Even after the coffees have been sold and paid for, there still remains an important task, and that is to redeem the signature coupons which the consumers cut from the packages and return for premiums. Lest some regard this as an insignificant phase of the business, it may be stated that in a single year the premium department has received over one hundred and eight million coupons calling for more than four million premiums. These premiums included 818,928 handkerchiefs; 261,000 pairs of lace curtains; 238,738 shears; and 185,920 Torrey razors. Finger rings are perennial favorites, and so insistent is the demand for the rings offered as premiums, that Arbuckle Bros. are regarded as the largest distributors of finger rings in the world. One of their premium rings is a wedding ring; and if all the rings of this pattern serve their intended purpose, it is estimated that the firm has assisted at eighty thousand weddings in a year.
Turning from the utilities at the plant to the trades and professions represented, other than the trained sugar and coffee workers, the following are constantly employed: physicians, chemists, mechanical engineers, civil engineers, electrical engineers, railroad engineers and brakemen, steamboat captains and engineers, chauffeurs, teamsters, wagon-makers, harness-makers, machinists, draughtsmen, blacksmiths, tinsmiths, coppersmiths, coopers, carpenters, masons, painters, plumbers, riggers, typesetters and pressmen, and last but not least, the chef and table waiters.
One of the most remarkable things about the growth of this business enterprise is that it is not the result of buying out, or consolidating with, competitors; but has resulted from a steady wholesome growth along conservative business lines. Consolidations are often desirable and effective; but when a great business has been built without any such consolidations, the conclusion is inevitable that somewhere in the establishment there must have been a corresponding amount of wisdom, foresight, energy, and honorable business dealing. Those were the things for which John Arbuckle stood firm, and for which he will always be remembered.
Jabez Burns, Inventor, Manufacturer, Writer
Jabez Burns was a person of real importance to the American coffee trade from 1864, when he began to manufacture his improved roaster, until his death, at the age of sixty-two, in 1888. His success depended more on unusual character than unusual ability, although he was really gifted as regards mechanical invention. He loved to acquire practical information, and arrived confidently at common-sense conclusions; and he exercised a wide and helpful influence, because he liked to give expression to opinions that he considered sound and useful.
Mr. Burns was born in London in 1826. The family moved soon after to Dundee, Scotland, and came to New York in 1844. They were people of small means and independent thinking. The father, William G. Burns, had been more interested in the Chartist social movement than in any settled business activity. An uncle, also named Jabez Burns, became a popular Baptist preacher in London.
The first winter in America found youthful Jabez teaching a country school at Summit, N.J. Then he began in New York (1844–45) as teamster for Henry Blair, a prosperous coffee merchant who attended a little "Disciples" church in lower Sixth Avenue where many Scottish families congregated. There also Burns met Agnes Brown, daughter of a Paisley weaver, and married her in 1847. A brave young pair they were, who found all sorts of odd riches—just as if a fast-growing family could somehow make up for a slow-growing income. There were hopes, too, that the contrivances Burns kept inventing might bring wealth; and some extra money did come from the sale of early patents, including one in 1858 for the Burns Addometer, a primitive adding machine.
But Mr. Burns had continued regularly in the employ of coffee and spice firms, and at one time he was bookkeeper for Thomas Reid's Globe Mills. He advanced slowly, because he lacked real trading talent; but he was learning all about the handling of goods, from purchase to final delivery; and when he quit bookkeeping for the old Globe Mills, and began to build his patent roaster, he could advise clients reliably about every factory detail.
He was soon looked on as an authority. He wrote some articles for the American Grocer, a series on "Food Adulteration" being reprinted; and in 1878, he began the quarterly publication of his thirty-two-page Spice Mill, which soon became a monthly, and gained the interested attention of practically the entire coffee and spice trade.
Through the columns of this paper, in circulars, by letters, and in a pocket volume called the Spice Mill Companion, he distributed information on coffee, spices, and baking powder, and gave valuable advice to beginners in the coffee-roasting business. Not a few coffee roasters were started on the way to fortune by the counsel of Jabez Burns. He died in New York, September 16, 1888.