Democratic Sentinel, Volume 19, Number 33, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 August 1895 — Shop-Keeping in Mexico. [ARTICLE]

Shop-Keeping in Mexico.

Every shop and magazine bears a title. This custom has its humorous side. “The Store of the Two Hemispheres” may be no more than three yards square, while “The Magazine of the Globe” carries a stock worth about $25. But in the larger cities there are numbers of finely stocked emporia of different classes of goods. The position of clerk in one of these great mercantile establishments is much in demand, for what reason it would be hard to say, excepting that the comparative seclusion of the young women makes it somewhat difficult to meet them often, unless one be a special attendant in a dry goods store, in which case conversation is allowed to flow unreservedly. Many a love affair has begun with a discussion concerning pins, or other trifles indispensable to fair shoppers. In all the mercantile establishments there is the lingular custom of pelon, which apparently counterbalances any attempt at overcharging on the part of the proprietors. When you become a regular customer, a tiny tin cylinder is provided and hung up in the store in full view of everybody, marked with your name and number. Every time that you make a purchase a bean is dropped down into the cylinder, and at stated T tJfloflS these are all counted; and for Ayery sixteen or eighteen, depending upon the commercial generosity of the Arm, you are allowed six cents in money or goods. This custom must be one of great antiquity. The word “pelon” means a stone or other crude (weight with which It was in ancient days customary to balance the scales used in the market.