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THE MUSIC TRADE REVIEW
Customer's Notes.
SOME VALUABLE POINTERS GIVEN BY M. C. BAD-
GER HOW BEST RESULTS MAY BE SECURED.
Probably all credit men are requested
more or less frequently to give customers
additional time in which to pay their
maturing bills. This is usually done by
taking the customer's notes maturing at
such time or times as may be conceded by
the jobber, or urged as necessary by the
customer.
In taking unsecured notes there is al
ways this objection, that if we consider
ourselves unsafe at any time before the
maturity of the note, there is, in many
cases, no way in which we can protect our
interests. In order to partly overcome
this, the following form of note can be
used:
With exchange and all collection charges
and interest before and after maturity at
the rate of ten per centum per annum
until paid.
This note shall, at the option of the holder, be-
come at once due and payable, if any change take
place m the ownership of the business of the
maker, or if his stock of goods be damaged by fire,
or if he become insolvent, or fail to pay any other
indebtness to the payee hereof at maturity, or if he
be sued by any other creditor, or if a chattel mort-
gage be placed on his stock of goods.
Due
The objection will be raised that this is
a non-negotiable note. This is readily ad-
mitted. But how many credit men really
care r a negotiable note? If we discount
the :: :.t our bank the banker takes them
on *. ;r endorsement, and if they are not
paid when due we at once become the
owners of the notes and the contract be-
tween us and our customer is good so far
as the maker and payee are concerned.
In an experience of about twenty-five
years the writer has found that the best
results have been obtained by making notes
payable at the customer's own bank. When
the note is payable at the jobber's office or
bank it has been the experience that the
customer is not as prompt in taking care of
it as when payable at his own bank; prob-
ably for the reason that he knows the job-
ber will take care of it if he does not, and
he thinks that a delay of two or three days,
or a couple of weeks, will make no material
difference. If payable at his own bank he
will make an extra effort to pay it, particu-
larly if the note be sent out subject to pro-
test.
The following are actual recent experi-
ences with several notes we had discounted
at our bank.
"A's" note was payable at our office,
and when due we had received no word
from him in reference to the note, although
he had been given about ten days' notice
of its maturity. He knew that we would
take care of it—and we did.
"B's" note was payable at his own bank.
A few days before it was due he wrote
asking that it be held for ten or fifteen
days. We wrote him that we had disposed
of the note and it was out of our posses-
sion, and that undoubtedly his own bank
would grant him the desired accommoda-
tion. This note was paid promptly when
due.
"C's" note was similar to "B's," but
with this exception, that this note was re-
turned unpaid. Our bank immediately
sent it back to their correspondent with
instructions to "return at once properly
protested, or to remit." As it was too late
to protest, he had to remit. "C," by the
way, is one of those fellows who is always
slow pay.
" D's" note received treatment like "B's"
and "C's," but went to protest, and we took
this position: If his banker, who knew all
about him and the trade conditions in his
immediate vicinity, and was supposed to
be much better posted in his affairs than
we were, would not give him the desired
accommodation, we certainly could not.
He should not expect us to do what his
banker refused to do. This note was paid
in a few days, and the attorney's fees for
collection^ " D " has since gone into bank-
ruptcy, showing his banker's estimate to
have been correct.
"E" made the same request as the
others and received the same response.
The day the note was protested he sent
us half the amount, saying that his banker
was not lending any money at that time,
and could not accommodate him. A few
days later he sent us another remittance
on the note, but we noticed that he had
changed his bank account to the other
bank. He evidently realized the position
his bank had placed him in by refusing the
accommodation.
In a number of instances we have been
saved the settling of an indebtedness at a
large discount by pursuing a course sim-
ilar to that outlined above in "C's" case,
the customers having gone into insolvency
shortly after the maturity of the notes, but
not before their bankers had paid our
notes.
When a customer insists on his note
being payable at your office or your bank,
there is ground for the suspicion that he
does not intend to pay it when due, and
experience has shown that this is often
the result. Is it not therefore best to in-
sist that our customer's notes be made
payable at his bank or some other bank-
ing institution in his own city or town?
To Test Hotel Lien Law.
A SUIT WHICH WILL DEMONSTRATE WHETHER
THE PIANO DEALER OR THE HOTEL PRO-
PRIETOR IS TO BE THE VICTIM OF
UNSCRUPULOUS PARTIES
Sylvia Thorne, Edna May's sister-in-
law, is accused by Arthur J. Hamblen,
proprietor of the Gerard Hotel, in West
Forty-fourth street, of evolving a scheme
through which his hotel is out $180 unless
he can persuade the judge on the bench in
the District Court in West Fifty-fourth
street that he is entitled to a piano that he
believes was one of Miss Thome's assets.
Former Gov. Black, Abraham Gruber
and former District-Attorney Olcott are
searching all their old and new law books
at the request of the hotel management
to see if they can legally overcome Miss
Thome's plans. Hamblen says he is will-
ing to spend twice the amount of the bill
to thoroughly test the legality of Miss
Thome's alleged scheme.
He says Miss Thorne appeared at his
house last August and engaged one of the
best suites of rooms he had to rent. She
said she had a piano, and Hamblen was so
delighted to learn that she did not have a
dog he took her in willingly. She was
then appearing in an original sketch she
termed "Surprise." In a few days the
piano arrived, and she paid her ^bill for
three weeks.
Then there was a blank, and week by
week the bill ran up until it reached $180.
He urged payment upon Miss Thorne in
positive terms, and she was suddenly
called out of the city, but she left her
piano as security that she would pay.
Scarcely had she disappeared before Cal-
vin L. Weser, a piano manufacturer,
backed one of his trucks up to the hotel
and offered to remove his piano, the one he
had rented to Miss Thorne, and for which
she had paid one month's rent. This was
February 14, and Hamblen then recalled
that during her stay in his house Miss
Thorne had referred to her piano only in a
humorous way, and never told him seri-
ously that she owned it free and clear.
The piano man insisted that he merely
rented it to her, and that she was some
The Starr in Hamilton, O.
time in arrears on her monthly payments.
[Special to The Review.]
Hamblen refused to allow him to remove it.
Hamilton, O., March 12, 1901.
Weser
then engaged Lawyer Samuel Sturtz
The Starr Piano Co., which has been
of
63
Park Row, and the piano was at-
ably represented in Hamilton by Mr.
tached.
Mr. Hamblen engaged former
Street, has long sought a High street store
Gov.
Black
and his legal associates to prove
room where not only the Starr piano, but
that
he
has
a hotel man's lien on the in-
a general line of pianos could be shown.
strument,
and
now the legal lights are
To secure such a room was impossible, so
fighting
for
possession
of it. Miss Thorne
yesterday a lease was secured on the large
is
somewhere,
but
none
of the lawyers on
and commodious room at 110 North Second
either
side
know
exactly
where. The case
street; in the Gordon block. The room will
was
to
have
come
up
yesterday
afternoon
be handsomely fitted up for piano purposes
in
the
West
Side
Civil
Court,
too
late for
and a large line of pianos will be kept in
notice.
stock.
A very fine Steck grand was sold last
week to the proprietors of the Waverly
Hotel, Philadelphia, by C. J. Heppe & Son.
The general trade in Stecks recently has
been excellent, and the Heppes have made
a number of sales to prominent musicians
and people eminent in the social world in
the Quaker City.
On Monday evening, Feb. n , the Pitts-
burg Orchestra, Victor Herbert conduc-
tor, played a concert at Princeton, N. J.,
and the Mason & Hamlin pianoforte was
used on that occasion.
The new stock recently issued by the
Krell Piano Co., Cincinnati, has been taken
up quite eagerly by investors at par.