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THE
MUSIC TRADE
Trade has run peculiarly and perhaps no season has there been
such eccentric divisions in business as the present.
The demand has been sporadic.
Some manufacturers have profited to a surprising degree—
likewise some retailers—and yet as a whole the season has been
disappointing, and another surprising thing is the slow collections,
for collections have been slow.
There is no use of denying those facts because they are known
to everyone and we have not yet heard a satisfactory explanation
as to the peculiarities of trade during 1910.
M
ETHODS of business are changing and politics are changing
and probably there is no man alive that can remember
times when the people of this country have shown a keener de-
termination to get the management of affairs into their own hands.
They are no longer content to take ideas from others, but
all over the country there are signs of unrest.
In Iowa a number of cities have been governing themselves
successfully on the commission plan.
Partisan politics are cut out.
In Indiana the Republican State Convention refused to endorse
the Payne-Aldrich tariff and has demanded a genuine permanent
tariff commission together with such revision of duties that will
make the tariff cover only the difference in cost of production at
home and abroad.
In Pittsburg we see the citizens determined to hunt out graft
and to dissolve the disagreeable partnership between politics and
vice.
In New York State bribery has also received a body blow
through recent revelations.
In addition we have investigations going on in this State that
cover all sorts of subjects—the cost of living—the abuse of cold
storage facilities—the methods of fire insurance companies, etc.
In Milwaukee the people have elected a socialistic mayor, and
so on it goes all over the country.
It is a new spirit and in the end it is bound to benefit the busi-
ness interests of the country, for, what after all is the Government
but a great big business institution run for the people.
T
HE wage advances by railroads and by manufacturers have
allayed the discontent of a portion of the community. Yet
there are many thousands who have not had and are not likely to
have their incomes increased. Whether the readjustment of the
market prices of what they buy will go far enough and be rapid
enough to keep many of them out of the ranks of the radicals
remains to be seen. But apart from the matter of the cost of
living, that has been so great an irritant, are the problems of the
railroads, the consolidations, the currency and the tariff, and on
all of these opposing views are shaping into issues that may soon
be sharply drawn. That the old order is changing is plain enough ;
to what length the readjustment will go is the question to which
every business interest is giving serious thought, and because
serious thought is being given to these matters it may be that busi-
ness is held up a bit.
Still there is nothing at all alarming in the trade outlook.
The crop reports on the whole indicate a good basis for trade,
but we have gone on expanding at such a rate that if there is the
slightest hold-up we are complaining about dull trade, yet if most
piano, men were to compare their business to-day with five years
ago they would be satisfied at the percentage of increase both in
manufacturing and retailing.
But human ambition is not satisfied unless there is a tremendous
gain.
Perhaps it is right it should be so because perfect satisfaction
means a form of retrogression, but as we view the situation we
are not going to face a dull summer nor one of unusual business
activity, but it is going to be a good time to keep hustling for busi-
ness, and without hustling for it business will not come easily.
The fundamental conditions are all right and the country was
never in better shape than at the present time, but it requires con-
tinual hustle to keep up the record to satisfactory proportions.
It is not probable that we will see a period of depression for a
long time, and the demand for new undertakings of all kinds is
vast—in fact, great enough to bring about another genuine boom.
REVIEW
5
IN LIGHTER VEIN
"What do you think of this wine?"
"Not bad. But I know where you can t get an even cheaper wine than
this!"
Charlie—I say, old chap, what's the extreme penalty of the law for
bigamy.
Old Adsum—Why! two mothers-in-law, of course.—Pick-Me-Up.
PRETTY TOUGH.—Young Lady—You say you were on a raft for
six weeks,' and had nothing to eat but mutton. Where did you get the
mutton from?
Old Salt—Well, you see, miss, the sea was very choppy!
A SURE CAUSE.—Jacobs—Tuwed's second wife started going in for
spiritualism, but he soon cured her.
Jackson—How?
"He went with her and started receiving messages from his flrat
wife."
NO CREDIT.—Harriy Upton (trying on a new suit)—Ah, Isaacs, this
suit looks very creditable—very creditable indeed.
Isaacs (the tailor, excitedly)—S'hellup me gracious! Dot suit vas
noddings ov de kind. Dot suit neffer leafs de shop except for ready
money.
HOSPITALITY.—"I say, Jones, dine with me at the house to-night,
will you?"
"Certainly, with pleasure. Will your wife expect me?"
"No; that's the beauty of it. We had a quarrel this morning and I
want to make her mad."—Peekskill Palladium.
TRUE ECONOMY.—Goldski (dictating a letter)—My Dear Mr.
Schankelhausenheimer
Miss Keytan—How do you spell that name.
Goldski—S-c-h
Oh, py de vay, I dink you petter pegin de letter,
"My dear sir," undt save de vear and tear on de machine.
REAL FOOD AT LAST.—Van Antler—I think we are sure of a good
dinner to-night. You know my new butler does the entire catering for
the household.
Grubb—Can you rely on him to
?
Van Antler—Not always, but this evening I requested him to send us
up something from the kitchen table.
THE REST WAS SILENCE.—"Why do they say 'As smart as a steel
trap?"' asked the talkative boarder. "I never could see anything par-
ticularly intellectual about a steel trap."
"A steel trap is called smart," explained the elderly person, in his
sweetest voice, "because it knows exactly the right time to shut up."
More might have been said, but, in the circumstances, it would
have seemed unfitting.
FOOD BOYCOTT IN HIGH LIFE.—When an olive-colored touring
car as big as a coal gondola drew up in front of a stall at the market
house there was some lively stepping by the marketeers. The man at the
wheel wore a huge bearskin coat that must have set him back $300;
the female occupant was attired in a sealskin that was the exact dupli-
cate of a thousand-dollar bill, while every bark of the big machine pro-
claimed that it took $7,000 to pry it loose from its makers. The woman
approached the stall.
"How much are strawberries?" she inquired.
"Seventy-five a basket," replied the market man.
"Seventy-five cents!" gasped the woman. "Well! It's simply out-
rageous the way food products stay up."
And an instant later the sealskin, the bearskin and the olive-colored
car had flounced around the corner in a vanishing cloud of gasolene
vapor, and another food boycott was on,—Pittsburg Times-Gazette.
JUST A LITTLE DUBIOUS.—Uncle Solon Winslow had secured a
succession of four admirable wives, all of whom had been removed from
the scene of their earthly activities by one cause or another within a
period of twenty years.
Uncle Solon's weddings had grown to be so much a matter of course
that when, after a year of widowhood, he announced his approaching
fifth marriage, one of his neighbors said, "Well, Solon, I s'pose they seem
pretty natural to you by this time—weddings, I mean.
"This one won't," said the prospective bridegroom, "for old Parson
Frost's off on his three months' leave, you know, and he's never failed to
tie the knot for me.
"I said to Susan that I didn't know as 'twould hardly seem like a
wedding to me without him, but she said to me that 'twas her turn to
choose this time, and she intended to start out with young Parson Corner
over to the Center, and if he did well she guessed that she'd stick to him.
"She didn't explain what she meant," added Uncle Solon, thought-
fully, but it sounded kind of ominous to me,"—Youths' Companion.