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Show WORK FOR THE UNDERTAKERS Scarcity of Business and Unpaid Biila Makes Large Margin of Profit Absolute Necessity. In the United Slates there aro today something more than 30,000 uiiciertfitt-ers. uiiciertfitt-ers. declares the Pictorial Review. Attracted At-tracted by the enormous profits to be made iu funeral goods, more men are constantly swarming Inlu the U-isiness. At the time the School of Philanthropy made its investigation there were, according ac-cording to a church paper, 410 undertakers under-takers in Chicago. On the avcrase, each undertaker secured a trifle more than one funeral a week. In New York city there were 1,100 undertakers tiid atut 74,000 deaths annually, which ga'. o eacb undertaker an average of less than iur funerals in three weeks. For the country as a whole, the average aver-age was less than one funeral a week for each undertaker. Some undertakers undertak-ers got more ttan one-half of all the business during a given fortnight, leaving 429 undertakers to divide the other half. Many uflertakers had no funerals at all during these two weeks. In the course of an entire year tu&y would secure only a handful. Others would get only one or two funerals a month. Yet each undertaker had to keep up his establishment where he had one pay office rent, bills for light and heat, clerk hire and other expenses, ex-penses, and, in addition, make a llvinjr. all frcm the profits o one or U;o liberals lib-erals a month. But it is not the lack of business a"one that makes necessary this great margin of profit. One of the leading undertakers of New York city said to ine: "There is every cent of $50,000 in unpaid bills on our books. We have to make up that loss or we could not stay in business. So we have to charge high prices and the people who do pay malce up for those who don't" |