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VOL.ll X0.T5T
muD nr Tint rosT oincATLnieJi
Al MCOXD-CLASS MATTKB
PUBLISHED EVEBI SATURDAY
T
IK COURIER PRINTING AND P08L13HIII
Oflico 1132 X street, Up Stairs.
Telephone 384.
SARAH B. HARRIS Editor
- IM
Subscription Rate 1 Advaac.
Far annum t2.0l
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Three months M
One month 10
Slnglecopies
Tho department store is absorbing
the profits which the retailers of a single
class of goods formerly received. Tho
small dealers have been clamoring to
tho legislature for relief for many years.
At the present their cry amounts to a
howl of despair which merits attention
at least.
Since the first department storo was
organized in 1G52 it has lessened
the profits of drug stores, book stores,
boot, shoe and all small stores. Of lato
years groceries, meats, carriages
and every thing in tho way of com
modities except lumber, which would
take up too much space, have been on
ealo at the department stores.
At Siegel & Cooper's in Chicago
there is a blacksmith shop and a vaude
ville theatre in connection with tho
establishment. "The more you sell the
cheaper jou can Eell it" is true within
certain limits. A crowd attracts
a crowd. Buyers who have got
the dry goods they camo to
buy, on their way out may pass
through the household pet departmen
and buy a monkey, or bo lured to the
top of tho building into tho hot house
where the flowers will seduce tho poor
est into forgotfulness of his obligations.
Of course there is not the tine flavor to
tho books, that characterizes tho stock
of the book seller who has known
publishers and authors so long that his
speech, his walk, his dress is distinctly
literary and distinguished. The depart
ment store book is printed on cheap
poor paper, it was made for those who
know a bargain when they see it. The
covers are red and gold, the
I OBSERVATIONS
" ,
STABLISHED IN 1SSG
H BH M TBIB JC.aa"a"a"a""fv M ilt mJBT i H
LINCOLN, NEB., SATURDAY, JANUARY 2, IS97
illustrations aro frequently numer
ous but printed from worn out plates of
former editions. The clerk who presses
tho last novel of Mario Corelli upon your
notice is without glasses or any other
sign of superior literary acumen, so
that his advice drives away everj body
but the hardeced bargain hunter or tho
Christmas present victim.
But tho cheapening of prices compen
sates for coarser quality, and, of course,
in time the heads of departments will
acquire the knowledge and authority of
specialists. In the meantime druggists
who have been in tho habit of charging
the same price for aqua pura as for any
other ingredient of prescriptions, say
that they can no longer pay expenses
and in some states have united together
to get a bill passed prohibiting depart
ment stores from selling drugs. But the
department store cannot be destroyed
by legislation. It is a combination of
energies vhich, like tho trutts, is dem
onstrating to business people tho ad
vantages of concentration and contrari
wise the evils of competition.
Tho Bon Marche of Paris pays annual
dividends to its hundreds of employes.
Tho employes own tho store. The
amount of stotk each one is allowed to
acquire is based upon length and faith
fulness of service. The investment
pajs 40 per cent. Jso store in this
country has such a constitution. The
neatest to it is tho per cent that is given
to the "buyers." whose salaries range
from fivo to twenty thousand dollars a
jear anyway. The hundreds of clerks
do not receive anything more than the
overcrowded condition of tho labor
market establishes. So that except as
an example of what combination can
accomplish the department store has
dono nothing to equalize the rewards of
labor
Tho "Bon Marche" transacts a
total business of 830,000,000. or more,
than twice that of any American retail
establishment. Tho greatest advance
has been made since it has become
strictly co operative. Xot a franc's
worth of its stock is held outside of the
people of the store and the leadership of
the business is invested in thtee persons
selected from the heads of tho depart
ments by the vote of the employes
(shareholders) through an election held
every three years- The each paid to
stockholders in annual dividends
amounts to about five per cent of the
total sales, Eetting aside a suitable sum
for contingencies. As the capital stock
is but four million dollars an annual
dividend of a million and a half repre
Eents tho great j early piofit of forty per
cent, on tho capital.
The department stoie is growingrich
er and more useful every day while the
dealers in a single lino are losing
ground. Especially is this true of the
smaller places, where a crowd in one
V-.
?&,
store means desertion in tho others.
Legislation which would prevent tho
selling of any and all things under one
roof is an infringement of personal lib
erty not warranted by the constitution.
Tho only measure promising success is
retaliatory in character and imitative in
methods. Let the grocer, tho druggists
and all small dealers combino and elect
abuser who can buy in even larger
quantities than the department store.
The old maxim that "competi ion is tho
life of trade" is true only in a mo3t
restricted seuse. Competition in
many cases crushes the life out of
men. Co operation invigorates and
makes comrades out of enemies.
The Standard Oil company has ro
duced the price of oil, still tho profits
are enormous because functions are not
allowed to overlap and energy is con
served and used economically. The
"Bon Marche' is a refutation of tho re
iterated statement that co operation has
never been and wili never bo a success.
Any way, combination or defeat is the
only alternative of the small dealers.
Legislation cannot suppress their rivals
without first striking a knockout bio
to personal liberty.
Le Ficaro of December 10th, eaysthat
words cannot describo the Eix hours of
continuous ovation to Sarah Bernhardt
on her fete day. It is like going to an
other country to read about it in the
Figaro, the fiist pag. of which contains,
not teleraDhic news but jokes, a
short story by Jules L?mHitre, gossip
about the French academy, tht reasons
for not decorating Mme. Sarah Bern
hardt with the ross of the Legion of
Honor, and a full account of tho fete in
her honor. The Figaro has perhaps the
largest circulation of any French paper,
at any rate it is tho most quoted out
side of Paris and it has no more tele
graphic news than The Journal or any
other country paper. Tho paper con
tains six pages. All set with solid read
ing matter up to the third page where
the half of the sixth column is given up
to advertisements. .Evidently the sub
scription list pays the expenses of the
paper and not tho advertising.
But here is the Fete as tho reporter
wrote it for the columns of a paper that
circulates among a people so devoted to
literature and art that they subscribe
for a daily paper which contains little
elss-
"At half past twelve Sarah arrived
with her son and her daughter in law''
(belle-fille). Think of a country eo re
versed; where a mother in-law is abelle
mere and all the in laws are designated
by the prefix belle or beautiful befoie the
particular relationship that exists, and
where the law which created the rela
tion is never referred to. Well, "Sarah
arrived in a carriage with two horses
before the steps of the Grand Hotel and
JJRIGErFIVE' GENlSb '
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f
r
decended to shouts of 'Vivo Sarah.' Tho
crowd of strangers wliuh were packed
under the veranda spontaneously took
oir their hats on tho approach of tho
great artist. Tho immenso sallo du
Zodiaquo where the bauiuet was given
was already tilled with mea in bluck
suits and with ladies in evening toilette.
When Mme. Sarah Bernhardt de
scended from the first floor into tho
dining room, tho fivo hundred convives
rose and clapped their hands madly, out
but tu ties mains frenetlqnement, sans
cesse, encore. Tho long train of her ad
mirable white dress was trimmed with
English daisies, embroidered with gold,
bordered with chinchilla and followed
her like a serpent tame and affectionate
over the steps of tho stairs, and as at
each curve she leaned over tho rail, rest
ing her arm like a lily on tho velvet
pillars while with her free hand sho
waved a reply to tho acclamation below,
her body, supplo auit slender, seemed
not to touch tho earth. She had tho
air of descending into a glory or aureola.
As tho way was long from tho stair
case to the centre of tho tablo of honor
the whole room accompanied her
progress with loud' applause.
She arrived at her presiding
place, all pale, but smiling and happy.
Then again bravos pealed like thunder
and the repast began."
Had a member of the class of Journal
ism at the state university sent in such
a report of a dinner to tho ruddy pro
fessor of newspapers who consents te
teach the students how to write well, in
consideration of the column or two of
copy they furnish and a hundred dollars
besides, had he, I say received this copy
he would have marked it with red ink
and given it back to bo revised and
commonplaced by the imaginative writ
er who had failed to understand a re
porter's duty.
At tho tables were MM. Sardou,
Theuriet, Ccquelin, Detaille, Daudet,
all the teamed and gifted and many of
the noble of Franco. Painters, states
men, writers, everybody who is eminent,
sat about the tables with their eyas
fastened on the heroine of the occasion
who was happy at last.
Richard Harding Davis" story "Sol
diers of Fortune" in tho January Cen
tury has instead of "Van Bibber" a hero
who scarcely knows Xew York but is
familiar with European habits and
manners of dining. He is supernatural
ly good and accomplished and yet near
enough to nature's heart to tell a girl
the first evening ho meets her that he
has carried her picture for two years and
to ask her as though he were to say
"Please pasB the bread," to wait for him
until he gets back from South America,
where ne goes on an engineering
trip the next day. The young lady
mnrr wmipmmmrmtmti, rn .-
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