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About Omaha daily bee. (Omaha [Neb.]) 187?-1922 | View Entire Issue (Aug. 28, 1904)
The Push Cart as r -j - "ROWS OP (Copyright, 1004, by Gaotano d'Amato.) ESI'ISED of men, harried by lha IJ I police, the push cart peddlers are J yet an Important factor in the. commercial and economic life of the AmeHcan metropolis, and ti jung lines of carts, stretching away IntermiLably on the shady sides of the tenement streets, Just as certainly con stitute one of the city's peculiarly charac teristic sights. No other American city bas the push cart to so great an extent, and some Chicago, for example know It scarcely at all, wagons taking Its placo. But go where you will In New York, you cannot escape the ubuqultous push cart. And no wonder. Six thousand live hun dred carts are licensed for business in the streets of Manhattan island alone. Placed end on end, they would make a continuous line seven and a half miles in length; placed far enough apart for a peddler to stand at one end of each cart, the line would In crease In length a mile and a half. The East Side sightseer is truly within bounds When ho frequently exclaims, on seeing streets crowded with carts, "Why, there must bo miles of them." By means of these carts, which offer for sale everything under the sun that man can eat, wear or otherwise make uso of, some 60,000 people, in round numbers, gain their support. The average peddler's fam ily. It must be remembered, contains nearer seven than five members. Forty-five thou sand persons are thus accounted for, leav ing 5,000 to bo divided among the families of the cart owners, who rent the carts at 10 cents a day; the auctioneers and small Jobbers In dry goods and notions, who deal exclusively with the peddlers, and the fruit commission men who do the same thing. Hence, a number dependent upon the push cart business equivalent to the population of Wilkesbarre, Pa., or Tort land, Me., and nearly twice that accredited to .Atlantic City four years ago. Besides furnishing a livelihood for a con siderable body, these six and a half thou sand carts are, in largo part, so many training schools for prospective American citizens In American business methods. No one can secure a license who has not taken out his declaration papers at least.. The peddlers are mostly made up of men of this class, the fuM-fledged American citizen beLnff scarce among them. In the YOU CAN BUY ANYTHING UNDER . v2v K$ck$ Arwi v"S - "SHk - ,.. .... 0MfeJS:?---' ' 'I'lianMll ill .ji.-tfc......w .. .... ; i - ., ? ., , . ,. - . ui TUSH CAUTS BTRETCJ I AWAY INTERMINABLY UP AND DOWN TENEMENT STREETS." years intervening between the first and final papers his eye teeth were cut. llo learned to buy his fruit at some big whole sale market instead of from the J ibijer around the corner, nnii fh lucre is.'iI M profits, llo discovered that It ii ne c.-ary to get up lit throe mid four in the m ru ing to catch the pi nnies of 1 ib : hii? c'.usi as they go to tiulr work. Eirly in tho struggle he located the hest cnri.orj; anJ so by the time he i.- leady to become a ci'izen of the country lie l.u-s been a self respecting storekeeper for at least a yeir, ami perhaps two, having llten to this commercial eminence by reason of tho Hi-iney made out of selling hid wares from a push cart during the moments when he w:is not driven from pll'ar to post by the police. In the meantime, his place has filled by a newcomer as grei-n as ho was when he faced America and American ways from the tall of a cart laden with a nondthcril collection of purchasable thine." Thus, the push-cart peddlers are constantly changing, for in the first in sta; f.c il.cy are by no means an ambitious lot, and tho money they m-ike after they have learntd the ropes is additional Incen tive ti- them to rise to higher business levels, where they will not have to kiep ore eyj constantly on the lookout for a gliri'j'Mi of an oncoming blue coat and hel at Tlilr is particularly true of the Italians Indeed, there are fewer and fwcr I':i:l;tm iu the bu.-iness, which is ra::.')y falling Into the hands of tho Greeks. Every push-cart man In New York who looks sharp after his buying is sure of a good profit dally. It ia no uncommon thlnx for a fruit peddler to dispone, in season, of two barrels of pears to workers between tho hours of 4 and 7 iu tho morning. Ho sells the pLrs at two or three for a cent, and before the day lias fairly begun finds himself some $3 ahead of t lie game. Three peddlers not long ago bought 120 craiej of peachew, started Sflllug them with dawn and by 11 o'clock each had cleared $18. Joa Rothberg piles his dart high with nothing but sour pickles, which he sells to the Jews of the East Side at a cent each. Ho usually takes in aa much as $9 a day, over haJf of that amount being clear profit, and ho Is said to have a savings bank account of $8,000. A widow who sella stockings om Hester street clears on an average 3 cents THE SUN OFF A PUSH CART. a Road to on evory pair, and hs she sells between twenty and thirty dozen u day, she is not likely to sta-ve peon. Indeed ,flie has not only taken care of herself in this way for nearly fifteen years, but she has Mnt her two boys through college, and one cf them is now pi-.wtlcintr law. Armther worn in pe.ldler on Ihe tame Ftie.t is i pl Mident with diamonds, which represent her in vestment of her pavings since she began sel ing dry goods remnants. Then there Is the ease of Jaei b Cobb, who has a mont'ter cart, tixtei n feet long, built esoc!ally for him, on Grand street. Ills pjicrlilty Is jewelry and such luxuries as pckeiljook3 selling for $t and $S apiece. Ho values his daily ptiK'k at $.00(, and around holiday tim;- he is sure of a nightly profit of between 10 nnd $10, as Is his brother Sam, who sells fur scarf an.l muffs nnd other luxurious feminine wear farther down the street. Tho average push cart, however, does not display bo valuable a stock. A fruit stock varies In value from $15 to $J5; dry goods from $'.G to $7J0; notions from $S to $12; vegetables nbout tho samo, and so on. Whlij thcs cmcunts peein small separately, in the aggregate they reach astonishing proportions, nnd It is easy to understand how ten carloads of fruit are dally placed upon tho carls In New York, and whole cargoes of bananas anil other tropical fruits are constantly finding their way to the same places. So It comes about, by reason of the profits that can 1m mad? In the push cart business, that many a man In New York who started his business career In the new world ped dling fruit, or firodajnaged notions, or fac tory remnants, Is now engaged In an enter prise which is fast making him a power financially. Louis Massuccl starUd as a push cart fish dealer when he first came from Italy. He gradually saved enough to peddle on a larger sealo with a horse and wagon, next lie opened a fish store, paying $0 dollars a month rent; today he operates four bis Stores throughout the city, supplies several of tho leading hotels with all their se:i food, owns his own fbhlng boats, and can draw his check any day for $10a,('00. Frank Marchlony, when he llrst reached this country, i eddied ice cream for a living. He worked out the idea of a water cup In which to sell a penny's worth of cream. A PUSH CART AUCTIONEER AND A TUMER& Wealth M'S f 1 -"ft.:' ; f i" i- ;rr ... . "r rH '..V patented It and began manufacturing tha cup and the cream with the money h had saved nn a peddler. Today his 200 carts are !! all over the city, and lie has two big waft r and Ice cream factories, and within the last few years he lias made tlmnnamls of dollars. At. other man, after he had got together eighteen hundred dollars, saved In two years by felling sits of cutlery at ttirco dollars each, giving him a profit of two dollais and forty rents a set, embarked In the business of buying up job lots of fruits and selling them to the push-cart men at a price which enabled trim to make two or three cents on every case or barrel. He now spends most of tils working hours paying forty or fifty thousand dollars spot cash for a cargo of bananas and distribut ing It among the peddlers at a prollt to himself of from three to four cents a bunch, lie not Infrequently cluirs up three thousand dollars on a single deal. The push-cart owners aro usually men who began as peddlers. Some half hun dred men own among them the six thousand live hundred carts In New York. Oi.e man controls three hundred, represent ing an Investment of twenty-seven hundred dollars. His yearly rentals from the carts agittcgute eight thousand dollars above his investment. All this, however, Is not clear prollt. Uke tho rest of tho push-cart owners, he has to rent headquarters, usu ally a basement, where the peddlers can store the carts, with thrlr loads of mer chandise, over night. This privilege is paid for in the ten cent biro dally for ths eart. Still, the push-cart owner's prollt Is large enough after all exponses are de ducted, and more than one of them !as accumulated considerable wealth in a com paratively short period. Other former pii'ih-cart peddlers are to my knowledge politicians, bankers, mer chants of various ports, and manufacturers. Some of these, undoubtedly, are not making any more money than when they stood in tho push-cart lino. Still, there aro com pensations. They ure no longer looked down upon by their fellows, and they are not told to "g'wan," and sometimes helped along by a policeman's club, to some other stand at the end of every thirty minutes. (5AKTANO D'AMATO, Deputy Chief, Bureau of licenses. New York. REPRESENTATIVE CROUP Off CUS iVire - - "'"?t-;& km