I answer: In order to get his share of the best custom in his line, the dry-goods jobber has taken a store in the best position in town, at a rent of from three to fifty thousand dollars a year; has hired men and boys at all prices, from fifty dollars to five thousand,—and enough of these to result in an aggregate of from five to fifty thousand dollars a year for help, without which his business cannot be done. Add to this the usual average for store-expenses of every name, and for the family-expenses of two, five, or seven partners, and you find a dry-goods firm under the necessity of getting out of their year's sales somewhere from fifteen to a hundred and fifty thousand dollars profit, before they shall have saved one cent to meet the losses of an unfavorable season.

Now, though there is nothing even in all these urgencies to justify a single lie or fraud, there is much to sharpen a man's wits to secure the sale of his goods,—much to educate him in all manner of expedients to baffle the inquiries of customers who would be offended, if they could discover that he ever charged them the profit without which he could never meet his expenses. And the jobber's problem is complicated by the folly, universally prevalent among buyers, of expecting some partiality or peculiarity of favor over their neighbors who are just as good as themselves. Every dry-goods jobber knows that his customer's foolish hope and expectation often demand three absurdities of him: first, the assurance that he has the advantage over all other jobbers in a better stock of goods, better bought; secondly, that he has a peculiar friendship for himself; and thirdly, that, though of other men he must needs get a profit, in his special instance he shall ask little or none; and that, such is his regard for him, it is a matter of no moment whether he live in Lowell or Louisiana, in New Bedford or Nebraska, or whether he pay New England bank-notes within thirty days, or wild-cat money and wild lands, which may be converted into cash, with more or less expense and loss, somewhere between nine months and nine-and-twenty years.

And yet the uninitiated "can't understand how an honest merchant can have two prices for the same goods." An honest man has but one price for the same goods, and that is the cash price. All outside of that is barter,—goods for notes. His first inquiry is, What is the market-value of the note offered? True, he knows that many of the notes he takes cannot be sold at all; but he also knows that the notes he is willing to take will in the aggregate be guarantied by a reservation of one, two, or three per cent., and that the note of the particular applicant for credit will tend to swell or to diminish the rate; and he cannot afford to exchange his goods for any note, except at a profit which will guaranty its payment when due,—which, in other words, will make the note equal in value to cash.

Now it is just because all business-contingencies cannot be worked into an unvarying form, as regular as the multiplication-table, and as plain to the apprehension of all men, that a vast amount of lying and of dishonesty is imputed, where it does not exist. Merchants are much like other men,—wise and unwise, far-sighted and short-sighted, selfish and unselfish, honest and dishonest. But that they are as a class more dishonest than other men is so far from being true, that I much doubt if we should overstrain the matter, if we should affirm that they are the most honest class of men in the community. There is much in their training which contributes directly, and most efficiently, to this result. Their very first lessons are in feet and inches, in pounds and ounces, in exact calculations, in accounts and balances. Carelessness, mistakes, inaccuracies, they are made to understand, are unpardonable sins. The boy who goes into a store learns, for the first time, that half a cent, a quarter of a cent, an eighth of a cent, may be a matter of the gravest import. He finds a thorough book-keeper absolutely refusing himself rest till he has detected an error of ten cents in a business of six months. And every day's experience enforces the lesson. It is giving what is due, and claiming what is due, from year's end to year's end. Among merchants it is matter of common notoriety, that the prompt and exact adherence to orders insisted on by merchants, and prompt advice of receipt of business and of progress, cannot be expected from our worthy brethren at the bar. (The few honorable exceptions are respectfully informed that they are not referred to.) We do not expect them to weigh or measure the needless annoyance to which they often subject us, because they have never been, like ourselves, trained to the use of weights and measures; and therefore we are not willing to stigmatize them as dishonest, though they do, in fact, often steal our time and strength and patience, by withholding an answer to a business-letter.

None but those who are in the business know the assiduous attention with which the dry-goods jobber follows up his customers. None but they know the urgent necessity of doing this. The jobber may have travelled a thousand miles to make his customer's acquaintance, and to prevail upon him to come to Boston to make his purchases; and some neighbor, who boards at the hotel he happens to make his resting-place, lights upon him, shows him attention, tempts him with bargains not to be refused, prevails upon him to make the bulk of his purchases of him, before his first acquaintance even hears of his arrival. To guard against disappointments such as this, the jobber sends his salesmen to live at hotels, haunts the hotels himself, studies the hotel-register far more assiduously than he can study his own comfort, or the comfort of his wife and children. Of one such jobber it was said, facetiously,—"He goes the round of all the hotels every morning with a lantern, to wake up his customers." I had an errand one day at noon to such a devotee. Inquiring for him in the counting-room, I was told by his book-keeper to follow the stairs to the top of the store, and I should find him. I mounted flight after flight to the attic, and there I found, not only the man, but also one or two of his customers, surrounding a huge packing-case, upon which they had extemporized a dinner, cold turkey and tongue, and other edibles, taken standing, with plenty of fun for a dessert. The next time we happened to meet, I said,—"So you take not only time, but also customers, by the forelock!"

"Yes, to be sure," was his answer; "let 'em go to their hotel to dinner in the middle of a bill, and somebody lights upon 'em, and carries 'em off to buy elsewhere; or they begin to remember that it is a long way home, feel homesick, slip off to New York as being so far on the way, and that's the last you see of 'em. No, we're bound to see 'em through, and no let-up till they've bought all they've got on their memorandum."

We have not yet touched the question of credit. To whom shall the jobber sell his goods? It is the question of questions. Many a man who has bought well, who in other respects has sold well, who possessed all the characteristics which recommend a man to the confidence and to the good-will of his fellows, has made shipwreck of his fortunes because of his inability to meet this question. He sold his goods to men who never paid him. To say that in this the most successful jobbers are governed by an instinct, by an intuitive conviction which is superior to all rules of judgment, would be to allege what it would be difficult to prove. It would be less difficult to maintain that every competent merchant, however unconscious of the fact, has a standard of judgment by which he tries each applicant for credit. There are characteristics of men who can safely be credited, entirely familiar to his thoughts. He looks upon the man and instantly feels that he is or is not the man for him. He thinks his decision an instinct, or an intuition, because, through much practice, these mental operations have become so rapid as to defy analysis. Not being infallible, he sometimes mistakes; and when he so mistakes, he will be sure to say,—I made that loss because I relied too much upon this characteristic, or because I did not allow its proper weight to the absence of some other,—because I thought his shrewdness or his honesty, his enterprise or his economy, would save him: implying that he had observed some non-conformity to his standard, but had relied upon some excellency in excess to make up for it.

What are the perplexities which beset the question, To whom shall the jobber sell his goods? They are manifold; and some of them are peculiar to our country. Our territory is very extensive; our population very heterogeneous; the economy and close calculation which recommend a man in Massachusetts may discredit him in Louisiana. The very countenance is often a sure indication of character and of capacity, when it is one of a class and a region whose peculiarities we thoroughly understand; but coming to us from other classes and regions, we are often at fault,—more especially in these latter days, when all strong-mindedness is presumed to be foreshadowed in a stiff beard. Time was when something could be inferred from a lip, a mouth, a chin,—when character could be found in the contour and color of a cheek; but that time has passed. The time was, when, among a homogeneous people, a few time-honored characteristics were both relied on and insisted on: for example, good parentage, good moral character, a thorough training, and superior capacity, joined to industry, economy, sound judgment, and good manners. But Young America has learned to make light of some of these, and to dispense altogether with others of them.

Once the buyer was required to prove himself an honest, worthy, and capable man. If he wanted credit, he must humbly sue for it, and prove himself deserving of it; and no man thought of applying for it who was not prepared to furnish irrefragable evidence. Once, a reference to some respectable acquaintance would serve the purpose; and neighbors held themselves bound to tell all they knew. The increase of merchants, and fierce competition for customers, have changed this. Men now regard their knowledge of other men as a part of their capital or stock-in-trade. Their knowledge has been acquired at much cost of labor and money; and they hold themselves absolved from all obligation to give away what they have thus expensively acquired. Moreover, their confidence has sometimes been betrayed, and their free communications have been remorselessly used to their disadvantage. Alas, it cannot be denied that even dry-goods jobbers, with all their extraordinary endowments, are not quite perfect! for some of them will "state the thing that is not," and others "convey" their neighbor's property into their own coffers: men who prefer gain to godliness, and mistake much money for respectability.

There are very few men, in certain sections of the country, who will absolutely refuse to give a letter of introduction to a neighbor on the simple ground of ill-desert. Men dread the ill-will of their neighbor, and particularly the ill-will of an unscrupulous neighbor; so, when such a neighbor asks a letter, they give it. I remember such a one bringing a dozen or more letters, some of which contained the highest commendation. The writer of one of these letters sent a private note, through the mail, warning one of the persons addressed against the bearer of his own commendatory letter. Those who had no warning sold, and lost. It would be difficult to find a man, however unworthy, who could not, from some quarter, obtain a very respectable letter of introduction. One of the greatest rogues that ever came to Boston brought letters from two of the foremost houses in New York to two firms second to none in Boston. Neither of these gentlemen was in fault in the matter; the train had been laid by some obliging cousin in a banking-house in London.