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Show ! ' i. I'ij ; 1 f i ' "There is not an Idle worklngroan In Bait Lake City or county," Is the consensus con-sensus of .remarks made ' to a TELEGRAM TELE-GRAM writer by a dozen or more dealers deal-ers In mechanics second-hand tools. THE TELEGRAM man ' had started out to buy a Jack-plane, a saw and some .other tools useful around the household when backed up by a man with a bit ot mechanical skllL Feeling that second-hand . tools would do as wH w th nw (inf, and blnir a "wee bit thrifty," a visit was ma to all the places that make a buslnej of dealing in these articles. 1 I The search was absolulfely fruitless, the only tool In the entireown being a little peewee of a bloc, plane worth when new about 65 cent ! The first "second-htM. man" seen explained it thus: j ' i "About-this time of 'he year we are loaded up with all sos of mechanics' tools Iron workers, ,barpenters, plasterers, plas-terers, tinsmiths, plunders and the like. Our stocks run up in the hundreds of dollars' worth. Wecommence to get them about December, when work lets up and the improvrient ones begin to feel the pinch of pnury. By this time we nave all we wit and they are a drug on the maket. It is now, too, that Inquiry for such begins, work commencing to fn up. We are getting get-ting the inquiryall right, but there is no supply at all ' , "If I ' have hd a call" for one panel saw the past wek, I have had calls tor a hundred. Al the same Is true of the most commotiy used tools of all the trades. But fione of - us has . taken in any tools alf winter long- This Is the first time n my-experience - in Salt Lake City tlat this has been the case, and I havo been here over ten years, too.' v --."-i ' ' ..-.. '- "What Jtas been -the 'reason? Plain enough to me. . The workingmen have not been liard up. And the reason for that Is lay have had all the work they could d. Any one who wanted to work all winter had no trouble in getting get-ting every day in if he chose. "Talk about a prosperity thermometer thermome-ter if yyou want to find out how prosperous1 pros-perous1 a town is. Just visit the secondhand second-hand places, and if there are no tools for Bile in the spring of the year, it's safe betting the town is plenty prosperous. pros-perous. - My second-hand tools or the lack of them tell me Salt Lake Is a whole lot prosperous." i . ,i . . And the same story was told the writer by the dozen other second-hand Sen he visited in quest of a saw and a ckplane. - . |