Show Y ca christmas trist mas Is dying out say birsky and and who done it the now everybody buys presents fellow that invented the out of season and i saying do your shopping holiday sales sale ot of sticker iby early A t 0 at t s t goods are doomed it t it t by MONTAGUE GLASS CLASS illustrations by BRIGGS aint hat it used to be barnett ow remarked as be N Is sat at opposite louis birsky barsky in wasser bi bauers luers restaurant suro sure I 1 know I 1 0 birsky s said a I 1 d spreading a slice of rye bread with sp mustard as he waited for an order of soup with ge fullee te beches to former times it if a retail dry t concern got half their ladles adies taint faint on em cm every night mo to weeks before christmas their r tors ors would corns come down on them isk sk them to discount their bills days if a cash girl gets a head hats big already sky y nodded sadly Is dying out he deft 67 the people Is getting too I 1 a p p it used to be that if you Z e bd t to 0 push your stickers pheth iwas was handkerchiefs socks neek neck oder der gloves all you had to do to wait till the first of december em up 50 per cent over the regu tall price for fresh goods put ired red paper boses our customers practically used lacks acks on each other to get at the sr r where the goods was dis h 1 christmas silver articles was joo d sales I 1 seen butter dishes cliot cakes which the salesladies sales ladies rarned not to dust them off mit fers ers even on account it might h the silver plate and show the underneath but a thing e past now and who done it it was the feller that invented 1 lying ying do your christmas shop 1 I i farly arly did invent it asked hould know who invented it jr exclaimed dut but whoever he ap pp he put a bigger crimp to in li cap ap handkerchief business than 1 ler er who invented tablets ce lf if you are doing your christa lopping ping amount the first of octo lien en all them poor fellers that thai amer hotels and bathing pa y 1 Is saying to themselves now warm I 1 handkerchiefs hind kerchiefs for are the furthest from your ts its also children whose r noth I 1 their christmas shopping la in to aber Is apt to get school supplier ie 04 0 6 14 00 0 4 V 4 j if 4 ng what his parents are go 10 0 hand him next morning of ct sleighs because bebau re a shopper t no imagination she biats ats in season all aad d if she was er r christmas shopping as eaily caily fourth of 0 july id come home with fireworks sold said nipping flipping the fingers ight hand at birsky BliB ky t allowed to sell no more fire round the fourth 0 of july ils ICS 4 the la law 11 0 ow IV it birsky continued and go 1 Is Coul dEft nt shoot off firecrackers e fourth of july and r je ind ad christmas all it needs Is 10 t be a suspended sentence A 1 9 turkey on thanksgiving and pleasure W we got left lalmer la almer 31 lea ica Is decorating graves on thu tha thirtieth ot of may still in a way its a good thing that christmas is more or less a thing ot of the past said because when you tried to collect a bill from somebody around christmas christinas time it make no difference it if he was retired from business except for a 10 per cent interest in a bathing suit factory he would want you to wait till his christmas rush was over also people give no orders because it was around christmas birsky and just because it was near christmas and they claimed they could use all the alie money they could get your creditors wanted you to pay bills which you hardly knew you owed on account ot of not receiving the second monthly statement yet furthermore ther more it if you owned a tenement tenement house got difficulty collecting the november rent because the lie tenants said it was so near christmas and the way it went birsky people treated christmas not as a holiday but as an excuse the wonder is it aint died out altogether tile the wholesaler miss it it if it did birsky commented believe me for every child that lays awake the night before christmas thinking what his parents fire are going to hand had him the next morning there is fifty manufacturers counting sheep jumping over fences trying not to think what some of their customers in tile the retail dry goods trade is going to hand them after the second of january it dont require much water to drown a shaky dry goods retailer lie ile can sink like a stone in two days rain during the week before christmas dont doat I 1 know it said if the christmas presents that the wholesalers give by mistake to shaky retail dry goods men was put on trees the AC I 1 SS falp remy of 1 6 0 41 people treated christmas not as a holiday but as an excuse way other christmas presents are they would cover fill all the redwood groves in in california but it aint the retailers fault birsky sometimes the feller Is playing in hard luck hick like a merchant like I 1 used to sell goods to by the name lame felix immerglick out to in cincinnati which a couple of years ago last christmas lie he specialized on sleighs skates and cheap furs and from december 13 15 ou on they got such a warra warn spell in cincinnati that the hotel keepers figured should they or should they not open the root roof gardens again so the following year immerglick cut out the sleighs and skates and laid in bicycles childrens books and a very cry attractive une line of umbrellas and ira mer glick says that its a wonder with his luck he also buy stock in a i haan of artificial ice factories beaise aise on the day clay lie received tile the goods in a november the thermometer goes down to zero on him and stays that any till a week after his next spring millinery opening cna can you blame such a t teller eller that he settles noth his creditors SO 30 cents on the dollar listen birchy sald said a 30 cent on the dollar feller could always plu ills his bust up tip on either a warm warin christmas a avld easter or on no invalid wife whereas tile the figures show that tho tha average of real cold Christ christmases mases aint no more thau than the average ot of real hicl wives sure I 1 know but figuring out tle average is what has done the most harm to poker pinochle the ll 11 fourth of july christmas and all them things that former tinie time people enjoyed running chan chances CC s 0 on n take for instance the fourth of july and a lot of pc ople which considers even safety ma matches martelles telles goes to work and figures that out of every million people that shoots off aff firecrackers one and sean seca hundred and fifty two one thousandths hoople gets burned so they put me fireworks manufacturers out ot of business and now instead of setting off fireworks people goes to the shore or trolley parks on the fourth and as soon as it gets figured fig ared out that of every million people that goes to trolley parks and coney island six and an d nine ty seven three thousandths gets ma gen saure from catling frankfurters and run rua over by trolley cars cara on the fourth of july nil all the frankfurter factories and trolley companies go quick me cne cu ch ullah 11 aber that got to do with christmas birsky asked im coming to that said people are commencing to figure averages 0 on n christmas also take miss 3 P morgan and she figures that out of every million christmas presents displayed in stores a certain percentage of people buys something which they afford end and gives it to a certain percentage of people which aint got no use for it at all so she goes to work and gets up a society for the prevention of useless giving and consequently a certain percentage of dry goods stores loses a certain percentage of customers which formerly had a rotten book bank account and a good disposition and has now got a good bank account nod and a rotten disposition but miss morgan done clone this for a lot of salesladies sales ladies which used to spend their money so foolishly at christmas that they had nothing left to take a vilf vacation with in the summer time that way be so birsky said and while I 1 aint exactly a certified gets Maaen Magen saure from eating frankfurters fur public accountant birsky I 1 figure that it if 90 00 per cent of christmas shoppers followed miss morgans advice birsky the dry goods stores would shut down around christmas and all them sales ladles ladies would not only take a vacation in the summer time but in the winter time also and then the question is how is them salesladies sales ladies going to raise money for their winter vacations miss morgan would get up a subscription maybe birsky suggested and the proceeds after the expenses of collection were deducted would support twenty three six hundredths of a saleslady for hours birsky concluded which the trouble with them people that figure out the averages Is that they dont consider human beings as men and women but as fractious fractions to hundred thousandths yet also its a good tiling thing to figure out the averages on the percentages of people that set off fireworks and dont get burned and tile the percentage of people that it do a bit of harm ham to if they bought once in a while for somebody a present useful or otherwise in other words birsky it if youre going to reckon up the averages on anything the best way Is to figure how it will affect one hundred one hundredths of the people twelve months out of the year find and then go to work and get up the society for the prevention of prevention societies and limit the membership to one hundred million americans most of us would johi it copyright santa claus captured ar 44 0 6 q r N ak 0 ALI wo PR v 41 ak 4 ME at bmw J aw A ag V mop t rewo 9 f or |