MICHIGAN TRADESMAN carrying out the idea of the writer if the line ‘‘Wave Crest Ware’’ had been displayed. This could have been done by using smaller body letter. H. Roe & Son have a good display, but a little too much verbiage in the start out of the wording. Condensation all through would make it stronger. The South Arm Lumber Co. is unfor- tunate in the selection of display—these condensed French Clarendons are poor advertising letters. Also Italic should not be used in this place. Wisler’s Bazaar advertisement is easier to criticise. The printer has done his work just right. The writing is good, only I would strike out a little here and there, as in the last sentence, ‘‘Do not forget that.’’ Mrs. R. N. Middleton has a modest little advertisement which deserves a display signature. The advertisement would be more valuable if it displayed something kept for sale as well as the Christmas and Santa Claus idea. —___»_¢ 2 ______ Cigar Dealer of Much Experience in Wash- ington. From the Washington Post. Congressmen, Governors, great Gen- erals, heads of Departments, distin- guished Judges, men famous in all waiks of life, know ‘‘Chandlee,’’ as they call him. He is W. E. Chandlee (‘‘not W. E. Chandler, mind that,’’ he will tell you), and for thirty-six years he has presided over the destinies of the little cigar store in the F street front of the Ebbitt House. For eight years be- fore that time he was in charge of the cigar stand in the old Willard Hotel. He could write an interesting book on ‘‘Famous Men and the Cigars They Smoked.’’ Indeed, he has contemplated such a work, but has never felt that he could spare the time or undertake the labor such an enterprise would involve. He takes pleasure in recounting to friends and visitors incidents in his career behind the cigar case, and has a great fund of reminiscences of the men prominent in the nation who have dealt with him. ‘*President McKinley,’’ he said, ‘while he was a member of Congress, was one of my best customers. He al- ways bought one brand of cigars, and bought them in boxes of fifty. They had a Havana filler and a Sumatra wrapper, and cost him §$7 a hundred. He never took the box out of the store. It was always kept on a shelf back of the counter, with his name on the box. Whenever he wanted any he would come in here and get a handful. It was gen- erally just before leaving the hotel. I don’t think he ever smoked in_ his room, out of deference to his wife’s ob- jection to the smoke. He spent four- teen years in this hotel, and I figure that he smoked at least fifty a week. And he smoked the same cigar when at Canton. I used to ship them to him there in 500 lots. At the rate of fifty a week for fourteen years you can see it would amount to 36,400 at a cost of $2,548. After his election to the Presi- dency in 1896 I sent him a present of 500 of his favorites, and received a very graceful letter of thanks. He has not bought any of me since he was first elected President. I don’t suppose he has to buy cigars. I know that all the manufacturers of cigars send him fine samples of their goods, and he gets more in that way than even ten such smokers as he is could consume. ‘‘I probably sold cigars to more fa- mous men during the eight years I was at old Willard’s Hotel than during the thirty-six years | have been here. Those were war times, and in those days Wil- lard’s was the headquarers for all the army and navy men and the statesmen and politicians of the day. I sold many a cigar to Grant, who always picked out a big black one without asking the price and stuffed a handful into his pocket without counting them. Gen. Halleck and Hooker were also heavy smokers. ‘*Senator Matt Carpenter of Michigan was one of my best customers. His bill was always $2 or $3 a day. His favorite was a big two-for-a-quarter cigar. He would frequently come in and say: ‘Well, Chandlee, give me a dollar’s worth more to quit on.’ He always talked about stopping ; said that smok- ing injured him, but he never did stop. His monthly bill often amounted to $100. ‘*Gen. Robert Williams was another good customer. He favored a cigar that cost 25 cents straight. He would come by here on his way to the Department and get a dollar's worth. Along in the afternoon would come his orderly for a couple of dollars’ worth more. His bill was always $60 or $70 a month. ‘‘Dr. Bliss, Garfield’s physician, was such another smoker as Carpenter, only he always wanted a_twenty-five-cent cigar. Like Carpenter, he complained of the effect of smoking, and often threatened to stop, but never did. He got about $2.50 worth a day. He said to me once: ‘Chandlee, I- know this smoking is hurting my heart. Some- times at night as I lie in bed I can hear my heart groaning like the rusty hinges on a barn door.’ ‘Judge Curtis J. Hillyer has smoked one brand for twenty-three years. I think that is the record for the smoking of one brand. ‘*Bishop Satterlee is a regular cus- tomer. He likes a Key West. He is not what you would call a hard smoker.’’ Mr. Chandlee has noticed many changes in his business during the forty-four years he has been engaged in it. ‘*Tobacco chewing has been decreas- ing steadily for years,’’ he said, ‘‘and the use of fine-cut tobacco for chewing has almost entirely ceased. Few deal- ers keep it. Twenty-five or thirty years ago it was one of the biggest features of my trade. Cigarettes, when I was at Willard’s, were not known. Now they take up almost a third of my space. Few five-cent cigars were sold. The cheap brands in those old days were cheaply made of cheap material, and were hardly worth half their cheap price. I sold more twenty-five cent cigars in a month thirty years ago than I sell in a whole year now. Now the five-cent cigar constitutes the bulk of the trade."’ a Some Women Remarkably Successful as Collectors. From the New York Sun. ‘‘And this man,’’ said the young woman, referring to the last name on the list, ‘‘will give me a check to-mor- row without fail.’’ The manager shook his head doubt- fully. ‘‘I don’t take any stock in his promises,’’ he said. *‘He is tight as the bark on a tree and slippery as an eel. He never pays anything until he has to. He’s been giving us that same old gag about paying to-morrow for the last six months.’’ ‘“*And he will keep his word this time,’’ said the young woman confi- dently. And he did. The next evening when she reported at the office the young woman turned in a check for the full amount owed by the tight individual. The situation was so extraordinary that the manager scratched his head in_per- plexity. ‘‘Well,’’ he said, ‘‘you cer- tainly are a remarkably fine collector.’’ And after the young woman had eaten her dinner and had taken time to digest both the meal and the compliment she came to the conclusion that she was in- deed pretty good at the business. ‘‘It took me a long time to find out what I was good for,’’ she said. ‘‘I tried my hand at teaching, stenography, amateur gardening, dressmaking and photography successively, and was a failure in each. Then | turned my mind to collecting. ‘*My first employment was with a small publishing house. The owners owed everybody and everybody owed them. They paid nobody and nobody paid them. It took me just about two days to demonstrate to my own satisfac- tion that I had at last struck the level of my abilities. I began straight of to take in money and when, at the end of the first week, the manager footed up his receipts and found that I had col- lected subscriptions and advertising bills to the amount of $1,000, which, considering the size of individual ac- counts was a sum as high as Pike’s Peak, he fell on my neck and called me blessed. The firm was too deep in the mire, however, to be pulled out even by the hand of a heaven-born collector. Their liabilities so far exceeded their assets that their only salvation lay in bankruptcy and this last refuge they finally sought when | had collected 99 cents on every dollar coming to them. | do not tell this in a spirit of vanity, but simply to refute the statement that a woman couldn’t earn her salt at collect- ing. I know a dozen women in ‘this town who are so employed and each is considered a gem of great price by her employers. ’’ A West Side furniture dealer who has employed a woman collector for several years said that if there was any one thing he could take time to talk about even in his busiest moments it was the merits of the woman collector. ‘‘ There was a time,’’ he said, ‘‘when I vowed that I wouldn't have a petticoat around my store in any capacity. My attention was first attracted to the subject by the quick way one woman collector made me pay a bill. Physically, the work for this store is hard. There is much walking to be done and many stairs to be climbed. Moreover, many of the people who buy our goods on the in- stallment plan are disagreeable to deal with when it comes to collecting. But that is where | find the woman collector invaluable. Her fund of patience is in- exhaustible, and she is inventive and resourceful to a degree. If she can not get around a creditor one way she will another, and, what is best of all, she never gives up.’’ It is a curious thing that it is not in the field of distinctly feminine labor, Such as dressmaking, millinery, and the like, that the woman collector seeks to win her laurels. When asked why this was so one successful collector replied that it was a case of the refutation of the theory that like cures like. ‘‘It may take a thief to catch a thief, but it doesn’t take a woman to make another woman pay her debts,’’ she said. ‘‘I am the manager of a large collecting agency. | have both men and women in my employ, and when I have a bill against a woman | invariably send a man to collect it. Women who owe money know well enough that another woman sent to collect a bill can see right through their subterfuges, no mat- ter how flimsy or how plausible. They do not care a_ straw for her opinion, however, but they don’t want to be found out by the men.’’ A Nassau street lawyer employs a woman collector whom he regards as an honor to her sex and the calling. ‘‘I don’t always collect the money I set out to get,’’ she said, when complimented on her achievements and _ consequent reputation. ‘‘A yearago I set out to col- lect $1,250 from a client of my em- ployer. ‘Go up to his office every day,’ were my employer’s instructions. ‘Don’t give him a minute’s peace. Hound the very life out of him until he pays. Just walk right in, no matter who is there, and demand that $1,250. He can't turn you out because I did for him what no other lawyer in New York could have done, and it behooves him to be humble.’ ‘*For three months I obeyed those in- structions literally. I traveled up and down the elevator so often that every- body in the building came to know me as ‘—-—’s dun,’ and the man hated the very sight of me. One day I was sick and couldn’t go down town. A_ second day I stayed away, and still a third. About 2 o’clock on the afternoon of the third day, as my employer sat in his private office talking to a client, the door was opened suddenly and a tow- headed little boy stepped audaciously into the room,’’ * *Say,’ he said, ‘I’m——’s boy, an’ my boss wants to know why that woman ain’t been over for that $1,250 he owes you. ‘*T positively refused to call after that and we never did get the money. But you don’t come across many people like that.’’ 3 a, .~Q,, a, . Aa, . Aa, Va, - Va, - Va, - A, - a, Sa, Sa, -a Ba. a Ba Sa. A. é ai Pees ee ae Gi GOO OO IOI OOOO FFF CFO FOF loN 2 WALTER J. GCULD ® GOULD & IMPORTERS OF MN TEAS AND COFFEES AND MANUFACTURERS OF SPICES 59 JEFFERSON AVE., DETROIT, MICH. NN in the State. are justly proud of it. We claim to have the most complete, up-to-date and scientifically erected exclusive Coffee and Spice plant in the west and the largest No expense has been spared in making it so, and we R. S. GEHLERT GEHLERT i : EL “~~ a’ a’ a’ a’ a a a’ VTS ~~~’ BW a @’ Wye |] Blank Books ofall kinds Ledgers, Journals, Day Books, Bill Books, Cash Sales Books, Pass Books, Letter Copying Books. Also everything else a business man Mail orders needs in his office. given prompt attention. WILL M. HINE Grand Rapids, Mich. 49 Pearl St., 2 & 4 Arcade Both Phones 529