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Show Does the country merchant think that the business of his neighborhoad is going go-ing to the mail order houses without a cent of expense for advertising by the said houses? If he does he should get hold of a catalogue such as they send out and take it to some printer and see what they would charge him to get out one like it for his business, then get the price of mailing from the postmaster and hire someone to prepare the copy for the printer. After spending a day or two figuring this way he would be ready to consider the cost of a column or two of advertising in the local paper for the year. After engaging the space he could go home and tell his wife how much he had saved by using tfi"e space in the local paper instead of getting out a catalogue and buy her a silk dress out of the amount saved. And yet the catalogues cat-alogues are coming in the mails and by express thousands of them. A day spent in the mailing room of one of the mail order houses would make the local merchant think that the advertising expenses ex-penses of the house would swamp them j before the catalogues had reached the people to whom sent.. Hundreds yes thousands- of the catalogues never J bring in a single order. Others bring' steady customers. If the local merchant mer-chant never asks for trade and the cat nlou;ue is ever at hand with its apparently appar-ently winsome bargains is it any wonder that the farmer swallows the bait and sends his order where he is sure it will be welcome? It is U to the country merchant to learn that more goods are sold beside the evening lamp than in the busy hours of the day. |