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THI
MUSIC TRADE:
He spent a large portion of his time keeping in touch with
firms that could give him a product that he could put on his counters
at a price his competitors could not touch. He also carried a line
of goods which were stable and on which he did not offer bargains.
This dealer confined his price-cutting to the lines he had bought at
a bargain and he regulated his campaign so as to completely de-
moralize his competitor.
If the competitor put in a particularly good stock for some
special season, he very frequently selected the same time for his
special sale and knocked the bottom out of the local market. In
this way he tied up more and more his competitor's money in un-
salable goods until the latter's shelves were rilled with them and he
was finally forced to assign.
He accomplished this without ever encroaching on the regular
profits of his store. He had simply undersold on special goods and
he so satisfied the people thus brought to him that they became
regular customers.
It is possible in other trades to bring about kinds of competition
which would be impossible in piano selling, for price-cutting in this
industry on regular lines usually results in shattered reputations and
when a piano reputation is once lost, it is like that of a woman's,
difficult to ever regain. Before men cut prices promiscuously, they
should weigh well the consequences.
T
HE groundwork is firm for business is excellent and any popu-
lar anxiety that may have existed as to the harvests of 1908
should be now dispelled in view of the government's October crop
report. While the official estimates of the final yield show some
reductions since September 1 in the principal cereals, the recent de-
creases are not important and they were chiefly due to drought,
which most affected the corn crop.
The estimate of the corn crop indicates a yield of 2,565,298,-
000 bushels, which is 255 million bushels more than the average
corn crop of the ten years 1898 to 1907. The final estimate of the
combined production of spring and winter wheat is 659,000,000
bushels (against a total of 634,087,000 bushels in 1907) of 89.4 per
cent, quality. Of this total, it is estimated that the spring wheat
harvest will be 233,090,000 bushels, which is 8,000,000 bushels more
than the yield in 1907. The quality of the crop of oats is given at
81.3 per cent, and the estimated total yield as 789,161,000 bushels,
which is 34,000,000 bushels in excess of last year's oat crop.
These figures fully indicate that, if the harvests of 1908 have
not broken any records, they are nevertheless very bountiful and
generous. They certainly look good to every piano man in the
country.
I
T is analysis in business that distinguishes the real business man
from the speculator. To the keen logical mind in business
there is scarcely such a thing as chance, for the art of reading the
future by analysis eliminates all uncertainty in many enterprises.
In whatever undertaking a business man embarks, he can either
plunge as the speculator does, or he may move deliberately in a prac-
tical certainty of what awaits him.
The tyro in business is ruled by impetuosity. The conservative
man in business governs all his acts by a regard for cause and effect.
Sometimes we hear that such a man is wonderfully lucky, and his
luck always stands by him. Now, if we look into the matter closely,
is it luck or is it only logic?
A business speculator lives in the dark. The real business man
never does. The speculator may, perhaps, light on his feet, but nine
times out of ten he will come down flat.
The man who makes business a science plans out his moves as
if he were playing a game of chess. Business after all is nothing
else than a science. It is a gamble to many men because they do not
choose to make it different. Perhaps one reason why there are so
many big mistakes made in the business world is because the aver-
age business man takes everything too much in a haphazard way.
Nothing may be taken for granted without the most careful analysis.
T
HIS issue of The Review may be correctly termed a Prosperity
Number, for within its covers are opinions from the retail
selling forces of the piano trade, which tell in unmistakable terms
that the wave of prosperity is rolling in upon us. Let us do nothing
to retard it, for after a season of starvation, cakes and ale look good
to all of us.
REVIEW
The influence of the "knocker" is growing beautifully less.
Laziness grows on some people.
iron band. .
It begins a cobweb and ends an
Real newspaper enterprise is seen in weekly values—not in an occa-
sional spurt.
Don't wait until after election to hustle after business, but look after
it right now.
Finding fault with one's surroundings does not usually result in
finding success.
We know of some men who evidently are not working overtime to
attend to their own affairs.
System—that's a word to remember and tack over the door of any
business enterprise so that every employe may see it.
Believe in the pianos you sell. Without having confidence in that
which you offer, how can you expect to impress a customer?
Too bad that young Roosevelt did not decide to enter a piano factory.
What a man he would have been for the blank piano, or the blankety-
blank-blank piano, just as you will.
SIGN OF SPRING.—De Quiz—Have you heard a robin yet?
De Whiz—No; but I've seen a woman with her head tied up in a
towel beating a carpet in the back yard.
NATURALLY FOLLOWS.—"Gracious, but John Smith has an awfully
rasping voice!"
"I guess that's because he went to the dentist the other day and had
his teeth filed."
USED UP.—Digby—How long did it take you to learn to run a
motor car?
Skorcher—Oh, five or six.
Digby—Five or six what? Weeks?
Skorcher—No, motor cars.
ALMOST CONGEALED.—Eve—And you really think he loves you?
Edna—I know it. Didn't he propose on his knees?
Eve—Oh, that's nothing! Many lovers do the same.
Edna—Yes, but he proposed while strapping on my skates and his
knees were on the ice twenty minutes.—Chicago News.
When the ladies in charge were clearing up the left-overs after a
Sunday-school picnic given to children of the poor quarter, says Lippin-
cott's Magazine, several slices of cake were found which they did not
wish to carry home. • One said to a small lad who was already asthmatic
from gorging, "Here, boy, won't you have another piece of cake?"
"Well," he replied, taking it rather listlessly, "I guess I can still
chaw, but I can't swaller."
WORKING UP THE EXPRESSION.—"Will you take something to
drink?"
"With pleasure."
The photo was taken, and the sitter said:
"But what about that little invitation?"
"Oh, sir, that is just a trade ruse of mine to give a natural and
interested expression to the face."
THE BEST HE KNEW.—Gladstone, a Jamaican negro, was assistant
to a district physician in the Canal zone, and, being rather poor in his
Latin, the bottles had been numbered for his benefit. One day a Spanish
laborer came in for medicine, and the doctor told his worthy assistant
to give him two pills out of number six. After he had gone the doctor
asked:
"Gladstone, did you give the man a dose of number six?"
"Oh, no, sah, doctor; numbah six war finished, so I just give him one
pill out of numbah foah and one out of numbah two."
PROMOTION BY MERIT.—A grizzled old colonel who is a veteran
of the Civil War and who has since seen hard active service in several
Indian campaigns, the Arctic regions, the Spanish War and the Philippine
insurrection, did not view with pleasure the recent promotions of younger
and almost unknown officers who were jumped over his head. Strolling
about his camp in the Philippines one day, he came upon one of his
officers fondling a monkey.
"Colonel," said the officer, "this is the most remarkable monkey I
ever saw. Why, he can take a stick and go through the manual of arms
almost as well as one of the soldiers."
" ' S h ! " exclaimed the Colonel, glancing about in great alarm. "Don't
tell anybody. Suppose the War Department heard of it! They'd make
him a brigadier-general!"—Philadelphia Ledger,