Big Store Always Making Deliveries
ht. liKfl. by Anns 8. Hlrhirdson.)
W YORK, April 1R. (Special Cor
respondence.) 'Mm. Miller, 107
llroadway. Come on, or we'll
never got a table. The .lunch
room here Is always crowded.
N
'l lit jr were pushing their way through
lh.' crowd around the bargain table, when
the clerk called them bach.
'Excuso me, but li tha In this cltyT"
he naked.
"Why, of course," replied the shopper.
Irritably.
"And your Initiate?"
"R. B. Miller come on, Janet. Did you
ever hear of such a fuss over nothing?"
The clerk stamped her sale slip viciously
an 1 remarked to nobody In particular, with
ccrif l.lorable unction:
"She wouldn't call It nothing If her park
age failed .lo tnrn p on this afternoon's
delivery. Dy tomorrow night she'd be tcle
phouing in that our delivery system was
the worst ever, and yet she begrudged
the time to glvo her address accurately.
Now, this city. is full cf Ml. I on, and there's
a Broadway In evory city and town where
ws have a free delivery system. Did she
suppose I could tell whether her .Broadway
was In New York, Brooklyn, Newark or
Olen Ridge? Boms women think we clerks
are mind readers No ma'am, you'll find the
galloons on the next stole I bet the blunder
clerk Is the hardest worked man In thU
tore."
The blunder clerk, who Is to be found In
the sub-basement of any big department
tore, Iscne of the busiest men In a very
busy department.
Tha modern delivery department. .'Ike a
certain brand of detectives, never sleeps.
To bo euro, there are times when Its
wagons are not seen on the city streets,
but that Is no ,slgn that all hands are
resting. A delivery system is worked on
a two-shift plan. For instance, when tho
local or city delivery Is accompllftbed, the
day men are relieved by a new force of
wagon men, who are In charge of the big
vans by which the suburban delivery la
haadled.
This force leaves the atore any time
between 6 and 8 o'clock In the evening,
reaching the firm's headquarters In the
distant suburbs by midnight or later. At
these stations the van drivers receive re
ceipts for their goods and tumble Into bed,
while a new force of men unpack the vana
and distribute and "route" the goods on
the smaller wagons sent out from these
points.
The next day at coon the van drivers
return to the otatlcn, take charge of their
empty vans, drive bark to town and report
at tho stcre for another night trip. In the
meantime, the suburban delivery force la
arcompllrhlng Its task; and so, day and
night, tho wcrk goes cn with the regularity
and precision of -clockwork.
When a cog flips,' no matter how small,
there Is trouble from one end of the sys
tem to the otht .'. It la to prevent the
slipping of cegs that every Important firm
gives special attention to Ita delivery ser
vice, and employs some of Its shrewdest
men to keep this end of the business
moving smoothly
Junt as a mail elerk must knew the map
f his route,' while the train takes him
pinning arrcsa prairies and through moun
tain gulches, so must the various clerks
In a successfully conducted store know
the city routes In order to expediate the
delivery ef goods and to hold the uncertain
Gambling
HE Brooklyn police have recently
taken action toward putting a
atop to certain progressive euchre
enterprises of women, and the
affair has caused a deal of talk
In many places besides Brooklyn as to the
Increase of the gambling mania among the
gentler sex. In Chicsgo It Is evident that
earda have within the last few years gained
a tremendous hold on the affections of all
classes of women, especially those In the
fashionable and ultra fashionable seta.
It Is generally conceded that card play
ing for prizes or money atakes haa almost
reached the atage of an epidemic among
the women In Chicago, relates the Tribune
of that city. Bridge whist, whist, euchre,
and even high five and hearts have their
devotees among the women all over the
city. The number of women'a card cluba
In Chicago la hard to estimate. There are
big clubs that meet downtown and draw
their members from all over tho city, and
there are clubs confined to those residing
in a single block or la a single hotel or
apartment house. It used to be that a
woman was satisfied If she belonged to one
club that held meetings twice a month.
But nowadays there nre hundreds of women
who belong to five card clubs, or even more,
and who play every day, and some days
play at three different clubs. Women'a card
cluba used to meet Invariably In the after
noon, tmt now' some of the clubs meet In
the forenoon, others In the afternoon
and others again at night. 8o that
a woman who Is devoted to the game can
find clubs that will permit of her playing
all day It she so desires.
Some of these oluba hold but on session
a week, but others hold two or three. The
due vary. Some clubs demand a cash sum
trade of fair, but not always careful,
patrons.
The increasing aversion to carrying
prckages, even though they contain no
more than a paper of pins and needles or
a Hrft cllk tie; the C. O. D. system; the
accommodation or special delivery, and
the Immense number of accounts carried
by many firms, tend to make the position
of the superintendent of delivery an oner
ous one. I!e must have executive power
In abnormal development. Hi roust pos
sess the firmness and tact to enforce his
plans. He must have the men who are
capable of carrying out his instructions
men who will work lilt, machines, yet
never become so mechanical as to make
mistakes without realizing what they are
doing.
One big Bhop, noted for Its expeditious
delivery rervlcn, devotes the entlro' sub
bascmcnt to this department, and here,
during the dull season, two hundred men
are given regular employment The num
ber Increases during the sharp rise In
spring and fall trade, end in holiday sea
sons as many extra hands are secured as
can work without literally falling over one
another. During the two local deliveries at
8:30 a. m., and 3:30 p. m., each day, between
fifteen and twenty thousand small parcels
are- handled, and so thoroughly is the work
systematized that cf the mistakes mad')
only thirty-five In ten thousand can be
traced to the delivery department.
The deftness with which the small parcel
delivery is handled Is one of the entertain
ing sights of this teeming department.
These packages are collected from one
end of the building to the other In big
hampers on wheels, by carriers who wear
blue uniforms with silver buttons, so that
the Inspectors and wrappers may not make
thi mistake of giving up bundles to unau
thorized persons. When ft carrier has cov
ered his routo In the store he makes for
the nearest freight eleator and Is shot
down to the sub-basement, where he rolls
his hamper to the distributing table.
This Is an enormous structure of highly
polished wood, built on an Incline. To the
left of the man who Is unloading it runs
about four or five feet wide on a geotlo
tilt to the router, who has first sight of the
. address on the parcel. This side Is used
for pali packages or good accounts only.
Overhead there Is a larger slide built at
a more pronounced angle. Here the C. O.
D. and unauthorized packages are whirled
along to the authorization clerk. This em
ploye not only knows the name of almost
every man and woman carrying an account
with the firm, but he recognizes thm at a
glance. If there exists In his mind any
doubt regarding a name or an account he
turns to a tube nearby and calls up the
department of accounts to satisfy himself
before passing the package on to the router.
The authorization clerk and the routers
occupy square holes at various points In
the big system of tables, and they look not
. unlike the barkers at a country or a mid
way show. But they are the quietest of
men, and scarcely and conversation goes
on during the rush hours. The routers
glance at the address, paying no attention
whatever to the name, mark the number of
the route on which It is to be delivered,
and shoot It along to the next clerk, who
might bo termed a distributer. He pays
no attention to name or adaress, only to
the number stamped upon the package by
the router. Having read that number, he
sends the package spinning down another
table to the bin which bears the number
Among the Women of the Larger Cities
of $26 or $30 from new members, others re
quire a certain amount, SO cents or a dollar,
to be paid at each session. The bridge cluba
have small dues, as they do not spend the
money raised In this manner for prizes. At
the bridge clubs, or at most of them, at
least, prizes are eliminated for money
takes. There are women probably who
play bridge for the love of the game, but
even these do not refuse to take their
winnings home with them.
At the euchre and whist clubs the prizes
are the Incentive to he games. The
women hold their cards with as much grim
earnestness and play as desperately and In
as terrible silence as ever man played
poker for a ten thousand dollar Jack pot.
"See," Skid a ncrth Id 3 woman as she
came cut of the card room where her
whist club bad been In session, "Just loak
what I won. This beautiful parasol with
sterling silver handle."
"What." growled her disgusted husband,
who had been cooling his hels in the
smoking room awal Ing her, "is that what
you women were plsylng for? I watchej
yon for awh'.le and thcurht you were play
ing for the Masonic temple and tho court-
" house thrown In."
Women sternly deay that playing ca-ds
for money or prises Is gambling. "I had
to pay 120 all la lump to Join our whist
club," said a aouthslde young woman re
cently, "but I've already won two burnt
leather sofa cushions, a int glass vase and
a silver csndy d'sh. I had them priced and
all of them together are worth 122.73. fc'o
you see I am ahead, and If I win thoaa
. eanillestlcks tomorrow 111 be way ahead."
' "So yew have the gambling fever?" aaU
a friend. -
"The gambling fever," repeated the girl.
corresponding with the route assigned by
the router.
These tables, which tilt in one direction
or another, have a framework of severs!
Inches around the edges to keep the parcels
from falling off, while the partitions are
of the same height. To the uninitiated,
the sight of these hundreds of packages
scampering, slipping, eliding toward the
various bin? seems confusion, but each run
way carries Its own passongers, so to speak
and it Is seldom that the wagon man, on
omptyir.g his bin and checking off bis pack
ages, flnda anything mlsrouted.
The bins look like small stalls, divided
In half, on a line with the distribution tables,
with an Iron netting on the outside. The
upper half holds the packages; the lower
half, a hamper on wheels to carry goods
to the wagons.
When the hour for their removal to
wagons arrive, tho wagon men receive
schedules or records, one marked paid and
O. K.. the other C, O. D. The bin is opened
by the clerks on the Inside, the driver
checks up his packages with the schedules,
and from that moment the responsibility
of the package becomes his. The Inside
clerks have done their part.
Right here many mistakes in address are
discovered. In large cities, the districts
covered by each wagon are comparatively
small, and the driver, having the same
route day after day, becomes thoroughly
acquainted with It, just as a postman does.
It la no unusual thing for a driver to hand
back a package with such a remark as:
"Mrs. John Henry Brown don't live at 1123.
She's two blocks beyond." The package
goes straightway to the blunder clerk, who
follows Its record, and the mistake Is fre
quently corrected without troubling the
purchaser.
As a rule, It requires about fifteen min
utes for an expert wagon man to check off
the contents of his bin and load his wagon.
Generally, too, his hours are not hard.
He is supposed to report at the stables by
8 a. m. and at the store with hfas wagon
half an hour later. If his last delivery
Is at 3:30 p. m. he should be ready to leave
the stable for home by C In the evening.
But at the holiday season all rules fall and
the delivery men work until they are ready
to drop.
Around the oustlde of the bins runs an
aisle, and on the other side of th's Is a
number of dens connected with the paicel
delivery. One of these la the wrong ad
dress room, where everything mlasent must
be turned In for Investigation. Some
times thla Is accomplished by going back
to the salespeople, or to the ledgers, in
esse of a charge account. Here, too, come
the C. O. D. packages, which are not
claimed when first delivered. A wagon
man must make at least three efforts to
deliver C. O. D. packages, each time re
porting to this "wrong address room," to
have his sheet signed and turn in his goods
to be held for another delivery.
It requires thirty men In all to run the
den devoted to returned or refused C. O. D.
package. Fully 10 per cent of all goods
purchased this way are refused on delivery
and there Is nothing to do except to bring
them back to tha atore. Wagon men say
that the majority of these refusals are
due not to fickleness of feminine taste, but
to a tendency to extravagance. On count
ing up the day's shopping women find that
they have overstepped the allowance, or
their husbands object to ao large an ex
penditure and the gocds are flatly refused.
These refused gcods are sorted twice a
opening her ryes wide. "Why, I should
say not. Gamble me; no, indeed. Why
playing whist for pretty prizes and gam
bling are two different things."
"Why different? In what way?"
"Well, one la playing whist tor prltes
and the other la gambling. That'a tie dif
ference." Even the woman who loses '0 or $100
at bridge will calmly Insist that shi Is not
gambling. She cannot tell e'early why
bridge when plsjed for morey a ak a is not
gambling, but It would take six Thlid 1
phla lawyers a week to argue her out of
the notion, and even vh n they th uh'.
they had the woman convinced shi woull
prcb b y ccnelude wl h: "Anyhow I r dge s
bridge and gambling is gambling. So there
now."
Card dealers say that their sales of eards
and poker chips are ton or twelve times as
heavy aa they were ten years sgo. The
biggest bound in the playing card business,
however, has come within th? last five
yesrs and Is mainly due to the sudden in
terest taken by women in cards wh:n they
found they had a chsnce lo win a prize.
Women usually fonnd cards silly things. A
card game didn't give them much oppor
tunity of Indulging In conversation cr In
gotalping. acd It required them to ait still
too long. But when It became the thing to
play for prizes then Immediately the women
became Interested and card cluba sprang
up by the desen. The more fashipnable
women have now taken np the bridge mania.
The woman of moderate means finds her
passion In euchre cr whist. - Bridge is a
moat intricate game, and It requires the
service cf a teacher for a long time be
fore one becomes expert. Bridge teachers
are not in bualness merely t- - runt cf
day and retnrned to stork. The wagon
Uerk, of course, has received a receipt
for their return, and the entire record of
the goods from wagonmen to salesmea must
be kept clear. The cashier for the C. O. D.
department has his office In the delivery
rooms.
The den devoted to special deliveries Is
a busy corner. Here come runners from
all over the store with packages which
cannot await the regular delivery. For
example, if a woman Is leaving town in
haste in the evening and has just missed
the morning delivery, her goods will be
sent to her special, rather than take the
chance tf their being late by the regular
afternoon deliyery. The aisle director pre
sumably satisfies himself that the request
for special delivery Is warranted, but it is
an acknowledged truth in many stores that
special delivery is much of a fad with
certain fussy shoppers and regular custo
mers, who invent excuses that are ter
ribly and wonderfully put together. The
"special" Is an accommodation, pure and
simple, snd a 'big store records between
50,000 and 60,000 of these accommodations
every year. Special delivery Is made by
boy or by wagons reserved for that pur
pose. Then there is a corner devoted to "held
packages," which have been ordered for
delivery on certain days. They may be C.
O. D. bundles, or paid packages. Each bin
is labeled with the day of the week on
which they go out.
The transfer department looks like a
postofflce, with a thousand small racks tor
holding tho sale slips attached to trans
fer cards. As each slip Is received. It Is
tucked Into Its little rack, and the package
Is tossed into a bin which corresponds In
number to the rack. When the clerk finds
that the entire transfer card has been
checked off, packages are gathered up and
turned over to the router for distribution.
This method of shopping Is Infinitely
safer and quicker than to have purchases
sent indiscriminately and unattached from
all over the store. Men, as a rule, will
not bother with a transfer card, no matter
how large their shopping list, but women
like the system and use It very generally.
The mail-order department la run on the
same system as the transfer, and the ex
press department Is on somewhat similar
lines. In the special delivery department
are kept the records of Ihe entire delivery
system, and one large rock is bo arranged
that it will hold a year's record sheets,
ready for instantaneous investigation.
The express rooms and those devoted to
the packing of all large shipments and de
liveries, such as china, glass, house fur
nishings, works of art and furniture, look
like busy carpenter shops. The china
room is lined with high tables where the
Inspectors stand. They not only Inspect
all breakable goods, but stamp them with
their numbers, and then pass them on
to expert packers, who also stamp the
package. In this way responsibility for
breakage can be traced.
The average big department store em
ploys 100 regular wagons and a half dozen
electric vacs. Three hundred and seventy
five horses are In service, and fu'ly that
many men are kept at work cn wagons and
around the stables, which are In charge of
a, skilled veterinary surgeon.
So Important does the average firm re
gard Its delivery system that, to perfect It
and keep It working smoothly, It Is willing
' to pay ita superintendent a salary which
rivals that of a successful buyer or bead
of department.
their health, and ao learning the game from
a teacher costs a good bit of money. Be
aldea that, as people cf wealth usually play
the games, the stakes are generally pretty
stiff, and only people with good cash ac
counts in the banks are able to play.
The woman of more modest means, bow
ever, can go In for the whist and euchre
cluts, where she can learn the game from
friends snd from books and experience, and
where the play Is not for stakes that might
run high ngalnst her, but for a prize that
will coet her no more nor no less whether
the rlcs cr lescs .
While tho police authorities ar- com
mencing to pry into tho schemes of pro
moters who get up bridge cr whist games
for en alleged charity cf some s rt, but
keeping a dollar fcr themselves ftr every
penny that finds lU way to the charity,
there la a wall of pretest coming frcra an
other srurre. That la from the husbands
ef the women who gamble at cards.
"I g home at night "for dinner." said
cne man last week, "tho house ccld, the
cock fut In the kitchen with dinner only
hah' r'axtei. Everything about tb place
ahoaing the lack of care tr attention on
anybody's part. Reason Is that wife's been
at her card club all the afternoon. Comes
dashing in at T o'clock with some thingum
bob that the won. Kate a tit of co'.d meat
off tha sideboard, gets my name on a check,
and then .disappears again to spend tho
evening at a bridge whist club. But it's
got to step. Maybe the police can't atop
It. tut let me tell you of one patient, long
suffering little man that is going ts stop
enj woman from gambling. That's me, and
the woman who is not going to play cards
any mere forever, either for money, marbles
cr gun. la my wife."