The Romance of a Great Store

by Edward Hungerford

"At the outset, by making the wagon equipment a little less elaborate. It could be just as efficient without so much varnish and brass and gold-stripe."

Mr. A—— shook his head negatively.

"Oh, no," he said, "we know that much ourselves. If we were to do that, we should lose fifty per cent. of our advertisement upon the streets of New York."

We have left milady's package where she left it, in the hands of the salesclerk who sold it to her. The purchaser does not see it thereafter, not at least until it has come to her home. With an astonishing celerity and according to a carefully set-down program and practice it is wrapped right within the floor upon which the selling department is situated, and then dropped into a chute which leads with a straight, swift run into that nether world of Macy's—the basement headquarters of the delivery department. In reality this chute is a carrier, so designed as to carry the small individual packages with safety and order, as well as with celerity.

There are fourteen of these conveyors, coming down from all the selling floors save that of furniture which has its own special delivery organization on the ninth floor. Together they pour their almost constant stream of merchandise upon the so-called "revolving-ring" in the very center of the basement floor. This "revolving-ring," in purpose very much like the great and slowly revolving disc-like wooden wheels used in the freight stations of the express companies for a similar service, is, in reality, much larger than they. It is a "square-ring"—if I may use that paradoxical phrase—built of four slowly moving conveyor belts upon which a package may travel an indefinite number of round-trips. At various points upon the outer edge of this moving square the conveyor chutes drop their merchandise. Near the center are the wide-open mouths of other conveyors, which lead to distant corners of the basement.

The nimble-fingered and nimble-witted young men who stand within the "revolving-ring" feed the packages from it into these last conveyors. To each individual package is affixed a duplicate portion of the leaf of the salesbook. On it the salesclerk has written, or printed, the address to which the merchandise is to go, the cost, whether or not it is collect on delivery (known hereafter in this telling as C. O. D.) and other essential information. It is the addresses, however, which attract the eyes of the genii of the "revolving-ring." In their minds these fall into four great categories: City, meaning those portions of Manhattan Island south of Seventy-second Street on the east side and Ninety-ninth Street on the west; Harlem and the Bronx, the incorporated city of New York north of those two streets; Brooklyn and New Jersey—self-explanatory; and Suburban: all the rest of the territory within the far-flung limits of Macy's own generously wide delivery service. While for those points that are unfortunate enough to lie just outside of it—Boston or Philadelphia or Kamchatka or Manila (There hardly is an address to stagger the Macy delivery department)—the packages go direct to the shipping room, in its own corner of the basement.

Here these last are checked and wrapped for long-distance shipment. They are checked against the payment or the non-payment of transportation charges; the store has very definite rules of its own. A paid purchase of but $2.50 is entitled to free delivery within any of the Eastern States, of $5 and over to any of the Middle States as well, of $10 and over to any corner of the whole United States. Freight and express prepayments are arranged upon a somewhat similar basis. The majority of the long-distance shipments go by parcel post, however. Still, in the course of a twelvemonth, there are enough to go both by express and freight to make a pretty considerable transportation bill in themselves.

Again we have neglected that precious package of milady's. It may be only an extra pair of corset-laces—in which case the saleswoman must have suggested that madam herself transport it to her habitat—or it may be an eight or ten-yard piece of heavy silk for her new evening gown, or the evening gown itself. In any case it receives the same care and attention. We have already seen how it is packed, sent through the conveyor-chute down into the basement and then upon the "revolving-ring" before the nimble eyes of the men with nimble hands and wits as well.

Milady lives in West One Hundred and Fourth Street. The sorter's eyes catch that much from the address slip, torn originally from the salesclerk's book and pasted upon the package's outer wrappings. "Harlem" his mind reports back to his eyes. Into the chute-entrance labeled "Harlem and The Bronx" goes the package.