Music Trade Review

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V O L XXXIV No. 6. Published Every Saturday by Edward Lyman Bill at 3 East Fourteentb Street, Niw York, Feb. 8,1902.
A DUTY NEGLECTED.
ONE CORPORATION BILL A LAW.
More Care Must be Exercised in Shipping if we
are to Win a Market in the South.
Gov. Odell Signs Measure to Encourage Incorpor-
ation in this State.
The indifference of American merchants
and manufacturers to the development of our
trade with the tropics and the whole South-
ern Hemisphere is one of the most incompre-
hensible inconsistencies of the American bus-
iness man. That he could easily rival Eng-
land and Germany in competition for this
trade if he would but seriously study the ap-
parently unimportant question of how to
pack and ship goods which are destined for
long, hot or clamp journeys to Southern
countries, is a foregone conclusion.
That he does not study the question re-
sults in the success of England and Germany
over us in this trade. No consumer ordering
pianos, or other wares, and receiving them
damaged or so thinly covered from the fatal
tropical dampness as to be ruined for his
use, will be apt to order again; and yet this
disastrous result has been brought about in
innumerable cases by the carelessness of
American shippers.
The importance of this subject cannot be
overestimated, for, as Benjamin Kidd justly
says: "With the filling up of the temperate
regions and the continual development of
industrialism throughout the civilized world,
the rivalry and struggle for the trade of the
tropics will, beyond doubt, be the permanent
underlying fact in the foreign relations of
the Western nations in the twentieth cen-
tury." But, until the American merchant
approaches the problem in a spirit of greater
willingness to investigate and learn how to
ship merchandise to the tropics, America
will be out of the race.
[Special to The Review.l
DEATH OF CHARLES PARKER.
Charles Parker, the first Mayor of Meri-
den, Conn., died on Saturday last after a
brief illness from nephritis at his home in
that city. He was ninety-three years old.
He was the founder of the Parker Bros.'
Gun Co., the Meriden Curtain Fixture Co.,
Parker Clock Co., Parker Spoon Co., Parker
Piano Stool & Rack Co., and several other
corporations bearing his name. These com-
panies do a business of $2,000,000 annually.
He leaves two children and five grandchil-
dren.
Hazelton pianos are now being handled
in Buffalo, N. Y., by Robert Loud, who has
secured the agency for that instrument.
Albany, N. Y., Feb. 3, 1902.
Governor Odell has signed the bill of As-
semblyman Morgan, carrying out recommen-
dations of the Governor prohibiting a do-
mestic corporation from taking the same
name as a foreign corporation authorized to
do business in this State. It is a companion
measure to the bill imposing a tax on for-
eign corporations, and is designed to bring
about the incorporation in this State of for-
eign corporations.
ANSWER FILED IN KNABE CO. SUIT.
[Special to The Review.]
Baltimore, Md., Feb. 1, 1902.
The answer of the Mayor and City Coun-
cil and the Board of School Commissioners
to the bill of Wm. Knabe & Co., of this
city, was filed in the Circuit Court
to-day by City Solicitor William Pinkney
Whyte.
The Knabe Co. asked the Circuit Court
for an injunction restraining the defendants
from awarding the contract for pianos to
any other firm on the ground that they were
the lowest bidders on the best pianos offered
in the competition, and because they had
not been treated fairly. The answer de-
nies these allegations and states that the con-
tracts for the twenty-five pianos were prop-
erly awarded to the Stieff Piano Co. and to
Messrs. Sanders & Stay man. They say that
if the committee from the School Board did
not give sufficient and proper consideration
to the offer made by the petitioners it was
because the representative of the Knabe Co.
substituted other instruments than those
mentioned in the bid of that firm.
The specifications published stipulated
that the pianos were not to cost more than
$200 each, and the answer states that the
pianos offered at that price by the Knabe
Co. were inferior to those offered by the
successful firms.
PHONOGRAPH RECORDS BURN.
[Special to The Review.]
Sa.oo PER YEAR.
SINGLE COPIES, io CENTS.
BOSTON TRADE'S GOOD SHOWING.
[Special to The Review.]
Boston, Mass., Feb. 3, 1902.
The bulletin just issued by the Census Of-
fice on the manufactures of Massachusetts
reveals some interesting data to members of
the music trade industry. While there has
been a most decided decrease in many man-
ufacturing industries in the city of Boston,
for instance, an interesting change has come
over the manufacture of pianos and other
musical instruments, of which this city has
long held a prominent place. Boston's out-
put of harmony-makers in 1890 was worth
little under $4,000,000; in 1900 it was $2,-
640,000. This business seems to be scatter-
ing over the country rather than being
pushed out of the city limits to suburban
towns.
Massachusetts, from this bulletin, appears
to be doing almost exactly one-thirteenth of
the manufacturing that is done in the United
States. These figures are easy to remember.
The gross value of all the products of the
country has been found to be slightly more
than $13,000,000,000, and that of Massachu-
setts $1,027,000,000. The percentage of in-
crease in the decade has been 15.7 for this
State as against 37.9 for the country as a
whole. But this is to be expected. In sec-
tions where manufacturing industry is al-
most new the ratio of growth may be start-
lingly large without great actual increase.
FOR EXPORT TRADE EXPANSION.
fSpecial to The Review.]
Meriden, Conn., Feb. 3, 1902.
Three Meriden manufacturers are to seek
a more extensive trade among the South
American republics. They are the Wilcox
& White Organ Co., C. Rogers & Bros.,
and the Manning, Bowman & Co., who have
recently concluded arrangements with T.
Elliot Rourge & Co., importers of Santiago,
Chili, to introduce their products throughout
that country.
The Wilcox & White Co. held their an-
nual meeting Monday afternoon. The re-
ports of the officers showed that the past
year has been a very prosperous one. The
officers elected for the next year were:
President and treasurer, Jas. H. White; sec-
retary, Robert W. Carter; superintendent,
F. E. Bennis.
Green Bay, Wis., Feb. 1, 1902.
During a fire in C. F. Dickinson's music
store in the Des Noyers Block yesterday
morning celluloid graphophone records, of
which there were many in stock,burned fierce-
M. L. Camburn has been arrested at Star-
ly and made a fine pyrotechnic display when buck on a charge of obtaining money under
swept into the street by the water streams false pretenses from the Stanley Music
that were played from the rear of the store.
House, WaJla Walla, Wash.