Had a Cinch

1895

Couldn't Tell Funny Stories, but Knew a Trick Worth Two of That.

A drummer, as the word drummer is understood in these piping times of peace, is a man who tells you a funny story and incidentally takes your order for goods. A faculty of making himself "solid" with his customers socially is one of the most valuable features of a successful drummer's equipment. The commercial traveler is a hale fellow well met wherever he goes. There are houses whose trade is so firmly established and its hold upon their patrons so strong that their goods sell themselves almost, and the solicitor has very little soliciting to do. But even with houses of this character a smooth tongue and a ready wit count for much.

Occasionally there is a man who departs from the old lines, invents a method of his own and makes a great success of it.

"What has become of that man Jones who used to travel for you?" asked one Randolph street jobber of another the other day. "I suppose he has gone off the road. I always thought he never would make a success of it. He was too chilly. He was the chilliest man I ever saw."

"There's just where you're wrong," replied the other jobber, who deals in linseed oil. "He was the most successful traveling man I ever knew. When he was on the road, he kept us jumping to fill his orders. The only reason he isn't traveling for us today is that another house offered him a good deal bigger salary than we were willing to pay, and he is representing the other house now. He was very chilly, as you say. He was that way with everybody, his customers included. He never had a word to say to them about politics and couldn't tell a funny story if he tried. He never talked anything but oil. As soon as he got an order he walked out and never tried to conceal the fact that that was all he had come for. Yet his customers thought he was the best friend they had in the world.

"This is how he did it. As a cold blooded business proposition he decided that the strongest hold he could get on a man would be a hold on his pocketbook. He left the other drummers to do the amusing part of it, but he studied the oil market. He seemed besides to have an intuition about the fluctuations of prices which was almost prophetic. When he saw that oil was about to go up, he sat down and telegraphed to all his customers, 'Buy oil.' They followed his advice, and in nine cases out of ten they saved a lot of money by it. It only took a few experiences like this to convince them that it was a serious mistake to buy oil of anybody else. He was hardly a solicitor at all. When he told a man to buy, he bought." — Chicago Tribune.


Why They Went Off

"Are you loaded?" asked the pistol of the shotgun.
"No," said the latter; "I'm shot."
Then both exploded with laughter. — Philadelphia Call.

Drumming Long Ago

1895

A VETERAN ON THE EARLY DAYS OF SELLING GOODS BY SAMPLE.

Tales of the Times When Canalboats Were Best Means of Transportation — Nothing the Wonderful Growth of Many Western Cities.

"I believe I was the first drummer who went west from New England,” said John B. Curtis of the firm of Curtis & Son, and I am very sure that I was one of the first. I made my first long western trip 44 years ago, and I've just returned from a trip that took me to the Pacific coast.

"I sometimes wonder, when I meet the busy, pushing drummers of today, the men who are used to rapid traveling, the best of hotels and good living generally, I sometimes wonder what they would if they were suddenly put back and made to do as we had to 50 years ago or a little less. Some of the poorest of them would give up their job, but I think that the rest would stick to it and make a success of the business, just as we did in those days.

"Nearly 50 years ago, when the business of selling goods by samples was in its infancy and when the drummer had but just been discovered, we were compelled to make slow trips and of course not many of them in a year. Then it took about three weeks to go from Portland to Chicago, and dealers ordered goods enough to last six months. Then the drummer had to endure many privations, but we were a hardy set and were content with a little — that is, if we could get plenty of orders. The villages were miles and miles apart then, and yet we in some way felt the coming commercial importance of many of them and knew that we must keep in with the men who were trying to build up a trade under what seemed many times to be disheartening circumstances.

"I have passed hundreds of nights camping out when on long trips, with only a blanket for a covering and the ground for a bed. We, who drummed trade in the west then in behalf of eastern houses, didn't mind that, but we did object to the rattlesnake sometimes. It did not pay to have then get too familiar. We were happy when we could travel by canalboat or by steamboat, but the dreadful western stages were what tried our patience.

"Time and time again, but for the fact that my samples and baggage had to be carried, I should have preferred to walk and could have beaten the stages under ordinary circumstances. Many times I did walk, but it was beside the stage, with a rail on my shoulder, ready to help pry the stage itself out of the mud.

"In those days canals were the best. The canalboats would make from two to three miles an hour, but if the time was long the stories told by the captain and passengers were commonly good. The beds were bunks, but they fed us well — that is, as things went then.

"Of course the ordinary everyday meal of the drummer of today, the meal he's inclined to grumble at, would have seemed a Thanksgiving feast to us. We expected little, and commonly got it. Still, as I said, we were content, and even happy, if only business was good.

"The drummers of today won't see the startling changes we have seen who began back nearly 50 years ago. Of course the old time drummers who traveled in New England saw less of the rough and tumble of life than we who went west, and who struck out boldly for trading posts that we were destined in many cases to see grow to be great cities. Still I never went through any of the thrilling experiences people tell of as a part of the life then, and I am inclined to think that adventures come to those who seek for them.

"We made long trips in those days, longer than most drummers would think of taking now, for then one man had to do all he could and cover as much ground as possible. Forty-three years ago I went from Portland to New York, then by canal to Philadelphia, from there to Pittsburg by canal, from there to St. Louis by boat, down the Ohio and up the Mississippi, and from St. Louis to St. Paul by boat.

"In those days St. Paul was but a trading post. There were a few business houses, but I saw a sight then that no man will ever see there again. It seemed to me that there were at least 1,000 Indians at the post trading their furs. They brought them in curiously constructed ox carts, made without the use of a scrap of iron, the wheels a section of a tree, and drawn by one ox lashed to the poles. They were a drunken crowd, all but a few, who seemed to be a committee appointed to keep sober and to see to it that others were not cheated. Sometimes the crowd would give a yell that fairly seemed to take the roof off.

"I went to the falls of St. Anthony and looked at the surroundings. Where Minneapolis now stands there was not a single building. When I was there last, I went to the falls, and as I looked at the great cities I wondered if it was possible that I could have been there before they were built. It seems strange and almost beyond comprehension that my business career could have antedated those cities and even the commercial importance of Chicago itself, but so it is, and I am still a vigorous man."

"You spoke of having visited Chicago 44 years ago, Mr. Curtis. What sort of a place was it then?"

"Then there was but one railroad, a small local affair, rather contemptuously called the milk route. I went there from Buffalo by boat and was five days on the way. I tried to do a little business every time we stopped to wood up on the way, and, in fact, we drummers had that system on the route from St. Louis to St. Paul and along the canals," replied Mr. Curtis.

"I reached Chicago Saturday night and put up at a wooden hotel on Lake street, near where the Tremont house now stands.

"In those days Chicago had but few brick buildings, and the wooden ones were seldom more than two stories high. In fact, I am unable to recall a single building more than two stories high. There was not a sidewalk, except on Lake street, and that was of wood, and the water came up through with almost every step. Steamboats and stages brought people there, and about the most interesting sight was old Fort Dearborn, with doors and log sides pierced with balls. There was not a foot of paved street in all Chicago when I first struck the place, and yet even then — and it was the time of small things — there was that same belief in Chicago and the same dash and push that you see now in that great city.

"The drummers of today are bright fellows, but I can't help thinking if we had slower trade we had better times in the days when we thought three miles an hour by canalboat good time and were content to trudge along behind a stagecoach and not say a word if only our samples were taken through in safety." — Boston Globe.

Man Posing as Evangelist Dupes Local Residents

1903

SWINDLER AT MARSHALLTOWN

Man Who Posed As Evangelist Duped the Residents Into Buying Soap and Toilet Articles.

Marshalltown, Mar. 2.— A big swindling scheme has been unearthed here. A man who has been here for a month, promoting a manufacturing company for toilet soaps, perfumes, etc., victimized hundreds throughout the country who answered his advertisements, he charging $2 for each application for a position. It is not known to what extent his peculations aggregate. The man posed as a singing evangelist. His whereabouts are unknown.

—Davenport Daily Republican, Davenport, Iowa, March 3, 1903, page 1.

Wives Going Through Their Husbands' Pockets and Other Humor

Humor, 1908
----------
One Woman's Wrongs.
Mrs. Smallpurse (who found only a few dimes in her husband's pockets that morning)—I am just sick of this plodding along year after year. Why don't you do something to make money?
Mr. Smallpurse—I can't make any more than a living at my business, no matter how hard I work.
Mrs. Smallpurse—Then do something else. Invent something. Any American can invent.
Mr. Smallpurse (some months after) —My dear, I've hit it, and I've got a patent. My fortune is made.
Mrs. Smallpurse (delighted)—Isn't that grand! What did you invent?
Mr. Smallpurse—I have invented a barbed-wire safety pocket for husbands. — New York Weekly.

Wiser.
"He's been in Paris for a year, I believe. He must be very wealthy."
"Well, he used to have more money than he knew what to do with."
"You mean he isn't as wealthy as he was?"
"Oh, no; I mean he has been in Paris long enough to acquire more knowledge."

Documentary Evidence.
Her Mother—I should rather you would not go sailing with that young man, Clara; I don't believe he knows a thing about a sailboat.
Clara—Oh, but he does, mamma; he showed me a letter of recommendation from a New York firm he used to work for, and they speak very highly of his salesmanship.—The Circle.

A New Excuse.
"I suppose your husband is proud to contribute his share toward the support of our beautiful library?" "Yes," answered the woman with the slightly acid expression; "only John was none too industrious in the first place and now he's tempted to put in most of his time reading novels and trying to get his money's worth." —Washington Star.

The Telephone Girl's Amendment.
Said the business man with a grouch against the telephone central:
"One day I was calling a number and said, 'Get me on four hundred so and so.' The girl said, 'Fourteen-hundred so-and-so?' So the next time I called the number I thought I'd be forehanded.
"I said, 'Get me fourteen-hundred so-and-so.' And the girl asked, 'One four- oh-oh so-and-so'."

Didn't Need It.
Agent—Here's a book that will be welcome in every family. It contains all the rules of etiquette and directions for avoiding slips in grammar.
Hiram Grasscutt—Don't need nothin' of that kind. Got a daughter hum from boardin' school, a son goin' to high school an' a hired man who's a college feller workin' fer his health. But, by jing, partner, it's a relief to talk once in a while to a common, ordinary person. I don't need the book, but I'm darned glad you called.

It's All Right, Then.
She—You have kissed other girls, haven't you?
He—Yes; but no one that you know. — Harper's Weekly.

Many a man is buried in oblivion long before he is dead.

After calling a prisoner down the judge is apt to send him up.

--The Bayard Advocate, Bayard, Iowa, March 26, 1908.

Book Agent Routed By Lawyer's Quiz

Caller Was Selling Bibles, but Couldn't Name Author.

Vice President Marshall, when still a struggling lawyer in Indiana, was sitting in his little office when a genial book agent entered and undertook to sell him a new edition of the Bible, "full morocco, annotated," etc.

Before the agent was through with his description of the merits of the new volume, Marshall interrupted him to ask who the author was.

"W-h-y, this is the Bible," explained the agent.

"I am fully aware of that," answered Marshall, in full soberness, "but I ask again, who is the author?"

Again the salesman explained that he was offering the Bible. Again, Marshall demanded the name of the author, and the demand and the explanation were repeated in varying forms again and again.

Finally the man of the books gathered up his samples, retreated to the door, and then, with one hand on the knob, turned around and shouted:

"You pinheaded fool and blithering idiot, it's the Bible."

--The Saturday Blade, Chicago, May 22, 1920, page 9.