Captains of Industry by James Parton (best english books to read for beginners TXT) 📖
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The whole town was flooded with bills announcing this selling off of the old established store, at which many goods could be obtained at less than half the original cost. As this was then a comparatively new trick the public were deceived by it, and it had the most astonishing success. The selling off lasted several weeks, the supply of goods being kept up by daily purchases.
Our junior clerk was an apt learner in deception and trickery. Shortly after this experiment upon the public credulity, a careless boy lighting the lamps in the window (for this was before the introduction of gas) set some netting on fire, causing a damage of a few shillings, the fire being almost instantly extinguished. As business had been a little dull, the junior clerk conceived the idea of turning the conflagration to account. Going up to his employer, and pointing to the singed articles, he said to him:—
"Why not have a selling off here, and clear out all the stock damaged by fire?"
The master laughed at the enormity of the joke, but instantly adopted the suggestion, and in the course of a day or two, flaming posters announced the awful disaster and the sale. In preparing for this event, the clerks applied lighted paper to the edges of whole stacks of goods, slightly discolored the tops of stockings, and in fact, they singed to such an extent as almost to cause a real conflagration. During these night operations a great deal of beer was consumed, and the whole effect of the manœuvre was injurious and demoralizing to every clerk in the store.
This sale also was ridiculously successful. A mob surrounded the doors before they were opened, and to keep up the excitement some low-priced goods were ostentatiously sold much below cost. Such was the rush of customers that at noon the young men were exhausted by the labor of selling; the counters were a mere litter of tumbled dry-goods; and the shop had to be closed for a while for rest and putting things in order. To keep up the excitement, the master and his favorite junior clerk rode about London in hackney coaches, in search of any cheap lots that would answer their purpose.
In the course of time, this clerk, who was at heart an honest, well-principled fellow, grew ashamed of all this trickery and fraud, and when at length he set up in business for himself, he adopted the principle of "one price and no abatement." He dealt honorably with all his customers, and thus founded one of the great dry-goods houses of London.
Two things saved him: first, he loathed drinking and debauchery; secondly, he was in the habit of reading.
The building up of the huge establishments, to which some persons object, has nearly put an end to the old system of guzzling, cheating, and lying. The clerks in these great stores go to business at eight o'clock in the morning, and leave at six in the evening, with an interval for dinner. They work all day in a clean and pleasant place, and they are neither required or allowed to lie or cheat. A very large establishment must be conducted honestly, or it cannot long go on. Its very largeness compels an adherence to truth and fact.
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