In making up our account of the difficulties with which a dry-goods jobber has to deal, in conducting a successful business, it must be distinctly stated, that on no man can he count for information which will, however remotely or slightly, compromise the interest of the one inquired of. Never, perhaps, was it so true as now, that "the seller has need of a hundred eyes." The competent jobber uses his eyes first of all upon the person of the man who desires to buy of him. He questions him about himself, with such directness or indirectness as instinct and experience dictate. He learns to discriminate between the sensitiveness of the high-toned honest man and the sensitiveness of the rogue. Many men of each class are inclined to resent and resist the catechism. Strange as it may seem, the very men who would inexorably refuse a credit to those who should decline to answer their inquiries are the men most inclined to resent any inquiry about themselves. While they demand the fullest and most particular information from their customers, they wonder that others will not take them on their own estimate of themselves.
The jobber next directs his attention to the buyer's knowledge of goods: of their quality, their style, their worth in market, and their fitness for his own market; all of which will come to light, as he offers to his notice the various articles he has for sale. He will improve the opportunity to draw him out in general conversation, so guiding it as to touch many points of importance, and yet not so as to betray a want of confidence. He sounds him as to his knowledge of other merchants at home and in the city; takes the names of his references,—of several, if he can get them; puts himself in communication with men who know him, both at his home and in the city. If he can harmonize the information derived from all these sources into a consistent and satisfactory whole, he will then do his utmost to secure his customer, both by selling him his goods at a profit so small that he need have little fear of any neighbor's underselling him, and also by granting every possible accommodation as to the time and manner of payment.
A moderately thoughtful man will by this time begin to think the elements of toil and of perplexity already suggested sufficient for the time and strength of any man, and more than he would wish to undertake. But experience alone could teach him in how many ways indulged customers can and do manage to make the profit they pay so small, and the toil and vexation they occasion so great, that the jobber is often put upon weighing the question, Should I not be richer without them? Thus, for example, some of them will affect to doubt that the jobber wishes to sell to them, and propose, as a test, that he shall let them have some choice article at the cost, or at less than the cost, now on one pretext, and now on another,—intimating an indisposition to buy, if they cannot be indulged in that one thing. If they carry their point, that exceptional price is thenceforth claimed as the rule. Another day the concession will be asked on something else; and by extending this game so as to include a number of jobbers, these shrewd buyers will manage to lay in an assorted stock on which there will have been little or no profit to the sellers. To cap the climax of vexation, these persons will very probably come in, after not many days, and propose to cash their notes at double interest off. Only an official of the Inquisition could turn the thumb-screw so many times, and so remorselessly.
But we have yet to consider the collection of debts. The jobber who has not capital so ample as to buy only for cash is expected invariably to settle his purchases by giving his note, payable at bank on a fixed day. He pays it when due, or fails. Not so with his customers: multitudes of them shrink from giving a note payable at bank, and some altogether refuse to do so. They wish to buy on open account; or to give a note to be paid at maturity, if convenient,—otherwise not. The number of really prompt and punctual men, as compared with those who are otherwise, is very small. The number of those who never fail is smaller still. The collection-laws are completely alike, probably, in no two States. Some of them appear to have been constructed for the accommodation, not of honest creditors, but of dishonest debtors. In others, they are such as to put each jobber in fear of every other,—a first attachment taking all the property, if the debt be large enough, leaving little or nothing, usually, for those who have been willing to give the debtor such indulgence as might enable him to pay in full, were it granted by all his creditors.
No jobber can open his letters in the morning in the certainty of finding no tidings of a failure. No jobber, leaving his breakfast-table, can assure his wife and children, sick or well, that he will dine or sup with them; any one of a dozen railroad-trains may, for aught he knows, be sweeping him away to some remote point, to battle with the mischances of trade, the misfortunes of honest men, or the knavery of rogues and the meshes of the law. Once in the cars, he casts his eye around in uneasy expectation of finding some one or more of his neighbors bound on the same errand. While yet peering over the seats in front of him, he is unpleasantly startled by a slap on the shoulder, and, "Ah, John! bound East? What's in the wind? Any ducks in these days?" "Why,—yes,—no,—that is, I'm going down along,—little uncertain how far,—depends on circumstances." "So, so,—I see,—mum's the word." Well, neither is quite ready to trust the other,—neither quite ready to know the worst; so long as a blow is suspended, it may not fall; and so, with desperate exertions, they change the subject, converse on things indifferent,—or subside into more or less moody meditations upon their respective chances and prospects.
Any jobber who has seen service will tell you stories without number of these vexatious experiences, sometimes dashed with the comical in no common measure. He will tell you of how they arrived at the last town on the railroad, some six or seven of them; of how not a word had been lisped of their destination; of the stampede from the railroad-station to the tavern; of the spirited bids for horses and wagons; of the chop-fallen disappointment of the man for whom no vehicle remained; of his steeple-chase a-bareback; and of their various successes with writs and officers, in their rush for the store of the delinquent debtor. Of three such Jehus, the story goes, that, two of them having bought the monopoly of the inside of the only vehicle, and, in so doing, as they thought, having utterly precluded any chance for the third, their dauntless competitor instantly mounted with the driver, commenced negotiations for the horse, which speedily resulted in a purchase, and thereupon detached the horse from the vehicle, drove on, and effected a first attachment, which secured his debt.
The occurrence of "a bad year" compels many a jobber to abandon his store and home for one, two, or three months together, and visit his customers scattered all over the land, to make collections. Then it is that the power of persuasion, if possessed, is brought into efficient use; discrimination, too, is demanded; good judgment, and power of combination. For a debt that cannot be paid in money may possibly be paid partly in money, or in merchandise of some sort, and in part secured; and, among the securities offered, to choose those which will involve the least delay is generally no easy matter.
To those who, without experience, are commencing a jobbing-business, a capital of thirty, forty, or fifty thousand dollars seems an inexhaustible fund. Experience teaches that an incautious and unskilful man may easily bury even the largest of these sums in a single season. If not actually lost, it has in effect ceased to be capital, because it cannot be collected, and the notes he has taken are such as will not be discounted.
Success in the jobbing-business makes such demand on talent and capacity as outsiders seldom dream of. Half-a-dozen Secretaries of State, with a Governor and a President thrown in, would not suffice to constitute a first-class jobbing-firm. The general or special incompetency of these distinguished functionaries in their several spheres may probably be covered by the capacity of their subordinates. The President of these United States—of late years, at all events—is not supposed to be in a position to know whether the will is or is not "a self-determining power." But no jobbing-firm can thus cloak its deficiencies, or shirk its responsibilities. Goods must be bought, and sold, and paid for; and a master-spirit in each department, capable of penetrating to every particular, and of controlling every subordinate, cannot be dispensed with. He must know that every man to whom he delegates any portion of his work is competent and trustworthy. He must be able to feel that the thing which he deputes to each will be as surely and as faithfully done as though done by his own hand. No criticism is more common or more depreciatory than that "Such a one will not succeed, because he has surrounded himself with incompetent men."
It is much to be regretted that it cannot be said, that no man can succeed in the jobbing-business who is not a model of courtesy. Unhappily, our community has not yet reached that elevation. But this may with truth be affirmed,—that many a man fails for the want of courtesy, and for the want of that good-will to his fellows from which all real courtesy springs. There is small chance for any man to succeed who does not command his own spirit. There is no chance whatever for an indolent man; and, in the long run, little or no chance for the dishonest man. The same must be said for the timid and for the rash man. Nor can we offer any encouragement to the intermittent man. From year's end to year's end, the dry-goods jobber finds himself necessitated to be studying his stock and his ledger. He knows, that, while men sleep, the enemy will be sowing tares. In his case, the flying moments are the enemy, and bad stock and bad debts are the tares. To weed out each of these is his unceasing care. And as both the one and the other are forever choking the streams of income which should supply the means of paying his own notes, his no less constant care is to provide such other conduits as shall insure him always a full basin at the bank. Nobody but a jobber can know the vexation of a jobber who cannot find money to cash his notes when they are beginning to be thrown into the market at a price a shade lower than his neighbor's notes are sold at.