Music Trade Review -- © mbsi.org, arcade-museum.com -- digitized with support from namm.org
THE MUSIC TRADE REVIEW
if he goes into the dealer's office, looks
him in the face, forms his conclusions as to
his character, observes his business meth-
ods, notes the general atmosphere of his es-
tablishment, and examines his stock on the
basis of the requirements of the locality.
There is something about the atmosphere of
a business place which tells of success or
failure.
The ability to appreciate this at-
mosphere is partly natural and partly ac-
quired by experience and training. But
take, for example, the stock a man carries.
If it be simply adequate for the demand,
but not much above it; if it be well pro-
portioned, with no excess in some line and
deficiencies in others, it shows the man is a
good buyer, is a good judge of his trade,
and is conservative, having no useless in-
vestment; but if the stock be a little small-
er than is necessary, it shows, perhaps,
carelessness, at any rate, weakness.
In the majority of cases a very correct
appreciation of the credit to which a man
is entitled can be obtained from reports
and his own statements; but, after all, the
best and safest guide is a knowledge of the
man and his business, his surroundings
and his methods. The best men—the men
of honest hearts, wire nerves, up-to-date
ideas, great business shrewdness—some-
times fail, to the surprise and sorrow of
their creditors. Of course they do. Noth-
ing is certain but death, taxes, and requests
to advertise or subscribe. But what of it?
A leg or $1,000 is liable to be lost by any
one in business. It is the penalty of the
fight for existence.
ANENT~TRADE.
"TRADE in local retail circles is decided-
ly slow, and the rather inelegant but
forcefully expressive vernacular of the
streets, "deucedly slow," covers the situa-
tion very well. However, the extraordin-
ary nerve and rigid backbone displayed by
the manufacturing department is a source
of extreme gratification.
NEEDS WATCHING.
C O R a while, after the adjustment of the
labor troubles which so long paralyzed
the piano industry in Chicago, Business
Agent Dold was lost sight of. Frequently
he has endeavored to attract attention by
some denunciatory irticle in the Piano &
Organ Workers' Journal, the official organ
of the trade organization. It would seem,
however, from some of his latest plays
that he is making new moves with the
hopes of strengthening the labor organi-
zations of the piano industry. Beginning
on the 14th inst., he addressed three meet-
ings in the city of Cincinnati with the
direct object in view of organizing the
Cincinnati factories on a strictly union
basis. We understand that he will spend
considerable time in New York where he
will endeavor to largely increase the mem-
bership in the local unions. He will then
visit Boston where he will follow out the
same general plan. In other words, Dold
seems to have recovered his courage which
oozed out of his finger tips after his en-
counter with Jim Broderick and proposes
to figure still more prominently as an or-
ganizer of labor. It will be well to keep
an eye on the actions of this man Dold.
CONCERNING TRAVEL.
IN the near future it is possible that rail-
road travel will have advanced so that
we may breakfast in New York and reach
Chicago in time for a six o'clock dinner on
the same day. In a recent issue of the
Scientific American, there appeared an in-
teresting account of a test made by Fred-
erick Adams, with a specially contrived
train of six cars on a forty miles run over
the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad from the
Monumental City to the capital, and the
speeds obtained exceed any heretofore
authentically recorded. Although the road-
bed on this piece of line is in excellent
condition the curves and grades are not
favorable to the attainment of high speed.
Between Annapolis Junction and Trinidad
the first seven miles, up a stiff grade, was
covered in six minutes, while the last five
miles, on a down grade, was at the rate of
102.8 miles an hour.
The theory on which these experiments
are based is best exemplified in the fact
that while a fast bicyclist, unpaced, will
cover a mile in two minutes, a wheelman
behind the shield of a locomotive and car
has made the mile in less than fifty-eight
seconds. Mr. Adams contends that when
the locomotive has broken a way through
the air the train behind it, like the cyclist,
should be, as it were, in a shelter, and so
contrived as to offer the least possible fric-
tion to the atmosphere. Hence he sheathes
his train fore and aft, like a ship, to a line
below the trucks, and, being vestibuled
throughout, "it presents the appearance of
one long, sinuous and flexible car." De-
velopments along these lines, and also per-
haps in the direction of shaping the engine
like a vessel's prow to more readily pierce
a way, hold forth the hope of practical
travel at the rate of a hundred miles an
hour.
With so much attention being devoted
to the atmosphere in connection with rail-
road travel, it would seem as if the mil-
lions of people who travel through the
cloudy black tunnel to reach the Forty-
second street depot in New York should
reasonably expect some simple way to be
devised whereby fresh air and light could
be supplied instead of the foul murky at-
mosphere of the tunnel with its accompani-
ment of inky darkness occasionally lighted
by gleams from some half-cleaned anti-
quated kerosene lamp.
The need of ventilation is apparent to
all who enter or leave at that central depot,
misnamed the "Grand." For years the
depot itself has been a disgrace to the
metropolis of the new world. Its lighting,
heating, ventilating and sanitary arrange-
ments belong properly to a past age which
were even antiquated when New York was a
million or two less in population than at the
present time. The cheap plaster and
stucco of the alleged improvements which i
are now being made at the Depot pales
into the cheapest insignificance when com-
pared with the magnificent depots of
Boston, Philadelphia, Columbus, ()., and
many other Western cities. Here, where
we have an enormous traffic and should be
entitled to all of the latest conveniences,
we have the poorest service, for this road
is the only trunk line entering New York
and it absolutely dominates the local situ-
ation. If one is desirous of finding a
splendid example of what a railroad trust
will do, a convincing one can be furnished
in the exit from New York at Forty-second
street. It is a living illustration of the
expression of the old ferryman Vanderbilt
concerning the public.
The finest railroad service in the world
can be found in the West from Chicago to
St. Paul and St. Louis. Every conven-
ience which modern ingenuity can devise
is afforded the traveler, while in the East,
owing to the control of the situation by a
single corporation, we are compelled to
put up with antiquated methods. On
those superb trains which are run out
from St. Paul on the Northern Pacific
Road the immense journey from the twin
cities of the Northwest to Portland is one
of comparative ease and comfort.
The Northern Pacific system is splendid-
ly organized and reflects the greatest of
credit upon the management of that cor-
poration. We have traveled over the fa-
mous Sunset Limited on the Southern
Pacific from New Orleans to Los Angeles,
and we are impelled to say that the service
there does not approach that rendered by
its Northern rival, where the traveler re-
ceives a full equivalent for his money,
in service and in courtesy—a glaring con-
trast with our Eastern corporation which
controls the railroad system of New York
and New England.
To illustrate: Recently after taking a
train at New London, Conn., we ordered
lunch. New Haven was passed before the
lunch was served and the order had to be
changed three times, owing to the fact