VOL. 3. GRAND RAPIDS, MICHIGAN, WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 4, 1885. _ NO. Ul. y BEAN I want to buy BEANS. Parties hav- ing any can find a quick sale and better prices by writing us than you can pos- sibly get by shipping to other markets. Send in small sample by mail and say how many you have. W. T LAMOREAUL, AGT. 71 Canal Street, GRAND RAPIDS, LUDWIG WINTERNITZ, (Successor to P. Spitz,) MICH. SOLE AGENT OF Fermentum, The Only Reliable Compressed Yeast. Manufactured by Riverdale Dist. Co., ARCADE, GRAND KAPIDS, MICHIGAN. Grocers and Bakers who wish to try “FERMENTUM” can get samples and full directions by addressing or applying to the above. _G, HUYS & UU, No. 4 Pearl Street, Grand Rapids. (Vr) mo) Soe iD Send for Price-List. Orders by mail re- ceive prompt atten- tion. THF PERKINS WIND MILL ISad SHG Ang It has beenin constant use for 15 years, with a record equalled by none. WAR- RANTED not to blow down unless the tower goes with it; or against any wind that does not disable substantial farm usiihines: to be perfect; to outlast and do better work than any other mill made. Agents wanted, Address Perkins Wind Mill & Ax Co., Mishawaka, Ind. Mention Tradesman. EATON & CHRISTENSON, Agents for a full line of ' W. Venable & Co.'s PETERSBURG, VA., PLUG TOBACCOS, NIMROD, ec. BLUE RETER, ' SPREAD EAGLE, BIG FIVE CENTER. DRYDEN & PALMER'S ROCK CANDY. Unquestionably the best in the market. As clear as crystal and as transparent as diamond. Try a box. John Caulfield, Sole Agent for Grand Rapids ALBERT COYE & SONS MANUFACTURERS OF AWNINGS, TENTS HORSE AND WAGON COVERS. WHOLESALE DEALERS IN Oiled Clothing, Ducks, Stripes, Ete. %3 Canal Street, - Grand Rapids, Mich, VvoraT, HERPOLSHEIMER & CO., Importers and Jobbers of STAPLE AND FANCY Dry Goods OVERALLS, PANTS, Etc., our own make. A complete Line of TOYS, FANCY CROCKERY, and FANCY WOODEN-WARE, our own importation, for holiday trade. solicited. Chicago and De- troit prices gurranteed. A WORD TO RETAIL GROCERS Ask your wholesale grocer for Talmage Table Rice. It is equal to the best Carolina and very much lower in price. ALWAYS PACKED IN 100 POUND POCKETS. Dan Talmage’s Sons, New York. Sweei (6 Laundry Soap MANUFACTURED BY OSBERNE, HOSICK & CO, CHICAGO, ILL. PEIRCE & WHITE, JOBBERS OF CHOICE IMPORTED AND DOMESTIC CIGARS, Plug, Fine Cut and Smok- ing Tobaccos, 1] Specially Adapted to the Trade. We earry a full line ef Seeds of every variety, 79 Canal Street, Grand Rapids, Mich. both for field and garden. -arties in want should SEED t write to or see the (RAND RAPIDS GRAIN AND SEED CO. 71 CANAL STREET. THE RICKARD LADDER! Two Ladders in one—step and extension. Easily adjusted to any hight. Self-support- ing. No braces needed. Send for illustrated price-list. RICKARD BROS., Grand Rapids, Mich. ARTHUR R. ROOD, ATTORNEY, 48 PEARL STREET, ROOD BLOCK, GRAND RAPIDS, MICH. Collections a Specialty Ir is valuable. The At # Grand Rapids MMIFLE’ Business College is a practical trainer and fits its pupils for the vocations of busi- ness with all that the term implies. Send for Journal. Address C. G. SWENSBERG, Grand Rapids, Mich. LUDWIG WINTERNITZ, JOBBER OF Milwankee Star Brand Vinegars. Pure Apple Cider and White Wine Vinegars, full strength and warranted absolutely pure. Send for samples and prices. Arcade, Grand Rapids, Mich. STEAM LAUNDRY 43 and 45 Kent Street. STANLEY N. ALLEN, Proprietor. WE DO ONLY FIRST-CLASS WORK AND USE NO CHEMICALS. Orders by Mail and Express promptly at- tended to. JODDYD cctv CO., JOBBERS of SADDLERY HARDWARE And Full Line Winter Goods. 102 CANAL STREET. SHERWOOD HALL.” MARTIN L. SWEET. ESTABLISHED 1865. Brown, Hall & C0. JOBBERS OF Wool Robes, Fur Robes, Horse Blafikets, Write for Special Prices. Nos. 20 and 22 Pearl st., Grand Rapids. SAWDUST BRICK. A Patent Bound (in the Inventor’s Mind) | to Revolutionize the Lumber Trade. From the Michigan Manufacturer. He walked into the mill office with a far away look in his eyes aud sat down by the manager’s private desk. When the latter finished the letter he was writing and look- ed up the visitor was busy removing bottles from a valise that had all the ragged ear- marks of having been through an Ohio elec- tion. He put a bottle containing red fluid be- side a smaller one with yellow coloring mat- ter, eyed the combination critically fora moment, and added another bottle with blue contents. The contrast of colors seemed to satisfy him and he placed the bottles on the desk, borrowed a match to light the very damp stub of a very bad cigar and leaned back in his chair with a pleased look on a face that seemed to have eluded soap and water for any number of years. “Ever figure on the enormous waste to the lumber trade by the unscientific manner in which sawdust is handled?” He asked the question with a letter-head in one hand anda pencil in the other, and the manager looked as though he would give a month’s salary to escape the columns of figures growing under his visitor’s nimble fingers. “You see,” the visitor went on without waiting for a reply. ‘‘You see there’s mil- lions of cubic feet of sawdust wasted every year. Now, sawdust is lumber, and a waste of lumber simply means a waste of produc- tion. See? Ihave studied night and day for years on a plan to check this mighty loss to the commerce of the world, and at last I have met with success.” He helped himself to a cigar lying on the desk, lighted it from the stub in his mouth and leaned forward with the air of a man who expected the manager to stop the mill and bring the hands in to congratulate him. “Yes, sir,” he added, ‘I have met with success at last, and it can be expressed in one word. You couldn't it now, I suppose?” The stranger waved his cigar at the array of bottles on the table and waited. The manager gave it up. “Then Dl tell you,” said the stranger, ‘*it’s cement.” The victim at the desk wished he hadn’t left his revolver at home, and wondered if any of the clerks would happen in before his crank of a visitor had taken his life. “Yes, sir, nothing but cement,” and the stranger uncorked the red bottle and held it up to the light. ‘‘I have some of it here. It’s thin, as you see, but it’s powerful. No- tice how carefully I avoid getting it on my hand? That’s to avoid accidents. Over in Wisconsin the other day a man got his hand into a vat of the stuff and he hasn’t been able to use it since. Filled up the pores and tnrned it into a substance resembling stone. He’s going to travel with a dime museum next winter as the celebrated Eastern fire- handler.” The stranger recorked the bottle and set it back beside the biue one. “Now, you run your sawdust from the mill into a vat with moulds at the bottom, press it into the moulds, saturate it with my patent fluid, and what do you have? Brick! Brick for building purposes!” The manager walked to the window and looked out, resolved to run the risk of breaking his neck jumping if his visitor’s insanity took a dangerous fori. “Yes, sir, red brick if you use red cement, blue brick if you use blue, and yellow if you use the yellow fluid. See? Down East they are buying all three and putting up fancy cottages. Will they re- tain their form and not crumble away? Well, I should say so. Out West where eyclones grow to full size in about three seconds, every man has his name stamped in each brick so they can be identified and reclaimed every time his house blows down. They never break. The cement possesses so strong an affinity for woody fibers that it would almost gather up the pieces of a brick if any machine could be found strong enough to break one. That’s the secret of the in- vention—that’s aor kept me awake nights for so many years. The manager was about to risk from the window when aman with bar in his hand came into the office down to await orders. ‘*That’s the secret of the whole business,” repeated the stranger. ‘‘Last summer a man down in Indiana built a house out of my brick. After he got it done he found he would have to mortgage his place to get money to clear the timber off a wood lot next to.it. While he was down town rais- ing the money a cyclone came up and blew the house down. But he didn’t lose any- thing by it. The brick flew for that wood lot like a flock of birds and broke off every tree close to the ground. The wind was in that direction, of course, but the peculiar guess a jump a crow- and sat properties of the cement guided the brick | square up to the trees. Break? No, sir. He f every brick in less than a week and rebuilt his house.” The man with the crowbar started toward the door, but the manager called him back | “recipe for making it. and stepped over by the chair where he sat. | “T’m not selling the fluid cement, mind,” | continued the stranger. ‘‘I’m that and so much royalty on every thousand brick. Isold a county right in New York last year and the man that bought it is run- ning for Congress now. He had a little hard luek at first on account of putting too strong cement into a carload of wooden legs he manufactured out of pine sawdust. The cement was so strong that the legs pulled up the sidewalks wherever the men went, and the manufacturer had to call them all in. One one-legged soldier who bought a leg of him was arrested because he left his leg out in the yard one night and the next morning all his neighbors’ wood was piled up around it. I tell you this to show you how ecare- fully the cement must be used. If you want a county right I wouldn’t mind stopping long enough to show you how—” The manager had been creeping slowly toward the door for some moments and he now dodged out, leaving the stranger with the wonderful cement trying to talk the man with a crowbar into building a red brick sawdust house with blue trimmings. ALFRED B. Tozer ——--_~>_ -¢ <> A Tradesman’s Philosophy. “If you’re real anxious t’? hey yer neigh- bors talk about you an think of you, jest buy a dog an’ tie him in th’ back yard.” ‘‘When a feller says it’s ‘as broad as ’tis sit he means that it’s all square I ee on.” ***Th’ more you stir up yer seza dry-goods man t’? me, sez ger it takes ’em to settle.’ ” ‘Tl’ smaller an’ meaner a man is, th’ big- ger he allers talks.” “When lm in danger from accidents 0’ any kind IL allers prefers absence 0’ body t’ presence 0’ mind.” ‘“‘Not more’h one man in ten thousand dies by pizen, yet th’ mere mention of pizen strikes us with horror. Hundreds 0’ people die from intemperance—yet it hain’t feared very much, it strikes . customers,’ he, ‘th’ lon- me.” “Lt Dlieve in honorin’ th’ dead just th’ saine’s you'd honor ’em if they was alive.” ““Allers keep good-natured when you eat Laughing is t best aid t? digestin’, an’ a man that’s mad when he eats can’t tell whether he’s chawin’ bD’iled caullyflower or stewed umbrellers.” ‘‘Never give way in trifles, ’cause there’s no tellin’ how soon you might be called on t? give way in matters o’ importance.” a -—S-
+
No Use for It.
From the Muskegon News.
A Muskegon lumberman sat in the front
oflice of the Occidental the other evening
with his feet elevated to the top of the
table surrounded by a knot of gentlemen to
whom he was describing the beauties, ex-
cellencies and advantages of a certain kind
of saw, which he had in hismill. The gen-
tlemen were evidently pleased—all except
one fellow, who had a half-civilized cow-boy
look about him and sat a little way apart.
When the sawmill man had completed his
description he leaned back in his, chair to
await the comments of the party.
“Say, mister,” said the lonesome looking
man ‘‘you couldn’t give away such a saw as
that where I live.”
The sawmill man looked at the stranger
amazement, and growled out: ‘I
Well, where in thunder do
ean scheme
in
couldn’t, eh?
you live?”
“My shanty’s on the prairie near Ft.
Dodge, Kansas.”
After a moment or two of silence the
stranger strolled into the reading room, and
a few minutes later the sawmill man and
his friends were describing circles with their
arms at the bar.
>>
Patent Applied For.
***Round again?” he asked, as the dun
put his head in the door.
“Yes, and Pll stay ’round until I get
square.”
You pay so much for |
|
|
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Blunders of the Wire.
| From the London Standard.
selling the |
It seems, indeed, as if the transmission
of messages was superintended by some tel-
egraphie Puck, whose special delight is to
commit malicious perversities in the sense
of messages, for no other purpose, appar-
ently, but to gratify his predilections for
practical joking. To some his pleasantries
may cause amusement, but they are more
frequently productive of embarrassment.
How friendly greetings passing between
families have been altered, what dreadful
suspense and alarm has been caused among
households and perturbation among busi-
ness men, through the hidden telegraphic
imp, none but those who have,been victim-
ized can fully appreciate or understand. A
gentleman once telegraphed asking that a
horse might be sent to’the railway station
to meet him, and was surprised to finda
hearse instead. A prominent statesman
was accused of delaying work
through an ‘‘unfortunate idleness,” when
the honorable gentleman’s ‘‘illness” was the
sause of the delay. From being ‘‘bad” a
man was made ‘‘dead,” and one that was
“no worse” became ‘‘no through
telegraphie agency. are
times made to read precisely opposite to
what is meant by the sender, and trouble
and disappointment are frequently
by these perverted communications. ‘Send
check this afternoon” has become ‘‘send
chaise this afternoon;” ‘‘your bacon” has
been transmitted into ‘tyour hanker;” ‘‘lin-
seed oil” has been converted into ‘‘linseed
meal:” ‘fifteen wagons” into ‘‘fifteen tons;”
“clothes” have been made ‘‘soles;” ‘‘sold”
made ‘“unsold;” and the announcement
“salmon received” has been changed into
‘balloon received.” When meetings are ar-
ranged through the medium of the tele-
graph, it occasionally happens that the time
and place of meeting are altered. Sunday
has a decided tendency to become Monday.
Tuesday is liable to be made Thursday, and
the first train has been altered into the last
train, while places of meeting have been
changed or converted into something that
was painfully perplexing to the recipients.
“Constantinople among the grocers” was a
rather unintelligible announcement, and the
changing of the request ‘‘send no more” in-
to ‘send on more” was calculated to pro-
duce annoyanee. Here is a curious piece of
composition which a telegraph clerk turned
out: ‘‘Speaker urged a compliment con-
cerning the desirability of their cause and
the hounds of the execution.” ‘This being
interpreted meaneth, ‘“The speaker urged a
complaint concerning the desertion of their
cause at the hands of the executive.” St.
Vitus’ seems to have puzzled an operator,
for he rendered it *‘vile dance,” a defini-
tion which the unfortunate sufferer might
not have disputed. The phrase ‘‘antiqui-
ties of the church” once got an operator in-
to trouble, for he had the audacity to write
“iniquities of the chureh,” which must have
shocked the ‘unco’ guild. A paper had to
apologize for having—through a telegraphic
error—in the report of an unsavory lawsuit
referred to a ‘‘religious” instead of a ‘‘lit-
igious” family. There can be no question
but the clerk who wrote ‘‘subterranean tav-
erns,” when ‘‘eaverns,” was intended, must
have been suffering from the effects of a re-
cent visit to some underground liquor shop.
legislative
”
”
more,
Messages some-
-aused
>.>
How They Make it Out.
“Who is that old dutfer?” asked the new
groceryman of the milkman, as a well dress-
ed man went by.
‘Why, he’s one of our most trusted citi-
zens,” was the eloquent reply.
“Tow do you make that out? He has
been owing mea bill ever since I came
here.”
“*That’s just how we make it out,” laugh-
ed the milkman gleefully, and the grocery-
man seratched his head till he caught on.
SCG. Enea OE
Not long ago a train on a prominent rail-
road, in Minnesota, earried a jolly party of
five St. Paul commercial travelers. They
were bound to different points and whiled
away the time with stories more witty than
nice. In one of the passenger coaches was
a wan-faced woman, neatly but poorly
dressed, in whose arm was a sleeping baby.
Just as the train left a small station the
baby began to breathe unnaturally, and in a
few moments had passed away. ‘The grief
of the mother can be better imagined than
described. She was among strangers and
far from her home and friends. Inquiries
revealed the fact that she was entirely des-
titute of money, and the officers of the road
were compelled by duty to require some dis-
position of the body to be made. The story
spread through the train and then the laugh
in the drummer’s car was stilled, the idle
jest ceased its rounds. They went to the
side of the afflicted mother, and .in voices
as gentle as a woman’s tendered manly
sympathy. Tender hands took the dead
child from the arms which held it in their
agonized grasp, while, without a word, five
put suflicient funds into the hands of one of
their number. A. little coffin was telegraph-
ed for at the next station, the express
charges away out on the frontier were cheer-
fully paid, and the mother given $50 in
cash,
An Unwise Expedient.
From the Michigan Manufacturer.
The practice which many manufacturers
pursue, of cutting down prices in dull times,
with a view to inerease sales, has little to
recommend it, and for a variety of reasons
is injurious to general business. The man-
ufacturer who resorts to this plan seldom
realizes his expectations as regards the in-
crease of his sales, and often finds himself
The ten-
deney of his action is toward demoralization
His
must
gener-
a serious loser by the operation.
and lack of confidence in the markets.
competitors, to meet the reduction,
also reduce their pricees—which they
ally do without delay—so that any advyan-
tage which might result to him who leads
in the cutting business (if his competitors
maintained their
regulated, not
mand. peo-
ple purchase an article because they need it,
not because it is
rates) is lost. Sales are
so much by prices as by de-
In times of great depression,
cheap. Redueing prices
has little effect in stimulating a sluggish de-
mana.
money
tempt people by low prices.
Even cheap articles are dear when
little avail to
In such times
the great bulk of trade is in necessaries, not
in luxuries; and no manufacturer need sell
necessaries at ruinously low prices, for peo-
ple must and will have them at any price.
Another effect of the habit of cutting is
to weaken general business. There is close
sympathy between the fluctuations of prices
and the demands of current trade. Ona
rising market, sales improve; and improy-
ing sales strengthen and confirm a rising
market. Improving prices create confidence
in a still further rise, and jobbers and spee-
ulators come forward with their dueats to
reap the benefit of the advance. Hence it
is that advancing prices invariably go hand
in hand with increasing business activity.
But the reverse obtain.
When prices begin to descend there are al-
ways plenty of persons who think values
will go lower, and who therefore withhold
their investments until more favorable oppor-
tunities present The down-
ward tendency weakens confi-
dence; and the contidenece in
turn reacts upon prices, through the preva-
lent mistake which many dealers and manu-
facturers make of offering their wares at
prices little above the actual cost of produc-
Thus the ul-
to reduce rather
is searce, hence it is of
conditions also
themselves.
of prices
weakening of
tion—sometimes even at less.
timate effect of cutting is
than increase sales.
It is more easy to go dewn hil! than to go
up. The basis of low prices once establish-
under
business
ed, to restore the old except
the stimulus of an extraordinary
revival, is slow and difficult. The
er who gets in the habit of buying goods at
prices
purchas-
cheated
when a price is demanded which will afford
a living profit. The publie form their ideas
of values by comparisons, and stubbornly
cost, grumbles and believes himself
resist all efforts to advance prices when a
low standard has been Under
such conditions, the cheap imitator of ster-
ling goods is enabled to get in perfect
work, furnishing an inferior article at a cost
which satisfies the most exacting require-
ments as to cheapness, but which in
instances proves a very expensive
ment in the long run.
If every honorable manufacturer, in what-
ever line of industry he may be engaged,
would fix upon his products a price which
would afford a fair margin of profit, and
rigidly adhere to his established rates, there
would be less bankruptcy, less cut-throat
competition, and less industrial and com-
mercial demoralization in the land.
een lip Apnea
A Great Engineering Work.
From the Michigan Manufacturer.
One of the most notable of the recent
achievements of engineering skill is the
movable or adjustable dam lately completed
in the Ohio river, at Davis Island. This
great Work is expected to benefit, material-
the Upper Ohio, by
raising the water the river above it to
such aheight that the most heavily-laden
river vessels can navigate the stream with-
out difficulty at all seasons of the y If
these expectations are fully the
importance of the work ean seareely be
overestimated, as the river heretofore
been practically unnavigable for a consider
able portion of each year on account of low
water. The dam was nine years
ago, and its total cost has been nine hun-
dred thousand dollars. The annual cost of
maintenance is estimated at six thousand
dollars. The dam is built in four seetions,
and comprises a navigable pass 559 feet
wide, and three weirs, which are respective-
ly 226 feet, 226 feet, and 218 feet in width
each. The weirs are provided with wickets
which can be opened in cases of freshet, to
allow the surplus water to escape, thus
maintaining a nearly uniform depth of water
in the river for many miles above the dam at
all times. This dam is not altogether an
experiment similiar ones being in sueeess-
ful operation in Europe. That which was
taken as the model of the Davis Island dam is
at Port a Anglais, on the Seine a few miles
above Paris.
established.
his
most
invest-
ly, the commerce of
in
ar.
realized,
has
begun
© <
Freed Bros., of Frontier, have accepted a
bonus of $2,500 from Hillsdale business
men, and will erect a 100-barrell flouring
mill in the latter city. :
\
the Mikoan Tradesman,
A JOURNAL DEVOTED TO THE
stock from South Division street to Plain-
donna
AMONG THE TRADE.
IN THE CITY.
VanGiesen & Co. have removed their drug
Hercantile and Manufacturing Interests of the State, | field avenue. |
Terms $1 a year im advance, postage paid.
Advertising rates made known on application.
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 4, 1885. I
Merchants and Manufacturers’ Exchange.
Organized at Grand Rapids October 8, 1884.
President—Lester J. Rindge.
Vice-President—Chas. H. Leonard. |
Treasurer—W m. Sears. : :
Executive Committee—President, Vice-Pres-
ident and Treasurer, ex-officio; O. A. Ball, one
year; L. E. Hawkins and KR. D. Swartout, two
years.
Putnam, Joseph Houseman.
‘Transportation Committee—Samuel
Geo. B. Dunton, Amos. S. Mussejinan.
Insurance Committe—John G. Shields, Arthur
Meigs, Wm. T. Lamoreaux. ;
Manufacturing Committee—Wm. Cartwright,
E. 8. Pierce, C. W. Jennings. :
Annual Meeting—Second Wednesday evening
of October.
Regular Meetings—Second Wednesday even-
ing of each month.
Sears, |
«2 ~Subscribers and others, when writing
to advertisers, will confer a favor on the pub-
lisher by mentioning that they saw the adver-
tisement in the columns of this paper. |
The “Grand Rapids Collection Agency,
Hi. A. Brooks, manager,” is a new candi-
date for trade patronage. The character of
the “manager” is such as will lead mer-
chant#to give the concern a wide berth.
iii
The paper on “Antidotes to be directed |
on poison labels,” which is given entire on
the drug page of this issue, is one of the
most ‘valuable contributions to practical
pharmacy ever made by a Michigan writer.
Itaffords Tim TRADESMAN no small pleas-
ure to beable to give this paper to the pub-
lic ahead of any of its contemporaries.