legislative nvestigation into the entire methods of de- partmental stores, so that if evasions of exist- ing regulations are common or if practices are in vogue that require new regulations to pro- tect the purchasing public, remedies may be appiluu. xiiia iuvustx^ui/iuu uuuiu uis>ciu&>e }■' *> onient we lartmontal n then he t do that, tore pay a » the husl- 1 by other lem. it of chil- lave done an family, tid younjj; , shall be I clothing, that the igons, the • boys, nor rks of de- service is run at the ig matter own way id not re- upon the [idacity of 3ulated to isiness, at it shall be merely an legislative ids of de- } of exist- ictices are IS to pro- !s may be disclose I 35 . , ..,r..M If iinv. tlie ""W <'™*'' '"^ " "*"'"''■ X «:^mua«l or fe«t h, . yan. a.e — ^ . J,. .1 iiound. If there is hii> (Utlbrcnce s ,:,i by av„ir.l..|.ol» or apothecary ««'«'''•"''' ''"4:;i'a;l"'"t..i..«"tobe done, and even those who say that .lepartmental stores have < me To stay and that it is impossible to pull em up by the roots, n.ust adn>it the .mn.e- ,t e need ot son.e action to protect the people fjZ the consecuence. o. their unth.nlcmg •^Tr^l^hat n>any who used to avaU them- reives ot n,arket excursion rate t" Toron.^ are nuitc IndiRnant because that ?'''"''«« ^ rw denied them. Take the town of Whitby «d the country surrounding it, and study out the whole case- any other town will answer as well Brampton, or Georgetown, or Oakv.lle or Tvel' those towns lying one hundred rmles Lther away, from which people order goods bv mail instead of dealing at home. But let us conTder Whitby and its enviroun.ents >n order to get a ""'"^^f ^*4";^ j„^,„ ^„d the farmers The residents oi tnat tov u »» ,,^„:d about it should pause to consnle what they are doing. Fifteen years ago ^/^™"y'"« one mile from Whitby was worth *l'»/"^<=5! „^1 WTodav the same farm could not be ::iX*Jrethln$C0or$05anacr. It is the taWon to ascribe this to all sorts of fancy '*l'' ° . :!.lallv some political error Is charged !i! V 36 with having depressed the value of farm lands, but have we not got a much nearer and more natural explanation? When buying a farm a man likes to get one fronting on a main road and as near a good market as possible. That farm one mile from Whitby was one mile from a good market fifteen years ago; to-day it is twenty-eight miles from a eood market. For fifteen years the owner of that farm and the owners of adjoining ones have been building up a town twenty-eight miles distant and tearing down the town whose juxtaposition and conveniences once made those farm lands worth $30 or $40 an acre more than lands situated a few miles further back in the country. Not only this, but people resident in the town of Whitby and owning property there or earning a livelihood there, have aided in pulling down the town and re- ducing it to the status of a mere emergency market. The local merchants have been used when goods were wanted on credit ; the cash has been carried away or sent away. Let me say again, I only use Whitby as an illustration, and not because it has suffered more than other places. In a certain town that I could name a mer- chant tailor one day entered a book store and priced a certain book. "Two-fifty!" he ex- claimed. "You just wait until I show you something." He crossed to his shop and came back with the same book, which he had secured on bargain day at a Toronto departmental store for $2. Two weeks later the stationer entered the tailor shop to get a suit of clothes. He asked the price and secured a sample of cloth. A week later he entered the tailor shop in a new suit which he had secured in a Toronto departmental store, and invited the tailor to become enthusi- requires only a very little reasoning power to rm lands, sarer and 1 buying fronting aarket as 1 Whitby een years 5S from a owner of ling ones jnty-eight the town ices once 40 an acre js further )ut people d owning )od there, n and re- smergency been used the cash , Let me ustration, lore than 37 argue out the results of such methods uPon any town^n Ontario. But there are many who ^1^ Z buy away from home and expect to rtlTbecUom'of their neighbors. They should be pulled up with a sharp jerk. ae a mer- store and !" he ex- show you and came ad secured ental store er entered Dthes. He sample of tered the 1 he had ital store, e enthusi- ; power to . i 1 1 To the man who works for a wage : YOU have probably reasoned it out thus: " If I get so much per week, and if departmental stores enable me to buy more goods in a week or in a year than I could formerly buy with the same amount of money, then it stands to reason that departmental stores are a benefit to me, however injurious they may be to others." This appears to be sound. There is nothing to be gained by shirking any point of this question, and I do not think that it is necessary to shirk anything or to hurry past any point that can possibly be raised. If you are a carpenter, or a bricklayer, or a stonecutter, you know that building operations have practically ceased in Toronto. If you are a plasterer, a gas-fitter, a paper-hanger, you know that the town is dead in your line of work. "Why? Becuase you and your wife, your neighbors and their wives, have begun dealing in one store, instead of scatter- ing trade over a hundred or a thou- sand stores. So far as your trade is concerned there is only need for one store, and it is already built. Those who work at any branch of the building trade are, then, entitled to buy goods cheaper than they used to, for they have sold out their means of gaining a liveli- hood in order to centralize trade and cheapen the cost of housing goods. But what will you do now that your occupation is gone ? There is no bargain day on which you can get every- thing you want for nothing at all. It may be argued that if the business of a hundred stores is done under one roof, the sav- ing in rent and taxes will anable the proprietors to make as large a profit as others while selling at lower prices, yet you, who make your living in the building trade and are now cast aside as useless, can scarcely consider that you have gained anything. You have something to sell. ayer, or a 39 and there are things you want to buy. That which you have to sell is your labor-you can- not sell it at the old price ; you can scarcely sell it at any price. Instead of a skilled mechanic, you are, or soon will be, a laborer ready to take a day's work at any odd job. But suppose that you are not interested m the building trade. Most people admit that the new order of things has destroyed the prospects of three classes: the shopkeeper, the owner of small store-properties, and those who lived by building houses and stores to do the trade of the town before departmental stores came here. Some say that what these classes lose the gen- eral public gain. I would point out that there is no law stipu- lating that this "gain" shall go to the public. It is not at all absurd to imagine that this gain goes where a great many profits have gone in similar cases: into the vaults of monopolists. Let us trace it out. Who gets the gain from the concentra- tion of trade in the hands of a few men ? Not the bricklayers, stonecutters, carpenters, plasterers, and others who work in the building trade, for though their wives may have got a few things called bargains, the husbands have lost their employment. The man who works, exchanges his labor for the things that he needs ; and if his labor is made valueless, he can get nothing that he needs. Who, then, gains? The general public; the very general public 1 In Canada every man is interested in some profession or trade-either because he devotes his energies to a particular profession or line of trade, or because he has money invested in one thing or another. " The general public" is a term that means working- men, tradesmen, and professional men and their families. That tradesmen are injured because tbe retail traae ul tuc uii-y xo, Oj » clever game of hocus-pocus, being centralized ■'^iIIIh 40 In a few stores, no one will dispute. I showed last week that $3,701,000 had in the past few years been withdrawn from use in Toronto by firms that either failed or retired from business. It has also been shown that real estate values, at the lowest estimate, have been reduced in Toronto to the extent of $10,000,000 by the centralization of trade ; so that the pro- perty-owning part of the "general public" have not '• gained " by the new order of things. The class of people called "clerks" have not benefit- ed, for clerks who formerly received $12 and $15 per week are only paid from $4 to $7 in the departmental stores. An experienced sales- man cannot even get a situation at $7 per week, because his neighbor's daughter gets the position at $3 per week. The "general public" begins to dwindle away. Professional people and working people who are not interested in the building trade, are about the only ones left. The loan com- panies and the banks, with all their employees, are not " gaining," because their customers are going under ; houses and lands are falling back on the hands of loan companies that don't want such houses and lands. If a good year's busi- ness is not done, the salary list is pared down. There is one man in Toronto who now owns one hundred and seventy-five stores and houses, although he didn't build or buy one of them (only the one he lives in). On the others he loaned money at fifty per cent, of their value. The salesman who is offered only $5 a week will decline it if he can get into an insur- ance office, or a loan company or a law office, even at less pay to start with, for he will expect a better future. Therefore, bookkeepers and office hands, in any line of business whatever, are finding that expert penmen and arithme- ticians are looking for positions and are ready fr» onnAnf. vekfv \\nm\\\a aa1a.T*ioc rinltr fVi/%oA office men whose services are peculiarly deli- 1 showed past few Toronto red from that real lave been 110,000,000 b the pro- ►lic" have i^s. The it beneflt- 2 and $15 ^7 in the ed sales- t $7 per : gets the dwindle g people ig trade, )an com- nployees, imers are Ling back >n't want ir's busi- sd down, ow owns >res and ly one of le others of their mly $5 a in insur- w office, ill expect pers and "^hatever, arithme- re ready Itr ^Vki-koA xly deli- in stores, are feeling, "''^^-j/ ^op-W of which P™P"-ty-°^f '^.! ""fjrVho are complain, and so are not Kf'"^- ^ ^ the i'^en^r;:x«™crhe::«::rentra^^^^ i^f fViA oat out of the bag will ten yuu lectin a had way with many n «.e ^r. Its ircome usually ran up to about $o MO a 5r,rt fell away in the year ^^^^^f -^Sl And U *-%- '"" Ci^Tth one ol them, that no man ««« y a leglti- ch wheel Danadian- factories lis season ft season. )ps are to on in the ppies can mder the vill go to le of the ain price " Make xty cents jmaining le tables ty cents n't make Veil, you >od-day." le gets a ills, only ny possi- :men— in for sixty jS apiece making md we'll M tff. 48 give 'em this order If you don't want it. Why, man, we're going to pay you sixty cents for that table-we're going to handle it, advertise it extensively and sell it for 52 cents, eight cents less than we pay you." " I'll do it/' Then he gets to work -he becomes an artificer in rub- bish; cuts wages down, grinds, twists, turns, writhes, in an endeavor to make those tables for the money. The women who buy them take them home for the parlor, but find them not good enough ; put them in the kitchen, where they prove to be not strong enough, and so they soon land m the attic. But they have served their purpose ; thev have caused a host of people to rush to the departmental store, where, after seeing the " cheap" tables, not one in twenty ^vil buy the "bargain," but buy other things sold at prices which enable the firm to win back twenty times as much as it loses on the tables. But where do the workmen come m? ihose who made the tables very likely had their wages cut down on the job. Other furniture makers and dealers have been injured. Trade has been drawn into a store where the union scale of wages in furniture-making and every- thing else is cut away and utterly denied. Hundreds of thousands of people have been told in print that a first-class and charniing parlor table can be had for 5- cents. The whole furniture business is demoralized. To get even with some rival, each furniture maker, when approached with a request to produce some flimsy imitation furniture at a starvation figure, accepts the offer, and so the depart- mental store agent, operating over the whole field of industry, sets maker against maker and depresses the whole field and crushes workingmen beneath a constantly increasing demand to manufacture goods at less cost. Every workingman knows that when a con- . a. j^ u« :o rr^irio-fn losft. the very iirst tractor nuus uc la ^v^"*- < — ' i • 1 i II i^ 44 1 thlaj^j he does, in attempting to save himself, is to cut wages down a little finer than they were. I don't care what a man's occupation may be, if he earns his living by the worlc of his hands or the activity of his mind, he either has already felt, or will very soon And, that his own trade or profession "is on the list." The depart- mental store carves a little off every man's stature. Like the customs duties it makes its levies indirectly, and many are not conscious of the tax and do not know just why they are worse off than they used to be. In Chicago the Knights of Labor sent a dele- gate to the meeting against departmental stores, with instructions to say that the organized labor of Chicago v/as heart and soul with any movement to repress the operations of departmental store monopolies. Tbey realize there that wage-earners are now, and will be, the greatest sufferers from the system. Let the working people of Toronto figure the thing out— each man figuring out the effect on his own trade, and that of his next-door neighbor. ' '»» »P*!MWI^'r»w« himself. ; an they •; may be. if is hands 3 already vn trade depart- f. y man's ' akes its 4t scious of ;hey are t a dele- •tmental liat the md soul itions of realize will be, m. Let lie thinp; on his eighbor. HERE we have a little thing that servos as tm object lesson. It looks like a miniature hogs- head, or a nail- keg. But It Is not. Perhaps you would never guess what It is, this thing with the bulg- WpII it is an empty spool-a ing sides. Well, it is a ^^.^ departmental store spool ^^^^^^ ^^^^^^^ The layer of c-het silk ^- f -J^^tL is an great big fat piece of ^o«^^' °\ , . of the weeks "«"• ™j'^f ^t,i„g ot crochet silk care- wood with a l'"'"/"'"* ^^ how imoosing j„„y wound aroand '^^^o- ^^^^ , ^^ ^^^^^^^.^ fhe obliaing wood does all the DuigiuB the obliging ^j ^j^^^^^ „^gr ^hat needed. On« ™'° ^^^ed to please the eye. wood IS all t»ft '^ f '^^^,„3J„,, noting the «-'»« in" • "price - how ^he bargain-hunters ■ iTha" e S«led td get the coveted har- " This fat bit oe wood, upon wWch cj^chet^lk waswound iUustrates the whole tr.kot^- "'n'ed S:foled a^^d Sed to all' kinds of '^^ ^l' mv^tons Everything that possesses optical '"»«'°°^- ^ J,^^ wooden core than iJ^wT ^h":: tf rwlth. everything th^t i, hollow has wind pumped into it ^ jn»^« U puff out and look big. Things ^f /"*■ tf. cordtg to the old Idea, put in shelves and drawers to kecji them clean and fresh, but everything is spread out to its fullest to create the impression of a big stock. The depart- mental store wotks the trick played by the traders who spreu'i out glaring red shawls, ribbons, beads and 'itv/gaws beforie the Indians in the early days, «elilnp tiie chiefs things they didn't need aaJ c^ettiug from them the lands that they did nerd. The departmental store proceeds on the assumption that the public wants nothing in particular and everything in general; there- fore they show everything, in gorgeous and abundant disorder, one thing priced away up and the next thing priced away down, and, in the din of steam -org,i,ns, squeezing, crushing, clutching at the thing?, that others are clutch- ing at, the half-mad multitude tries to appear sane and to buy shrev-dly. Once home again, each purchaser pretends to be satisfied. Ifc wouldn't do for a woman to admit that she lost her head and misspent her money. And yet women wonder that some men gamble with cards and at horse races. The departmental store has introduced the spirit of gambling into the trade of store-keepinpj, and it looks as though women are willing enough to gamble so long as the sport bears the hitherto respectable name of "shopping." * Rev. A. H. Baldwin, last Suncjay night, in the Church of the Redeemer, spoke of depart- mental stores and bargain-hunters. He pointed out with telling force a fact not yet referred to in this series of articles, viz., that women in their greed for bargains are driving their own sex, and ultimately themselves and their daughters, out into the world to earn their own living. And it may be further said tiiey are making the world a harder place than it ever was for a woman to venture into as a bread- winner. Ke is reported as follows : esh, but to create 1 depart- I by the shawls, ' Indians s things hem the on the ithing in I ; there- lous and away up , and, in irushing, e clutch- appear le again, fled. It 3 she lost And yet ble with rtmental •ling into looks as amble so spectable light, in E depart- j pointed Eerred to ; women driving Ives and arn their til ey are m it ever a bread- ^ 47 " Why, not long ago I saw women crushing and climbing over one another «n their etlorts 10 reach the bargains, and I hoard one say to .tnother : ' Do you want that ? ' ' Oh, no 1 but it might come in useful some day.' And so the women get their bargains, while at home, per- haps, the husband cannot pay his bills. ^^ I tell you that many of you are ruining your hitsbmuL Ihey dare not my 80 at home or heain to curtail." * One store in this*town has been selling ladders for twenty-five cents each. A corres- pondent tells me that that store bough two hundred and eighty of those ladders last week at 35c. each, cash down, and sold them at 2.5c. each, losing ten cents on each ladder, and $28 on that one item. Now, will any ma.t or woman, outside of the Provincial Asylum for Idiots near Orillia, pretend to argue that that departmental store sold those ladders at that loss because it loved the people and liked every home to have its own ladder? Why did it touch ladders at all? These ladders had not been in the way, nor were they sold at a loss to make room. Without doubt they were ordei-ed for the purpose. They were like the earth- worms which a man goes out and digs when he goes fishing. They were bait. Does anyone suppose that when bargain day was over the store was $28 short? Not a cent short but hundreds of dollars ahead of the game. They caught shoals of fish. They got people up those ladders and made them pay to get down But to view it in another light: What kmd of a hardwood ladder c.in a man make for .ioc. even if he gets an order for 280 of them ? How far would you take such a ladder into your confidence? Would you use it yourself or would you make the hired man use it? Ihis is an impersonal enquiry directed not against departmeutal stores uuu ix^ixi-ii^^^^ vRv.-i- ^- I *M 48 I have known a great deal to depend upon a ladder. A correspondent informs me tliat a postal clerk In a town in Ontario, not many miles from Stratford, was overheard making the state- ment that on thatparticularday hohad handled seventy-five registered letters leaving the town, of which fifty-two were addressed to one depjwt- mental store in Toronto. Plows will run where that town stands if sense does not come soon to its people. epend upon a liat. a po8tul ny miles from IK the Ntate- 3 had handled ing the town, bo one depjut- ws will run loeu not come THOSE who have j" ""= '" g„the humbugs played and .. luUv PO'''^" °\7„„, how " lx.rptains " """•"' 'rn' ws t^atToods areoften as cheap a,ea.ven-Know» na » ^^_^ ^^^^^^^^ ^j in went as ." P"=^' "" , j^ at profits as '"-'"•"oihe °Te SoXoods. m' Middle iarRe as others t" '° « „(,„eins and guiding ton deserves credit for 'n"°" endorsation of "'^^'" ,?';\;rBinfand Itbou^hit may ,oeprinciple o be B, n^ ^ ^^^,^^ ;, e ^rrex't'Iestio" .'.the campaign is pressed lorward. ♦ * l^et newspaper -->«7;rherf of '"I „en of /"'-""^rcon^derth" case which I Ontario LeP''l»t»" ^^^^j^e „ Aether, in the am about to state »"« ^ ^^„ be allowed face of it, the present situation l» to «<>"•'''"«•„. .-ntleman of my acquaintance A professional !^«»"'^™ ^^ere he resides has a cottage in the ooum, j 52 in the summer He is a great lover of flower? and every year tries to get a finer garden than the year before. A few weeks ago he went as usual to the Steel. Briggs Seed Compao? acfl bought a great variety of seeds About iei> days ago be read a departmental store adver tisement announcing great "bargains in gar den !?eeds;' and as he read the prices he was amazed •If they can sell seeds at that price anl Briggs charges what he charged me." he saiO. "theli Saturdav Night might as well gWe ud the fight" Next day. being down town, he went into the departmental store and bought a lot of seel packages of different varieties and took then; borne.' That evening heplacedthedepartmencal .-^tore seed packages on one end of his writing rable. and picked out corresponding pa"-kages (the same ?pecies) from Briggs seeds and puv cbem ar the ether end of ih;i table. Tb.i number of packages was the same, ye^ na found that Steele Brings rackages had co?t 9'i ^J^ Departmental <-tore Fackag-e?' had ccst.. '^6 This showed a tremendous dif?e:encB. but be is a thorough going man. and so be decided t.> examine the seeds. He found Briggs' mucn plumper and then be ccanted the seeds, an.r after counting several packages be found tbar, ibey contained the following average number of seeds per package : Steele Brigg? packages, average 3.000 Departmental store packages, average . I5i In other words, one package of Briggs seeds if opened and made into departmental store packages would make about 19^ of such packages. Tn still other words, to get the same quantity of geed that had been sold by Briggs for $2.10 would cost at the departmental store about $5. 53 Yet. seeds were supposed to be a phenomenal bargain at the departmental store- They were loudly advertised and people clutched at them, thinking they were gettm?: •1^2.10 worth for 25 cents. People said: "It's wonderful bow tbej/ do it!" This is how they did it. and is there anything wonderful about it! The depart mental store got double the regular price of seeds, yet they got credit for giving a big bar gain. The same sort of trick is worked in many ways. Be on your guard-test the thing (or yourself, if you are still one of the thoughtless multitude who are pulling the city down to enrich the Barnums of Business. Another great point in this «eed episode is that the Steele. Briggs Seed Company has its whole fortune in the business of growing an 1 sellingseeds. Its reputation depends upon the merits of its seeds and bulbs. The utmost care of skilled gardeners and floriculturists is employed, and laboriously, year after year, a reputation has been built up. Poor seeds are not sold, but are destroyed. Departmental stores don't care a rap about the seed busi- ness. If garden seeds don't prove good can. after having been used and abused a couple of seasons, other bait will be found. I don't think people like to be humbugged any more than fish like to be caught, but many people are as foolish as fish in the way they bite at hooks that are almost bare and easily seen if they would not jump so greedily. Just to show how* wily the departmental stores are: I am told that during the m.l- linery openings" at the wholesale houses one departmental store reduced the prices on its millinery goods from 25 to 50 per cent., and chucked' prices up again the moment the milliners had left town. Why was th^s done? To create the impression in the mmds 54 of out-of-town milliners tbat rbat ^tore sold as cheap or cheaper than the vs-holesate bouses. There was no reduction anoounoed oo bargains advertised, the purpose beine: to suggest the idea that such prices prevailed tLe year around and weren't worth mentioning In an adveri^^ise- ment. The fact, no doubt, is that they dldnt want to sell a cent's worth at the prices— thev merely wanted to plant erroneou.s Ideas in The minds of milliner? who would scatter every where and talk about and act upon what they saw. Let me repeat what has been said before : Do not misunderstand the position of Saturday Night on this question. We are not tryina to make water run up hill, nor to prevent it run- ning down hill; but we hold that the typical departmental store cannot possibly exist in i town where two or three newspaper-! are de voted to the task of recording the tricks by which it attracts and transacts business. We hold that the departmental stores which make the claim of selling goods cheaper than other stores can be tackled on that, their chosen ground, and shown to be charging exorbitant prices. This may sound strange to those who have heard so much about bargains and to those who have actually secured bargains, but wise men and women will give us a chance to pre- sent ourevidence on thequestion. We intend to show that departmental stores Grind their employees to starvation wages in order to sell goods cheap ; Grind labor in shops, factories, cellars and garrets in order to sell goods cheap; Depress the intrinsic value of merchandise in order to sell goods cheap ; And then, in ninety cases out of a hundred, don't sell them a cent cheaper than elsewhere, and so get four profits instead of one. Any general theory about economy of hand- 55 'mtc does not apply in the present case, fot any economy made in the cost of houaina; and handling goods (with the exception of such articles here and there throughout a store as are necessary for bait, and these are generally made to order to sell at the bargain price) goes Into the profits of the company and nowhere else The newspapers gave a monopoly to depart mental stores by selling them advertising space, in which ihey could daily pound the word "bargains" into the people. The newspapers by daily analyzing those so-called bargains, can expose the whole game and destroy an evil, the extent of vvhich they did not foresee when the circu? business was first amalgamated with atorekeeping. n T 'HOSE who think fhat nothing can be done in regard to departmental stores are rapidly diminishing. Thousands still frequent those stores, yet I challenge any regular departmental store shopper to deny that there is a very marked falling away in the crowd.^ that crush and scramble in such places en those days which with brazen audacity are still called " bargain days." The attendance at these mercantile circuses is appreciably dimin- "i^hing, and trade is beginning to look this way «nd that, and no longer blindly follows certain imes as it had begun to do. This fact is being ccmmented upon everyday, even by the women Avho still s?hop in those stores. Determined not to lose ground, the depart- mental stores are spending enormous sums of money in advertising and in sendingcatalogues to every town and village in the country. They get voters' lists and directoriesjists of the doctors, lawyers and clergymen of the province, and send out catalogues and letters (which are considered very smooth from the point of view of American advertising experts) to all those who may be thought to have no connection with the mercantile trade in the outside towns. The zeal with which catalogues are being dis- tributed at present shows the anxiety which fills the breasts of the men who conduct these institutions. They are very greatly disturbed by the wave of sentiment that is spreading over the country from one end to the other. They will be more deeply disturbed now that their business-not only tbat part of it which «s visible here in Toronto, bat their mail order trade with thoughtless people in outside towns -begms to decrease. Not only are the crowds that flock to these stores rapidly diminishing, but from all directions conies news that people who used to buy nearly everything by mail are now dealing? in their own towns and intend to do so hereafter. As I said last week, a departmental store cannot gain or retain a monopoly of the retail trade if two or more newspapers are dedicated to the duty of exposing the tricks by which it deludes and deceives the purchasing public, the tactics by which it bullies the manu- facturing classes, and the malevolence with which it depresses the earning powers of laboring men. The departmental store can only succeed while the newspapers maintain a friendly silence. When news- papers refuse to any longer accept a share of the plunder the "game is up." But if the press \\ aits too long— if it waits until the mono- polies can walk alone or until they start daily papers of their own— the fate of the press may not be pleasant in the hands of a public realiz- ing at last that it was sold out by the news- papers at '* so much per line." * * The case mentioned last week of garden seeds purchased from the Steele, Briggs Seed Com- pany, (Ltd.), and seeds purchased at a depart- mental store, showed up the whole scheme of departmental stores. Seeds were advertised as a great bargain, and seemed to be so in the eyes of careless or ignorant people, yet, in that very thing boomed as a bargain, we showed last week that the departmental store was charging more than double the regular price of such seeds as sold in any legitimate store in Toronto or throughout the province. Let any- one who bought seeds before the last issue of our paper appeared, compare their purchase with seeds bought from reliable local dealers and they will find that they paid double the regular price. And when you verify our state- ments in this matter remember that this ex- orbitant charge was made upon a thing that was loudly boomed as a bargain. There are 58 many tricks beside this seed triclc, nor was the seed triclc conttned to one of the departmental stores. Here is a letter received by us before our last week's paper was printed, but too late to appear in that issue. This refers to a dif- ferent atore from the one referred to last week : A lady of my acquaintance was down town shopping, and seeing six packages of seeds marked up for 10c. in one of the large depart- mental stores, thought she was getting a great bargain, and bought six packages and brought then? home. In the evening a gentleman called m and, seeing the seeds which the lady showed him as such a great bargain, suggested that she should send across the road to the grocery store opposite and buy a 5e. package, which she did, and on opening the contents of the package from the grocer's it was found that there were more seeds than in all of the six packages purchased from the departmental store put together. In other words, the lady paid 10c. ior seeds in a departmental store that she could have purchased across the road at her grocer's for 5c., not counting car fare. The Evening Star on Saturday exposed an- other case. A customer went to a departmental store to get a "ba^-gain in wool," There had been advertised "4 oz. Berlin wool for 10c." He took the purchase away and had it sub- jected to official analysis. Each skein of Berlin wool is supposed to weigh an ounce. Sixteen of them make a pound. The purchaser got 4 skeins, but they weighed scarcely 3 oz. instead of 4 oz. That is, sixteen of them would only weigh 12 oz. instead of 16 oz. Here is another bargain exposed. It is just like the seeds. The bargain is explained by the shortness of the weight. The Star also mentions another bargain at the same store— 3 spools of sewing silk, size E, for 5c. This is a cheap grade of sewing silk and usually sells 3 spools for 9c. The customer bought three and had them measured, and instead of containing fifty yards of silk they contained only thirty. They were twenty yards 69 short. The three spools instead of containing one hundred and fifty yards contained only ninety yards. That is, leaving out the wool and speaking of fifty yards as making one spool, they only sold 1 4-5 spools instead of three, as advertised. Nor is that all ; the sewing silk on being tested was found to be inferior. Size E sewing silk is required to stand a breaking strain of 14 pounds. This, when tested, snapped at a breaking strain of 3^ pounds. The customer, then, got no bargain at all, but actually paid far too much for that sewing silk, accord- ing to the prices in other stores where circus and lottery tricks are not employed. Remember now that this, like the seeds and the Berlin wool, is in regard to one of the very things that was boomed to draw custom. One would think that the departmental stores could afford to give the paltry bargains adver- tised by them without resorting to short measure and short weight in regard to those particular items, considering the abundant opportunities they have of getting even. It only shows the audacity with which a scheme is pursued once it has been successfully worked without being exposed. Probably the reason why even "bargains" are made to pay two or three profits— perhaps the reason why good bait is no longer used, is partly because the public will now bite at any- thing, and partly because a great many city people, having discovered that average prices in departmental stores are as high if not higher than in other stores, began to systematically buy up the bargains without spending another cent there for fear of getting the worst of it. This trick of gobbling up me bait without getting caught on the hook didn't suit the fisherman, and so now even the bait is doctored. It is no longer safe to buy eve- J those things that seem to be sold cheap tc draw people to such stores. The 60 only thinpj to do Is to make it a point of honor never to enter such a store. * ♦• » There is a cheap broom that Is offered for 10c. by grocers in all parts of the city. Very few of them are sold. A woman after trying one will seldom buy another. The departmental stores boom that broom at 5c. They lose nearly 3c. on each one they sell, or 35c. on every dozen, but t ley sell very few of them. Yet they boom them and women come to see them, but decide that while they are marvelous bargains at the price they are not quite good enough, and so they buy something a little better. And this is where the store gets in its tine work. The broom that is sold all over the city for 25c. is sold there for 30c., and the 15c. broom for 20c., so that while the departmental store offers to lose 35c. a dozen on brooms that no one buys, it makes 60c. a dozen more than grocery-store pricesion the brooms that are used in every house in the city and province. This is how the game is played. T on of best 'HERE was at, one time a cone trade in which honewty wa« I policy. A man, in beginning a mer- cantile career, said : " I shall build up a reputation for fair dealing. My .u „ ^^^^^ ^*'**^^ ^® w^at »s claimed for them. My word shall be as good as my bond. I am an expert in my line and I shall personally buy every dollar's worth that enters my store-- I shall sample and test everything I purchase. Not a snide article shall enter here, and once I catch a manufacturer attempting to substitute Inferior stuft I shall cease to deal with him Mine shall be the best store in town. I shall hire expert salesmen -men who know the values and qualities of different grades of goods. Buying keenly, taking advantage of all discounts, I can sell as cheaply as any other store, and my claim on the public will be *.hat my word is as good as my bond and anything bought from me has a guaranteed value." And so he would begin his career. In buying goods he watched the market with a keen eye After buying goods he inspected them person* ally, and if inferior to sample threw them back upon the hands of the maker and closed his account with that man. His high principles purified trade. If he ever sold shoddy cloth he called it shoddy cloth, and did not advertise that he was selling " the high-class goods of a bankrupt merchant tailor." He played fair He prospered, and when he died his son took up the business and ran it on the same principles as the father. It was an honorable house where- in a blind man could get as good value for a thousand dollars as could a man with ten eyes But now I Of what value to a house is a reputation for fair dealing built up by fifty years of resisted temptations and unblemished honesty? It is practically valueless, and why? What have we got in return for that honesty which is passing out of the mercan- ! : tile trade? We have HomothTinK like a Punch ftnd Judy .show behind every counter to amuse the buying public so that they will not notice that the nutmeg they get for half price Is made of wood, and so that they will not bite their change to see if it is good money. In return for that security which the purchasing public once enjoyed, in return for that lost honesty in trade, the public enjojs when shop- ping the music of steam-organs, and the pleasure of walking under *' thousand dollar arches of /lowers"— organs, and arches, and other vulgar ostentations that cost a heap of money and must be paid for out of the profits of "bargains." To do this such a store opens a new trunkful of tricks every day— and the tricks of any one day would, if exposed, have forever disgraced the storekeeper of fifteen years ago. Am I wrong? Am I heated in argument and saying extravagant things? Then pay no at- tention to me but experiment for yourself if you still deal with those who are ruining real estate and reducing labor (although labor doesn't quite know as yet what ails it) to por- ridge and rice as food and brown duck as clothes. Wait for a bargain day in tape measures and a bargain day in scales. Test your general dealer as you used to test your grocer, your butcher and your baker. That is but fair, and you can accuse me of no unfairness in advising it. If you find that you get full weight or full measure, or if on sub- mitting other lines of goods to those competent to judge, you find that you got full value in quality, send me word, for, believe me, very few are sending in such testimony. Surely there can be no unfairness in making this request. Let anyone, therefore, who really buys a genuine article from one of the Barnums of Business for a cent less than the same genu- ine article would cost in another store, kindly send us particulars of the case. t Do tlioHe pooplo who are not enKJiRod In the mercantile line ever pauMe to conNider the conditions under which trade in now done in Toronto? Those connected with mercantile trade pause long and seriously to consider the situation, but do outsiders never sec cause for alarm in the condition of things, aside alto- gether from considerations as to whether the departmental stores can be legislated against and wiped out? What is the condition? Is it not practically true that the manager of a first- class down town store can never tell on Monday morning whether he is going to do ten thousand dollars' worth of business dur- ing the week or one hundred dollars' worth? The volume of trade is no longer regulated by the necessities of the people. Purchasers are not only lured to certain places which are not their "natural markets," but they hold themselves in readiness to rush out shopping any morning to buy things that seem to be offered for sale cheap. The housewife used to decide that she needed certain things and that she could afiord to buy them, and then she would set out to purchase them. Now she never knows what she needs (or at least what she will buy) until she has read the bargain day advertisements. The result is that there must be tons of sham finery in the homes of this city where square meals are not absolutely sure. It is an old saw : He who buys what he does not need, will soon need what he cannot buy. It is as true of women as of men. But trade is no longer regulated by the neces- sities of the people. People no longer shop for necessaries, but for the things that happen to be offered at apparent or pretended reductions in price. The honest storekeeper who adheres to legitimate methods is kept in hot water. The departmental stores keep pounding away on their tom-toms to attract the multitude, and the legitimate dealer knows that any day the 64 vacant store next door may be occupied by a man who will put out a great sign, '* Bankrupt Stock," and draw big crowds, although charg- ing from 15 to 80 per cent, above regular prices for job lot stuff that no legitimate dealer would have handled at any price a few years ago. I do not think that I am astray in saying that a stock of goods damaged by water and smoke can, in this city of Toronto to-day, be sold over the counter for fifteen per cent, higher prices than the same goods can be sold for if they are not damaged by fire and smoke. What I mean by this is, that the moment there is a fire in a store people decide that there will be bargains, and so they rush in and scramble for the privilege of paying more for damaged goods than they would have paid for the same goods before they were damaged. Women are not alone in this. Men go in and buy winter underclothes in April— cheap, coarse, and so large that a suit of it would hold two such men. The bargain is used as a mop before the next winter. I am told that "bargains in underclothes" make really good mops. 1 1' <( ( ' • k S ' *^ 1. air St, 3,7y<*TCf^ "¥ JVf^igTSfi'^ -«'w*iii2^S2S^bi„ SaViN© OF A lATE HUllQmsT re glad that ybu have came " Applies as well to th chure ^s to is economic bro-* Toronto Saturday Night is a h^h^d^ s 1^6 4^e weekly, typographically beau^ tiful, and full of such fresh and inter- esting reading ^^^^^^^^t^^^ tanci Jji5 wife and boys and girls) gfed that It has -came'^ intjo die home. VOU REALLV OUGHT TO SEB IT. ^^^^^ always have .ome pungent P^agrai>hs on current topics; -Lady Gay*' Xes v^ V^ n^^ t ^V -^"^^ the'colurhnf r voted to the Drama, Mu$ic Art, Society ^ossit> tL ^pict^a,d the short story are l^^ The Shepiwa PiiWMi;,^!!^ Ltd, 5«tunlay Niffht" Bulldli Toronto, Can. Inir. - '^'"'^- i,,} 1^;^ •'