Music Trade Review

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HE MUSIC TRADE REVIEW.
With the Travelers.
Said the old time drummer the other day:
*'I made my first long Western trip forty-
four years ago, and I've just returned from
a trip that took me to the Pacific coast.
" I sometimes wonder, when I meet the
busy, pushing'drummers of to-day, the men
who are used to rapid traveling, the best of
hotels and good living" generally. I some-
times wonder what they would do if they
were suddenly put back and made to do as
we had to fifty years ago or a little less.
Some of the poorest of them would give up
their job, but I think that the rest would
stick to it and make a success of the busi-
ness, just as we did in those days.
" Nearly fifty years ago, when the busi-
ness of selling goods by samples was in its
infancy, and when the drummer had but
just been discovered, we were compelled to
make slow trips, and, of course, not many
of them in a year. Then it took about three
weeks to go from Portland to Chicago, and
dealers ordered goods enough to last six
months. Then the drummer had to endure
many privations, but we were a hardy set,
and were content with a little, that is, if we
could get plenty of orders. The villages
were miles and miles apart then, and yet
we, in some way, felt the coming commer-
cial importance of many of them, and
knew that we must keep in with the men
who were trying to build up a trade under
what seemed many times to be dishearten-
ing circumstances.
" I have passed hundreds of nights camp-
ing out, when on long trips, with only a
blanket for a covering and the ground for a
bed. We, who drummed trade in the West
then, in behalf of Eastern houses, didn't
mind that, but we did object to the rattle-
snake sometimes. It didn't pay to have
them get too familiar. We were happy
when we could travel by canal boat or by
steamboat, but the dreadful Western stages
were what tried our patience.
" Time and time again, but for the fact
that my samples and baggage had to be
carried, I should have preferred to walk,
and could have beaten the stages under
ordinary circumstances. Many times I did
walk, but it was beside the stage, with a
rail on my shoulder, ready to help pry the
stage itself out of the mud.
" I n those days canals were the best.
The canal boats would make from two to
three miles an hour, but if the time was
long, the stories told by the Captain and
passengers were commonly good; the beds
were bunks, but they fed us well, that is, as
things went then.
"Of course, the ordinary everyday meal
of the drummer of to-day, the meal he's
inclined to grumble at, would have seemed
a Thanksgiving feast to us. We expected
little, and commonly got exactly that.
Still, as I said, we were content, and even
happy, if only business was good.
"The drummers of today wont see the
startling changes we have seen, who
began back nearly fifty years ago. Of
course, the old time drummers who traveled
in New England saw less of the rough and
tumble of life than we who went West, and
who struck out boldly for trading posts, that
we were destined in many cases to see grow
to be great cities. Still, I never went
through any of the thrilling experiences
people tell of as a part of the life then, and
I am inclined to think that adventures come
to those who seek for them.
"We made long trips in those days,
longer than most drummers would think
of taking
now, for then one
man
had to do all he could, and cover as
much ground as possible.
Forty-three
years ago I went from Portland to New
York, thence by canal to Philadelphia, from
there to Pittsburgh bv canal, from there to
St. Louis by boat down the Ohio and up the
Mississippi, and from St. Louis to St. Paul
by boat.
" In those days St. Paul was but a trad-
ing post. There were a few business houses,
but I saw a sight then that no man will ever
see there again. It seemed to me that
there were at least 1,000 Indians at the post
trading their furs. They brought them in
curiously constructed ox carts, made with-
out the use of a scrap of iron, the wheels a
section of a tree, and drawn by one ox
lashed to the poles.
They were a drunken
crowd, all but a few, who seemed to be a
committee appointed to keep sober, and to
see to it that the others were not cheated.
Sometimes the crowd would give a yell
that fairly seemed to take the roof off.
" I went then to the Falls of St. Anthony
and looked at the surroundings. Where
Minneapolis now stands there was not a
single building. When I was there last 1
went to the falls, and, as I looked at the
great cities, I w r ondered if it was possible
that I could have been there before they
were built. It seems strange, and almost
beyond comprehension, that my business
career could have antedated those cities,
and even the commercial importance of
Chicago itself; but so it is, and I am still a
vigorous man."
"You spoke of having been to Chicago
forty-four years ago. What sort of a place
was it then? "
"Then there was but one railroad, a
small local affair, rather contemptuously
called the milk route. I went there from
Buffalo by boat, and was five days on the
way.
I tried to do a little business
every time we stopped to wood up on the
wav. and, in fact, we drummers had that
system on the route from St. Louis to St.
Paul and along the canals."
"I reached Chicago Saturday night, and
put up at a wooden hotel on Lake street,
near where the Tremont House now stands.
" In those days Chicago had but few brick
houses, and the wooden ones were seldom
more than two stories. In fact, I am unable
to recall a single building more than two
stories high. There was not a sidewalk,
except on Lake street, and that was of
wood, and the water came up through with
almost every step. Steamboats and stages
brought people there, and about the most
interesting sight was old Fort Dearborn,
with doors and log sides pierced with balls.
There was not a foot of paved street in all
Chicago when I first struck the place, and
yet even then—-and it was the time of small
things there was that same belief in Chi-
cago and the same dash and push that you
see now in that great city. Then the best
hotel in Chicago was only a poor affair, kept
in country style and able to accommodate
but a few guests.
" The drummers of to-day are bright
fellows, but I can't help thinking if we had
a slower trade we had better times in the
days when we thought three miles an hour
by canal boat good time, and were content
to trudge along behind a stage coach, and
not say a word if only our samples were
taken through in safety.
A Great Industrial Centre.
The people of Dolgeville are, indeed, to
be congratulated upon the substantial pros-
perity of the industries of their beautiful
village, says the Dolgeville Herald. De-
spite the hard times of the last two years,
and notwithstanding the croaking-s of a
swarm of Democratic pessimists, who de-
clared that Dolgeville's boom was a bubble
that would burst with the first breath of
adversity, three of the great corporations
doing business here have just declared an
annual dividend of 6 per cent, on their
capital stock.
Within a few days after the election last
November, every factor)' in the village
began to be rushed with orders, and, in
addition to those mentioned, the great
felt mill, the lumber factor)', the Bram-
bach piano factory and the (iiese wire mill
are now running at their full capacity.
All these things serve to prove that
Dolgeville's boom is not a bubble, never
was and never will be a bubble, never
was and never w'll be a bubble, and
therefore that it will never burst, but that
it was created by sterling worth, energy
and enterprise and will go on developing
until the village becomes, as it surely will,
one of the greatest industrial centres of
the State of New York.
THI: Hunting-ton Piano Company, of
Derby, Conn., expect to start up their fac-
tory next week. They recently contracted
for two hundred cases.
THI. Sunday Times (Boston) speaks in
the highest terms of the Knabe piano which
Stavenhagen used at his recent recital in
that citv.