Show confessions sf ef a mail order man by mr M a 0 X ravil k attens by On Voso la in thi the budae a cover covers a roc from doy boy to mansier HOW THE BUSINESS EXPANDED it seems so queer that we get so few complaints araan our customers out la in the country eald said one of my bosses whom I 1 will call Y tor for con sentence ven lence tence ahey seem to bo be satisfied with who we send them responded my boas horn IIII 1111 I 1 will designate for or con delenco Z they dont know the differ dif ferenc encA between good stuff and bad stuff bald said Y I 1 I 1 guess it a thie this way out in the jay toy towns ns they have so few things that they are glad lad to get anything that looks all right iia ila eald said Z with a about shout laughtee of laugh tel they keep their parlors all dark ox oz cep capt when then company come comes or on sun day I 1 can understand how their parlor parter furniture don dont t become worn out I 1 renumber ren omber how it was when hen I 1 wae was a buy I 1 look here X why not start a IL department depar of furniture for our cus to ton iera viera eald said Y wo ought to find it profitable he lie spoke to me 1 I I think we wore re losing money every dy day by not handling furniture I 1 interjected Z I 1 supposing we a let lilt X try out hta his hand by putting a now line in our catalogue rum furniture iture carpela carpets rugs pictures and that bluff stuff so it was as decided that I 1 should have a respite from my office work and put in my time for a few weeks looking up the possibilities of at a furniture de apartment all this time while wo we were doing an enormous q business soy several thou thousand jand dollars borth every week meek we carried no stock at all with the exception of a few chelp watches and other articles of jewelry royal vers and a halt dozen guns the customers were furnishing the capital for our cash in advance so that all we bad had to do was to take their money go out and buy what the r dors ders called for tor for generally lee less than ono one balf half the amount of the remittance and leep the balance from 60 50 to CO 60 pr p r cent cf of the amount as our profit after tatting falling daveral of the furni tura manufacturers in our city I 1 formulated r slat of prices and arranged that we a could obtain acy nc of the arti cles on the list nt at tiny time by pai pacing ing only for buch such no we hd bd alderd for of correo we rot got all of these things at wholesale prices and I 1 had learned that another discount can ian always bo be demanded for the payment of at cash bo so I 1 secured fron from the manufacturers photographs of the various articles I 1 bad had picked out end and showed them to Y and Z they look rather skimpy and slim those chair legs aid said Y that photograph of a chiffonier looks ilka like a coffin stood oa on endl end its te igo narrow suggested Z dut I 1 picked out only the cheaper grades of stuff I 1 replied you told me not to try to got anything g expensive its it all cheap stuff cant we make malke it look better in the catalogue than it does la the photograph suggested Y wo we sent to for a wood engraver to come to the office and an d then we went ent into the subject in detail he ile said that lie be could make the chair legs took bigger and stronger by drawing them as though they were large larget than they were actually ae aft for the end and similar articles be lie showed us a very neat plan he ile took a pair of shear and split the photograph in two then posted the two parts on another sheet of paper so that the split parts were about a quarter n an inch frich apart nox novy that looke looks like a wide comfortable for table chiffonier said Y and we arild not help lit bat agree with him it nada nade an entirely different piece of furniture it looked bait ball again as wide and presented a really desirable appearance pe arance while jn in the photograph show the ed ad it it would look too narrow and to sell well the change n the character of the illustration made it look took like a piece of furniture worth orth 20 while tt it was to cost coat us only about 5 CO 0 wholesale and the chain chairs when the engraver had drawn them to look as to though the lers were an inch and a half halt in diameter instead of as an they were vere actually lesa less ihan ban an inch through looked like ta 3 chairs of like the chairs they wre kro honestly mado made to retail for 1 and so it went on we took bureau commodes commotes com modes wooden beds and all of the various W les that I 1 had selected and madl them look in our catal catalogue oglie illustrations as to though they were superior piece pieces suitable for the finest rooms in the house the engraver did bit hi work well with a constant grin on his face for ho he admitted that all of this hocus as a bo called it was a new one on hint one day I 1 a e said to me confidentially I 1 say X what will those poor yaps out in the country may ay when if uey ey get the real thing wont they hollyf r I 1 repeated thir IMP to ta Y and Z who re piled plied noo soothingly thIngly that if they hollered we would tend send them a nice letter and jolly them along weve got their money anyhow aid said mr Y zt ut era em holler yes end send after more cold Z NN j decided that we would take the curse off the chance chances for kicking by the actual measurements into ur descriptions if it the thra should write in with a ellk wo we cluid all their attention to the actual measurements and explain there had bad been een no deception practiced in our statements to them in tho the while I 1 was writing up my descriptions for the catalogue Y came in one ne day and picked up some of the sheets I 1 had finished VI NN hew hou he whistled this won it do X what a the mattert matter why this stuff looka looks in the pictures ike like real genuine oak and arid real solid mahogany mah cRany ilera you say that it ie Is bass abbood aBe and pine and so forth chafe what it la Is I 1 replied he lie called in Z and we had a confer ence surely it do to describe these alne pieces of furniture as though made out of common wood wo we sent for samples andl ai examined them in the office then we figured on various catch phrases of urn itch such aa as genuine solid mahogany finish and solid golden oak finish which meant that the tho were grained and painted to represent the appear ance once of at these valuable ablo woods buti but which tho the reader would to a certainty take to be an honest assertion that the woods were solid we created a lot of trick phrases like this that solid mahogany was really birch and the solid boljen oak was as basswood sawood ba and so we prostituted good old taah boned pine and other common wood woods into painted courtesans of tada tad t ada ad to fool toot the trusting fehd the innocent pur chasers thord ft was as much laughter and fun tun over these counterfeit phrases and everyone was as greeted with shout shouts aff t applause we took iron beds with posts an inch in diameter end and made then them api ap pear in the as though tho posts were viere ahme inch ones narrow beds vere v ere widened in the pictures to look like comfortable roomy beds and we distorted every illustration in this same manner hut we adhered rigidly to our de script ions of measurements measure menta so that we were technically correct in our do script ions they could akk but wo a were perfectly honest in state ments in the catalogue I 1 can only imagine the number at 0 timea times that some acme houra wife tn in the country hais taken a ick at our callo guo ald d witnessed the breadth and imps 1 ing arl ear i atice of some article of fur nitaro pictured thuoc only to visit her local merchant and inquire his price prices for similar furniture lie ile honest fel low never know the joke that waa was be ing played on him by UP and he lie would give his prices correctly for sizes while whilo the prospective buyer snort her disgust at hta his high prices because she would be judging aroi fro the only forgetting to or n electing to read the attached descriptions script ions if it she were ere actually to measure the samples eam shown by her local denier denler and compare meas ure ments with the description in lit our catalogue aa an printed elio site would generally discover that she had done him a great injustice and his prices as per actual measurements would be lower than our pricks stick to the local dealer you aee see what you yott are getting when ou buy it it |