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MOW dbpartmental stores

mmm mmims, property,

AND WAdES. : . . . . . .

Articles republished from

Toronto Saturday Night

^ (p

,'jj^Vt;j«)gy

The EDITH and LORNE PIERCE
COLLECTION of CANADI ANA

Slueen'^ University at Kingston

<JA.

Saturday Mglxt's Home

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kaaJHMt

••»»»•■ or TORONTO

y*k««ii'. '.iti.w:-. * *.««&»..

The EDITH and LORNE PIERCE
COLLECTION of CANADI ANA

ilueen'y University at Kingston

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Saturday Night's Home

wmwnm pr Toronto

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Bamums of Business

/ /

The Departmental Stores and Their

Relation to Trade. Property

and Wages.

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.

Fso)z>. /f/y Ba.C^

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(I)
N

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III a

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( "' — ^

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

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^

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

'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

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

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:

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

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

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
<iepartmental store. This sounds like a boycott,
and it would hardly be legal under our law, but
I mention it because the plan was successful
and the great store "played to an empty
house." It shows that one city at least realized
In time the danger that threatened it.

NO. IV.— THE QUESTION OF BAR(JAINS AND THE

POSSIBILITY OF **DOING ANYTHING.

de-

WHILE the idea prevails that the
partmental storea sell goods cheaper
than other storea, and that the
specialists or regular dealers former-
ly got excessive profits from the people, it is
comparatively useless to ask them to regard such
stores as enemies alike to those who are in the
mercantile line, engaged in professional work,
owners of property, or occupied in making a
livelihood in any manner whatever, by work of
the brain or hand. To convince people that
such stores are all-round destroyers, it becomes
necessary to dispel the belief that they confer
benefits upon the buying public.

This is not hard to do. Those who are in the
trick know how great is the imposture prac-
ticed upon the public in regard to " bargains,"
and if those who read this will experiment for
themselves and think seriously, they will at
once discover that departmental stores have
humbugged the public in brazen fashion.

You often hear people say : ** Jf I can buy an
article for 60 cents in one place why should I
pay a dollar for it somewhere else ?"

To this it may be answered that it is possible
for circumstances to warrant one in paying the
extra forty per cent. A perfectly honest man
will not feel free to buy a dollar article for 60
cents if its cheapness is due to the fact that it
has been stolen or smuggled. A perfectly
sensible man will see no advantage in buying a
dollar article for 60 cents if its cheapness is due
to the fact that it is not the dollar article at all,
but an adulterated substitute. The same per-
fectly sensible man will not regard it as a
bargain if he gets a genuine dollar article for
sixty cents, if the forty per cent, gained on that
purchase is tacked on to another purchase
made at the same time and place.

X ears ago the country used to be over-r un

with shoddy peddlers. One of these poddlera
would drive up to the farmhouse with a wagon
loaded with goods. He would carry into the
house two or three bales of cotton, of linen,
and half a dozen of shoddy tweeds. He would
say that a big wholesale house had failed and
that the goods had to be sold by the first of the
next month, and so they were selling at less
than half price. He would show the farmer's
wife some linen which she would recognize at
once as the very best grade, and he would
name a price only about one-third of its real
value. He would appear more anxious to sell
the linen than the tweeds, but almost reluct-
antly would show the tweeds also. The woman,
knowing the linen to be a bargain, would be-
lieve that the shoddy cloth was also really
. worth three times the price asked, and so in
the end the clever swindler would sell her as
much shoddy as possi'ble and as little linen as
possible. He would lose three or four dollars *
on the linen in order to make thirty or forty on

the shoddy.

This humble itinerant, in his poor, weak way,
worked the scheme which is now elaborated by
millionaires and operated successfully in all the
great cities of the continent.

It is not necessary, nor would it be truthful,
to say that departmental stores (like the ped-
dler) are almost altogether interested in selling
shoddy and counterfeit goods, but it is neces-
sary and truthful to say that the departmental
stores imitate the peddler's general scheme in
that they lose money on a few trifles every day
in order to delude people into believing that
everything is sold at the same low price.

Even if they do not charge an excessive price
on any article, yet in gaining a monopoly of
trade at the cost of a few bargains they are
able every night in the year to shovel enor-
mous profits into their vaults and exclaim :
" This has indeed been a bargain day— for us."

But there Is more of the old peddler in the
scheme than the mere trick of bnitiiiK a hook.
We are rushing with the speed of the v/ind
towards a period of universal shoddy. The
depai tineutal stores are not alone in dealing in
inferior goods, but they are the depressing
influence. If they palm off inferior goods at
cheaper prices than others can sell good mer-
cliandise, the others must degrade the quality of
their wares in order to sell at ruling prices.

The homes of this country are being filled with
furniture that is thrown together without skill,
made of inferior and uncured timber-such fur-
niture as would have been despised fifteen
years ago. It is worth no more than it costs.
Spools are sold at bargain prires, but you may
note that the hole through the center of a
spool grows ever bigger and the core of the
spool ever fatter. A purchaser gets a bargain
in spools, but does he get a bargain in thread?
With satchelfuls of spools, bargain-hunters ex-
claim in admiration: "Well, I don't see how

they do it I"

In the investigation now being held by the
Legislature of Minnesota (Premier Hardy will
please make a note of this), a dealer in wall-
papers affirmed in his evidence that he had
been approached by a paper-maker who offered
to make "bargain rolls" for him, the same as
he sold to departmental stores— that is, wall-
paper with thicker w^ooden cores and three or
Lour yards less wall-paper on each roll.

Toilet-paper is also rolled specially for bar-
•-•ain-hunters— rolled so loosely that it can be
squeezed almost flat. It looks as big, but con-
tains very much less paper. That done in pads
is sometimes made containing eight hundred
sheets instead of one thousand.

Vinegar has become so watery in the past
two years that it is often useless. If the cases
within my own knowledge may be used as a
safe basis, I should think that no less than ten

thousand housewives In Toronto who made
pickles last autumn have since been forced to
throw them away because the vinegar proved
not to be vinegar at all.

There used to be twenty-flve sheets in a quire
of notepaper. This Is an Interesting reminis-
cence.

Men's linen collars are made specially for
" bargain-hunters." No laundry in the world
can get a gloss on them, for the trick of •♦ doing
them up" is known only to those who do up
the public and can do up anything on earth. A
flve-cent collar is generally worth five cents
and no more, just as a twenty-flve-cent coHar
is worth Its price.

A drug Is advertised at "5o. an ounce, regular
price 15c." The real fact Is that the regular
price of that drug In drug stores is only 10c.
per ounce. The adv. seems to show a big bar-
gain, and tljere may be a bargain *or the one
day, but the point is that the adv. informs
thousands and thousands of customers that
the regular price of that drug Is 15c., and so if
it is sold on other days at 12c. or 13c., people will
still think they are getting a bargain in drugs,
whereas the losses of bargain day will be
recouped several times over. The man or
woman who can '♦ break even" with a depart-
mental store after playing Its own game on its
own ground for a year, is mighty clever, and
most people are far from clever in this new
style of gambling.

* *
Out of their own mouths let us judge them.

Charles Austin Bates of New York is an
advertising expert. He has just issued a book
entitled Good Advertising, which is intended
for those who write advertisements. He
devotes u !:^^ whare of its pages to an explana-
tion of Vertldng a Department Store."
He does not vrite in opposition to such institu-
tions, but as the promoter, as the man who

booms them. He Ih the man who Inspires the
clever American experts who write advertise-
ments for the departmental stores of Toronto.
He tells how he took charge of a departmental
store's advertising business and made It boom.

On page :H4 he says— (and every man and
woman In this city and province should read
this and grasp Its meaning) :

The rosponsoM in the house furnlfihtng department
brought icy to my houI. In six monthH the
averaKo bn Hi uess increased thirty or forty per cent.
Ah the dlr-'cl result of advertlsinK a certain salo.
the fli part men' was crowded to overflowing, and in
twodavs about $800 worth of goods w.vs sold, out of
which '$'■¥< worlb was of the iUuns advertised, and on
which the actual net loss was |J). The rest was sold
lit regular prices at a good proflt.

Shade of the departed peddler 1 In this case
only ^9 was lost on the "linen," while $710
worth of other goods was sold at "a good
proflt," not to an unsophisticated farm-
woman, but to the crowds In a big city.

On page 352 he says In reference to the ad-
vertisements of a big New York house :

To look at the advortisemonts every day, it wmdd
seem that they never sell anything at regular prices,
but this, of course, is only seeming.

He says this with the greatest possible ad-
miration, leading up to It with the statement
that "the method of offering bargains is one of
the best trade-bringing plans that I know of."
He had already shown in the extract from page
344 that It costs practically nothing.

Here is another tip from prolific page 344:

Suppose you advertise a " five-inch glass nappy."
It doesn't tell a reader anything— a woman especially.
She can't tell how big five inches are anyway ; but
lustsay, "large imitation cut-glass fruit saucers at
thirty cents a dozen," and get your packers ready.

The women who are deluded by these people
become their sport I There is no doubt about
it ; the whole thing is organized into an exact
science, this hood- winking of the people. They
study it ; they trade tricks. Here is another
tip for writers of departmental store advertise-
ments, page 345 :
Be pleasant. Throw in a little joke— a light and

Sgrur" bT'' '''" """^'"^ occasionally, just to liven
Oi course. Why not? A joke, a light and
piquant sentence costs really less than even
wooden nutmegs. Throw a whole lot of 'em in

Speaking about shoe "sales," he exposet- the
trick :

We cut the price from |1.35 to 98 cents and adver-

1 em aboutM ;°ff V^'-^if'^^ ^"'^^ ♦'""^' PutlinR in Sn
Item aoout uie be I -selling canvas shoe we had nt

regular price-$l 50. We didn't lose any^nonty on
the first Item and it broufrht in lots of peoole ^o
rh'orw\?n^ld".""'^^ °^ ^^^ °^»^- styfes^oTctnVi^

The people are treated like a great shoal of
flsh in the water. The man on the bank puts a
worm on the hook and casts it in— the fish
naturally rush at it, and, instead of getting the
worm, are themselves gathered in, carried
away and fried at leisure.

* ♦
Many say that nothing can be done. "Real
estate values in Toronto have been depressed
to the extent of |25,000,000, and at least flO,-
000,000 of this is due to the influence of depart-
mental stores, but— there is no remedy, nothing
can be done." So people talk.

It would be a very strange thing, indeed, if
nothmg could be done. Here are some facts
that may form the basis of action. We shall
not suggest in this issue the remedies that
may be applied, but will be content to convince
the public that something can and must be
done. Let the public take hold of the matter
spread knowledge, and the remedy will come
very soon. Here are a few points that mem-
bers of the Legislature and the City Council
should carefully consider:

(1). If a man with a torch had started at the
Don bridge and burned down every third build-
ing he came to on Queen street until he reached
High Park, he wou' 1 not thereby have de-
stroyed as much property as denartm.entai
stores have already done in t

city.

neces-

st to liven

ight and
lan even
of 'em in.
)08ef the

nd adver-
lins: in an
ve had at
money on
)eople, to
of canvcas

shoal of
k puts a
the fish
ting the
carried

"Real
spressed
1st |10,-
depart-
lothing

ieed, if
e facts
e shall
38 that
>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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

. , ..,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

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

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

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

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 ««« <!»»«« transaction, for

rXtTThVp-oweri -^artmej^s^jjl
•*« ^r. rniA out the man and nis lacioij u
unite to o™^» °"l; ^1, ^ less and less for
foundry »' '"'^ *^7,™ „, the laboring men
roTon'^ulrtar.masters who are them-
selves beneath the lash of " — °'T:^,i„ers,"

The cler^ "^ ^l'' TthTchuthes of the
because the nuances uj. cannot

eity are in most -^ses dep.o^'^' - ,„^- ^ ,„,.

;r;:»PPorW Ctt voluntary contributions

of the people. "ffainers?"

Are the working people, then, gainers «

mevious article it was suuw fn^ether

Pn^aeed in the making or putting together
engagea . , „ ?«inrpd bv the depart-

lsr::eL?br?:^ii^.--i:

at the cheapest possioie pnoc, ... -«^'

''"^i

fche people into the belief that the departmental
stores undersell everybody in everything. There
are only so many wheels v^^anted in Canada in
this year of 1897. The success of any local
firm's business this year will regulate its out-
put for 1898. Well, then, cheap foreign wheels
sold here at the cheapest possible price to boom
any firm's business in dry-goods and groceries,
work three injuries : (1) Each wheel goes to a
man who thinks he gets a bargain, but only
gets as much value as he ■ r ^^s foi , (2) Each
wheel sold spoils the sale o eel by a legiti-

mate maker or dealer ; aii. (3) Each wheel
sold tends to limit the out-put of Canadian-
made wheels next year, so that the factories
will run short-handed at the end of this season
and manufacture fewer wheels for next season.
Men who earn a living in bicycle shops are to
be injured in a way that no reduction in the
price of cayenne pepper or glass nappies can
make good to him.

There is no mechanic who is not under the
same menace.

The agent of a departmental store will go to
a furniture factory in Toronto or in one of the
towns of the province, and offer a certain price
for so many tables of a certain kind. " Make
us two hundred of those tables at sixty cents
apiece. I'll pay you $20 now and the remaining
$100 will be paid you the moment the tables
are ready for delivery." "Why, sixty cents
will hardly pay for the lumber ; we can't make
'em for sixty cents." "You can't? Well, you
don't have to. Somebody else will- good-day."
" Hold on," says the furniture man. He gets a
pencil and paper, figures on lumber culls, only
one coat of the cheapest varnish, and any possi-
ble reduction in the wages of workmen~in
order to see if he can rattle up a table for sixty
cents. " Can't you pay sixty-five cents apiece
for 'em?" "No. Blank & Blank are making
us two hundred at sixty cents «ni*»^a ^^a ,„^'ii

•artmental
ing. There
Canada in

any local
te its out-
gn wheels
e to boom
groceries,

goes to a

but only
, (2) Each
>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

tff.

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^"*- < — '

•

1
i

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.

is hands

3 already

vn trade

depart-

y man's

akes its

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-

" 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 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<ono nto the flpcht
uKalnst tho liumbu^KinK of tlie
people cjiriliMl on by departmental
store.s have great caus' for rejoicing.
The (Ight has only lasted about six
weeks, and already between seventy
and eighty newspapers In Ontario— not to men-
tion nuiny In all the other Provinces of the
Dominion— have taken up the question and In-
tend to keep at it until success crowns the
agitation.

Mr. J. T. Middleton, M.P.P., of Hamilton, In-
troduced his nill In the Legislature on Monday.
He proposes f o permit cities containing a popu-
lation of 3(),()00 or more to pass, on a two-thirds
vote of its aldermen, a by-law imposing a
special tax on stores handling more than three
lines of goods.

Mr. Haycock, leader of the Patrons, said he
was not prepared to declare against the
principle of the bill, but he asked that it be
held over until the next session, as the present
one was nearly over, and the question was im-
portant.

Hon. A. S. Hardy, Premier and leader of the
Liberals, said he wouhi not say that he was
opposed to the principle of the bill, but he also
wished it held over until the next session. He
thought the departmental store destroyed
individuality as well as propvsrty. To quote
The Mail and Empire as to Mr. Hardy's
position :

He hinted that a parliamentary committeo to take
evidence on both sides of the question and to encinire
into the wages of employees, etc., would be appointed
before the next session.

The Globe reports Mr. Hardy as saying,

among other things :

Something might possibly bo done to modify the
immense advantages which these stores now enjoy
over the ordinary ousiness man.

Mr. Whitney, leader of the Conservative

Opposition, is thus reported in the Mail and

Flmnirp. :

Mr Whitney said the gravity and im^o'^^"*'?,?^
the suhject wL such that it wouW not be PO^«ible

to deal with it in an int^ ^^«.^."*^^T^^ "r^ wd stJ-SnK
double the time at their disposal. H^ had strong
sympathy with the objects of the bill. Coming from

a^ru?al constituency, he kn^'P^^^^Xl merchants
members from cities, that the retail mercnants
throughout the country we'-esuftermg terribly ^^^^
the system of departmental stores. Ihe ^oveinraeuu
woul have^to g?apple with the ^uf^ticm ^ofv^^
later and adopt some means of solving it. ii ^ne um
had been in3duced earlier in the session something
might have been done.

What does this mean ? It means that on the
very first mention of the question in the Legis-
lature the leaders of the three parties spoke in
a manner satisfactory to those who have come
forward to resist the business immorahties m-
troduced by departmental stores. The leader
of the Patrons was not prepared to declare
against the principle of the Bill ; the leader of
the Liberals was not prepared to declare against
the principle of the Bill ; the leader of the Con-
servatives endorsed the principle of the Bill.

What does the postponement of the question
mean ? It means that there really is not time to
take it up this session, but it further and more
particularly means that all the political leaders
will wait to see what strength is developed by
the present movement, and the Legislature
will next session be governed by the facts that
are brought out and by the strength of the
demands made for reforms.

It therefore devolves upon the newspapers,
business men, boards of trade, and town
councils, to see that every day between the
close of the present and the opening of the
next session is made use of in forwarding the in-
terests of the cause.

♦ *
The World reported Mr. O. A. Rowland,
M.P.P., as opposed to Mr. Middleton's bill, but
I find by the Globe and the Mail and Empire
that Mr. Rowland favored action by the Legis-
lature, although he desired the question to be
held over v.wtW the next session, when it could

.eeive proper con.-.^^a'^on. Hcjolnua out

,ba., in AusUi. .eg,..at.on *•-* ^-=^ ^ this
The Globe, quotes bim as navinn

female for m^^Jabor an(i,i

:rer.:rtt;MrHU.a„a had used tne

"^Jt'^t;.^^ said t.a. J^^^^^^^^^^^
,,eater i-PO/'-^^.t „ "id It was the old
!.Toa"of the Shirt." Labor was ground down

so that people could '^ *;»^P'^;,„ i„t„auced
Mr^liddleton of H.vm,lton ^ ^^^ .^

the Bill, "-as probably the best p ^^^^

^"' ,nf rifrtn r talHnr'vJholesale trade
spent l>" ""= '" 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

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.

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

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-

'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.

'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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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Go, little

faring m honortd name;
It II everywhere that you h
The^> 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.

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