Music Trade Review

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THE MUSIC TRADE REVIEW
L
AvST Sunday's Journal contained a
lengthy illustrated article devoted to
the inroads of the bicycle on different lines
of industry. Its representatives convassed
the trades which the people used to spend
their money on before the bicycle came to
overwhelm everything else and set the
world's market at a standstill. It has
learned that $66,000,000 has been deflected
from the ordinary channels of trade this
year into the bicycle pocket.
It has traced the money from the tills of
hoe men, tailors, piano men, confectioners,
stobacconists, horse dealers and livery men
dry goods men, railroads, book sellers—
every trade and occupation. It has heard
the tales of woe which tradesmen tell of
having to abandon their proper lines of
business and start the sale of bicycles to
keep from making assignments and going
irretrievably to the wall. The shrinkage
in ever}' line of business is tremendous.
The interviews published are perhaps a
trifle exaggerated, but it is remarkable that
what was formerly considered a toy has in-
terfered seriously with, if it has not over-
turned, the trade of nations within the
compass of five years. No mania can be
compared to the preesnt bicycle fever.
Mr. Chas. Dieckman, of Decker Bros.,
had the following to say to the Journal re-
porter about the effect of the bicycle craze
on the piano trade: "The piano busine.s
is over 50 per cent, below the normal, and
the trail of the bicycle is over it all," said
Mr. Dieckman. " I have traveled exten-
sively during the year, and everywhere the
dealers tell the same story. People are
buying bicycles for cash, or on the install-
ment plan, to the neglect of pianos. The
establishments that rent pianos are doing
next to nothing. The class of people who
cannot afford to buy a piano outright, but
formerly rented them for $3 or $4 a month,
are now renting wheels or paying for them
on monthly payments. The output of
pianos in the factories of the United States
should be 90,000 annually. Less than 40,-
000 will be disposed of. Speaking very
roughly, and averaging them at $300 each,
there is a loss of at Ieast$i3,5oo,ooo on the
year to the piano industry."
* *
Mr. Dieckman's figures, it seems to me,
are far from accurate. A loss of $13,500,-
000 to the piano trade is ridiculous. There
has been a loss, it is true; but it does not
nearly approach the figures stated above,
and it cannot entirely be attributed to the
bicycle.
It has been very convenient to consider
the bicycle the cause of all our commercial
ills, but thinking men are unanimous in
their opinion that the woeful lack of states-
manship and ability displayed by the
prominent men in the different departments
of the National Government in their con-
duct of the affairs of the country is more to
blame than the much-abused bike. Their
policy has been theoretic and ruinous from
its inception; they have failed to secure
sufficient revenue to run the Government,
and have undermined confidence in our in-
stitutions.
From the start there have been bond
loans and other evidences of national weak-
ness. Were the right men on deck, and a
strong hand at the tiller of the Ship of State,
the people would have been in condition
to-day to buy other luxuries as well as
wheels.
No wonder the world has gone a wheel-
ing when such unsatisfactory conditions
prevail in all branches of industry.
* *
*
The Janko keyboard is so little known,
comparatively speaking, to the piano world
on this side of the water that it is interest-
ing to note that a woman is its first Ameri-
can adapter, says the World. Mme. Pupin
is having a Sohmer built for her with a
Janko keyboard, thus combining the Ger-
man's invention with one of our superior
manufacture of pianos. At the Women's
Congress at the Cuban Fair Mme. Pupin
has given illustrations of wh; t may be ac-
complished on those marvelous six rows of
keys.
*
The young man who had been officiating
at the ribbon counter had been promoted
to the sheet music department of the big
department store on Fourteenth street.
The buyer of the music department had
contracted with a music publishing firm
which may be called Stalfield & Co., to
supply the department store with "all the
latest and most popular songs of the day,"
and other gems of melody not late, but still
popular. The contract comprehended the
exclusive sale of the Stalfield music by the
department store in question.
The young woman who had come over
from Hackensack to buy a sailor hat, a yard
and a half of China silk to match a sample,
a lawn mower and a hammock, took advan-
tage of her mission to replenish her stock
of piano music for the summer campaign.
Hence she stopped at the sheet music de-
partment on her way from the trimmed hat
floor to the lawn mower and hardware de-
partment in the basement.
The ex-ribbon counter man stepped for-
ward to serve her. He still wore the rib-
bon counter smirk of polite and condescend-
ing inquiry
But the Hackensack girl didn't mind.
She was having too good a time from a
feminine point of view.
"Have you got Mozart's Masses?" she
inquired.
"No; awfully sorry, but
"
"Have you any of Mozart's music?"
" I greatly regret it, but we
"
"Have you Chopin's Nocturnes?"
"Sorry, avvully sorry; but we haven't
anything of Mozart's or Chopin's. The
only music we handle is Stalfield\s, you
know."
The Commissioners of Immigration re-
cently informed the Texas Fair Association
of Dallas, that the importation of the
Mexican brass band would be a violation of
the alien contract law unless each individual
member of the band is an artist in his line.
It seems that artists are excepted from the
provisions of this law. This leads me to
ask, What constitutes an artist?
The Liquor Dealers' Association of
Jersey City Heights have decided to fight
the recent inauguration of Sunday closing
by compelling the enforcement of the old
blue laws which prevent the playing of
church organs on Sunday or the running of
street cars. The outcome as far as it re-
lates to church organs, will no doubt be in-
teresting.
* *
A new bridge for the violin, and other
instruments played with the bow, has re-
cently been introduced. TV e improvement
consists of two extra feet, making four in
all, and so placed that one foot comes under
each string. The inventor claims that,
whereas with the old two footed bridge the
tone of the second and third strings is
weaker than that of the two outer ones, the
new bridge secures perfect equality of tone,
inasmuch as each string has a direct bear-
ing upon the belly of the violin. The idea
seems reasonable, and the invention is in-
dorsed by Sarasate and David Popper.
*
Up in Grand Central Palace, which, by
the way, has become a strong rival to
Madison Square Garden, there will soon be
opened a Permanent Industrial Exhibition,
which is sure to be of interest to the public
as well as of educational good. Exhibits
are even now being put in place, and with-
in two weeks the immense floor space of
the palace will be covered with goods of
various kinds, calculated to show to best
advantage the ingenuity and capability of
American genius and labor.
I understand that a number of firms in
the music trade have been approached rela-
tive to taking space at the Exhibition, and
a few have accepted. The Exhibition will
be opened June 28th.
An additional
feature of the show will be a roof garden
entertainment and picturesque promenade.
* *
- *
The Press, of this city, pertinently re-
marks: "Those World's Fair medals should
be embellished with a figure of Patience on
a monument, smiling at John Boyd
Thacher."
Ye?, the design would have been most
appropriate.