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Show A WARTIME .DEAL IN MUSLIN.' When A. T. Stewart Was' Beaten by a Jersey Farmer. ' There is an old farmer living Hilton, Hil-ton, N- J.. who holds it as one of thu joys of his life that once upon a time, over forty years ago, he proved himseii clever enough to get the better of A. 1. Stewart. He is Henry Jeroloman, who has since become little-short of tanious himself as the grower, of the Hilton strawberry. . But it was many years before he ever thought of strawberries that he crossed swords with A. T. Stewart. He owns a lumber mill and a number or noubes in a western town, which he purchased from the proceeds of his deal with Stewart. There are in all two dozen houses, and for the possession of these and the lumber mill Jeroloman has the civil war to thank. Just before the war began Jeroloman rea.ized that it was bound to come. He realized also that muslin, which . was then selling for from 12 to 13 cents a. yaid, .would soon go up. He thought over this for some time, and then he made up. his mind to put all his available casu into muslin. He jogged thoughtfully over to New York ana moved quietly around in the dry goods neighborhood, until he learned that A. T. Stewart had nearly all the muslin there was in the city at that time. He then went in and offered to buy all the stock at the prevailing rate. The bill came to $33,000. Stewart's business associates readily agTeed to rell. JerOiOman did not have that amount of money, but he scraped around and raised as much as he could, and then ofteied his note at thirty days for the balance. The firm accepted the note. Jeroloman then told the concern to keep the goods until he called for them, and went back home to do some more think- ing, and waiting. In a short time Fort Sumpter was I fired-on, and prices went up by bound?. . When A. T. Stewart & Co. sought to re- , place their stock of muslin they found the price almost prohibitive, and Mr. Stewart became very angry. He sent for Jeroloman and the farmer farm-er went over to see him. On arriving ' at the store Jeroloman found that Stewart Stew-art had given his partner a raking over and had berated his muslin buyers for t letting the stock go. Once Mr. Jeroloman was in Mr. Stew- 1 ' art's office and the door was shut, the i merchant tried hi.s best to get the Jer-seyman Jer-seyman to give-up the goods. He asked Jeroloman what he wanted of so much muslin' anyway, since he was not a dealer. ; Jeroloman replied that although he wasn't in the business, he had sense enough to see that muslin was bound to inerear.e in value. Stewart grew angrier and finally became be-came abusive, but Jeroloman would not sell. He said he had seen a chance to make a lot of money and he wasn't going go-ing to lose it. He told the merchant that he could get H a yard for muslin and that if the 1 firm wanted that which he had bought I from him it would have to pay that price. The interview ended with Stew- I art shouting to the farmer that he I would have to remove his muslin from j the store immediately. Jeroloman at once went out ana arranged ar-ranged for removing the goods and the next day a line of w-agons came toiling in to Newark .and drew up before his door. Jeroloman had no place to store . the goods but in his own house, and soon the parlor and some of the .bedrooms; .bed-rooms; were piled high with the eases. Every available bitof space was ,50011 taken up with big boxes. Jeroloman then went back to New York and paid the balance due. He began be-gan by selling muslin at 25 cents a yard, i Soon it went up to nO eents, then to 73 cents and finally to $1 a. yard. When the muslin was'all gone Jeroloman Jerolo-man found he had ''cleared about $63,000 on the investment, and besides he had the satisfaction, which to him wan no doubt. tremendous, 06 -knowing that he had been shrewdero.than one of the greatest merchants,; of the day. New York Sun. |