Daily Tribune, Volume 17, Number 72, Terre Haute, Vigo County, 10 February 1903 — Page 8

START OF FAKIRS' KING

AS NEWSBOY AT 14 HE INVENTED A NEW BUSINESS

HAS GROWN AtRMY OF FAKIRS

Merchant Quick To Seek His AidSpread of'the Peddler's Trade.

It was thirty live years ago this winter that a New York newsboys originated the fakir business. _1

This boy wa.lked into the Nassau street store of one of his daily customers one morning and said: "Mr. Hughes, I:vj been thinking over -what you said to me the other day about not always being a newsboy. You know you told me to come to see you when

I'd an idea of what I wanted to do." •"Yes," replied the hardware merchant, "I remember. Tell me what von think you'd like to be." "Well." said the fourteen-year-old lad, '"I've been noticing lately that nobody sells anything to the crowds on the street except a. few foreigners, who don't half try to peddle their feather dusters. I'd liko to sell things on the street." "But they don't make a living, and how could you do any better?" asked the merchant. "You give me a chance with something, and I'll show you right here two blocks from your store," replied the boj\ "I've thought it all but—and all I've got to do is to yell." _"To what?" the merchant askedi. "To yell," said the boy. "Let* 'em kuow I'm selling things and get a crowd Around me." "By jove,"' the man ejaculated, half to himself after a moment's thought over the boy's idea, "we'll try it."

Then he went to a show ease in which lie kept pocket knives. He took out two dozen and handed them to the boy. "These haven't been selling well," he remarked, "but maybe you can do something wim t.hem." "Tell me about 'em," saidi the boy. "Well." said the merchant, "they've the same name as the former BlRnk knife mnde in England, but they are made in this country by a man of the Same name and are supposed to sell for 50 cents, wnile the English knife sells for $1.50."

Five minutes later the boy had taken up lus stand in front of the old postoffice building on Nassau sreet and was veiling with all his power." "Blank pocket knives, only 50 cents! Step up lively, £erits: get 'em while they last! Blank pocket knives only 50 ents—50 cents—50 cents!"

In less than twenty minutes the boy had sold his stock. He returned immediately to 31r. Hughes' store. "I've sold all the knives," he said sim plv. as he laid the money on a counter, "and I've come for two dozen more." "Mercy on us!" was the exclamation with which the merchant expressed his astonishment. 'How'd you do it?" ".J\ist yelled, as I said I would," replied the boy. "What did you yell?"' asked the man.

The boy told him. •And didn't lie. either." he added, "for didn't say they were the famous Blank knives."

The answer quickly secured the hoy two dozen more knives. He pocketed their, went to the stand, and. as with the lirst lot. soldi them in a jiffy.

For the seeOnd time he returned toi the store and asked for another two dozen, but Mr. Hughes would not accommodate him. He was a cautious soul. •'NTo more, today, George," he said. "Let's wait and see. whether anybody makes a. complaint. You come in tomorrow, and if everything is all right, T'll supply you with more knives. But before you go want to give you your share of the sales—10 per cent. Thats v~.40."

The, next day the boy was at the store when Mr. Hughes arrived. As the latter had heard no complaints he again sent the b6y out with a lot of knives, and before the day was over the youngster had disposed of a gross. And in a week he had sold every' American Blank knife in the store, something the merchant had vainly tried to do for over a Jftar.

Tft Such, manner the fakir trade -was dHjfifiSted. which today gives steady em plrtftfient to hundreds of men and reprents a'h invested capital of several hundred thousand dollars. And the boy who conceived?, the idea'is at the head of the business which he has spent a life time in organizing, with the result that his fortiinf is estimated at half a million dollars. "Respite the fact," as lie says, "that T've had to raise and educate afamilv of el£v6ii children."

Inde^dj this! one man had a practical niono^dlj of the fakir business. Wherever a Jtffiet fakir— 6r street man, as lie prefers to be called—is. found, it is pretty safe to assume that he is barking his wares

a commission, for the

original street man, often dubbed, to his disgust, "the king of the Fakirs." For the" king i%thas an office and two 1 war^hoiiSfe ill New Yotk, but branch officeS, With jiidrerdoms, in Boston, Philadelphia, Chieigo, St. Louis and a half dozcrt other c-ities, fro«i which tfife fekirs of the pa*ta df the iare £up|lied and sent but to sell the novel lies.

FrSSrrt the selhrig .ptffeket kniveS. thfe koi«. a& the rtieri eftll him, his hfi bw|"^s totttil nttW it reacjliits

Wdfe, ft fetanch hiving

tWn ^stlfcrtsh^i in Shh, Frartcf.^e ottly a v?Ar ei- ip li has iftfteyer

Kn'a Vo

"meet i'ny ctWnpetftidifi %torth

spenkinR of. ... T^e mail's story Of hdw he haJs Evolved mt if* W ii wtjif. things it tetts Vow t^y. tft'e ^rfShOTxt the 'trtfBk We iTrougho

.. m^am

into the business: how merchants pleaded with a mere boy to help them get rid of stock that had encumbered shelves for years and why tlie street men are ordered never to tell a lie in order to dispose of their wares. "Just as I was about through selling the knives," he said t?ie other day, "an importer of Japanese trinkets caine to me while I was standing in front of the old postoffice in Nassau street and said: "I've been watching your success with the knives-and I "believe you can hel{i me sell some stuff-I've had on my hands for a year or so."". "I went with the man to his store arid he snowed me gross on gross of small -Japanese handkerchief boxes and smaller boudoir ornaments. For some reason or other the retailers, hadn't been able to make, 'em go. and as a result, the wholesaler found t^iat he had made a bad investment/ ':'\K• •"Well, after he had' promised to give me a commission of 15 per cent "on what 1 could sell. I started thinking out how I'd go about it. The knives I carried in my pockets, holding two or three at a time in my hamf. But 1 couldn't do that with the Japanese stuff, and. besides, J'd an idea that, if could display them some way, the people would be attracted by the colors. "Suddenly, while I was trying to study out the problem, I thought of how waiters carry dishes and trays, and I hurried away to a friend who was a carpenter. "1 want you to: make me a tray of light wood," I said, "so I can hang it around my neck or carry it easily. And I 'described the tray that today is used by street men. "He made it for me in an hour _or so. I paid iiim $1 for the job arid went back to the store. I explained my scheme to the merchant and he fell in with it at once and heaped the tray with handker chief boxes and pin cushions and ink stands and what not. "And you can sell 'em all at the sfcme price—a quarter apiece," he said.' "I went to nty first stand in frdnt of the old postofliee and say, voii should have seen the meh.and women -fight to get those knick-knacks. Why, in two weeks time I'd cleaned out the wholesalers stock and had put $350 in the pavings bank.' Yes, sir, and I waa only 14 years old, and by the tirtie I was' 15 I'd $500 in the bank. and1, besides-I kept my mother and myself. Not bad for a boy. eh?'/ .•" "Do you know, when I began bringing home so much money to mother she couldn't believe I'd earned it honestly— thought there was something crooked somewhere. And she was not entirely satisfied that everything was all right until I'd let her come downtown one day and standi by me while I made sales. After that, she was so proud of me that she couldn't help talking to all the neighbors about me all the time. "Well, that's how the tray came into the business, and the next step in the evolution was the pushcart. "A few months after I'd cleaned up the handkerchief boxes—in the meantime I'd sold odds and ends that different merchants furnished me—I got a chance to handle some new-fangled clocks that had n't been going well. You see, I've always made a point of selling things that other people can't. That's what has made this business and makes it profitable, for articles that can't be sold in the regular way I can secure at sacrifice rates, sell them for a good deal less than the original prices and still come out ahead. "At first I sold entirely on commission, but for many years I've been buying outright as well, and in all that time I've been stuck only twice through bad judgment. "Well, when 1 got a chance at the clocks 1 saw at once tjiat the tray would be useless. As ,luck .would .have, .it' I knew a Cornish man, called Banana John, because he ran a*- little banana stand and delivered his goods on a pushcart. I got him to let me have the cart for a day for a dollar and this I loaded with clocks. "I sold a hundred the first, day at $1. The second day sold seventy and the third day about fifty. "But I didn't like the way the sales dropped off. and I worried about it. Finally. I got an idea that if I'd hire two or three men to help me' sell the clocks, and in this way work different parts of the, town at the same time, the sales would go up again. And they did and the four of us madn "things hum until the last clock was gone. "It. was not until I'd introduced the one horse wagon, though, that I opened up an office and began regularly employing men and systematically pushing the business. That experience made me feel sure of myself and convinced me that T'd easily got hold of an extremely good thing. "Like many another merchant, a wholesale dealer in Japanese goods came to me once and asked me to-accompany him to his office. When we arrived there he showed me row after row of Japanese cabinets, about three feet high and a foot and a half wide, with lacquer and mpther-of-pearl work showing ex tensively. ... "I want you to sell them for me, he said. "I:told him I couldn't—they were too bulky and nobody would "pay^the'$3 he wanted me to sell them for. "He arguecl with me for half an hour but I hesitated. At, last he said in a pleading

Avay: I

"Won't you please try it for me? I've got to raise all the. mdney I possibly can within the next few days a.nd-.if you can make the cabirtets go, I'rti saved. "That settled1

it.

I felt sorry for the

man and I said I'd try to help him. I went out and hiredt'a• huckster's. wagon and loaded it with cabinets in such a way that tlie peart work showed up in fine style. Theai I drove in front of the Stock fixehange, for somehow I.felt that the brokers would fuy them if anybody \vould. "And. Lord, how them fellers swarmed round me and bought. Why, they rorked me into a heavy perapirati«n ih

no tijne, and that day I sold tljree wagonloads to them, seventy-five to the load. "As I said, this experience led me to quit the street, open up an office arid employ other men to sell for me. Since then I've spent

time, training up

Street men, gradually extending the busi ness over the country .and'• listening to, and, if somewhat impressed, investigating propositions that arc made to me jby wholesale houses, inventors and manufacturers from everywhere. "From selling poeketknives the business has grown until in my

you can find almost anything under the sun from clothing to what a human being can make use of in one way or another. "The latest scheme that I've evolved is.the use of big two-horse 'tracks.' I load it with boxes of the latest specialty, put glaring signs,on the sidles and send three men,besides the driver out with it. They make so much noise yelling in concert that tney never fail to attract a crowd, and once you get a crowd around you the rest is easy."

The King of Fakirs paused for a mo ment and then continued: "And,, say, maybe you won't believe it, but there's very little lying done'in this business. I know the public doesn't think so, but it's true. I never told a lie when I was a street man—the things went all right on their fa.ee, because they were bargains. And I have always ordered my men not to lie about their goods. "If things can't be sold without lies I don't believe in sellin' them. If you'll listen for a moment to the next street man. you run across you'll find that, while he glowingly pictures th^merits of his wares—and all the store merchants do the same thing—yet he sticks to the tifuth. "How have I managed to get a monopoly on the business Simply by keeping up with the times and doing first what the other fellow kicks himself for not thinking about until it is too late. That| sir. is the secret of my success, arid, I believe, of success in general."

HOW TO BUY ON STOCK MARKET

Pointers From a Young Man In a Broker's Office. It is an established fact that people who are inclined to speculate, never get intensely interested in a market until they .see prices 'steadily advancing. There seems a time when real bargains are offered on the New York Stock Exchange, but when the opportunity offers itself, the general public has come to ths conclusion that the bottom is out and prices are going to the devil—so to speak.

It is only natural that prices .of. the various commodities should rise anil fall —that's what makes a market. If things went one way all the time, some of the brokers would not be in business today. Now I have said that when the prices soar, our friends are interested so we will say they buy for their respective accounts some stock thit has had a comfortable advance. Soon a. reaction sets in and they are discouraged —a decline of five points finds them a trifle shaky and they sell out—nearly always at.the bottohi. What has probably had more to do with the uneasy sentiment than anything else, is the awful solar plexus blow, the Stock Exchange received the 9th. day of May, two years ago. You. are aware that, there is an old saying that runs like this: "A burnt child dreads fire," so with that fatal day ever before them they naturally undergo a peculiar feeling when .they see stocks breaking sharply andl dispose of their holdings. The pa.nic on that date was not legitimate—we are all conscious of that iriuch —hut nevertheless, it wounded the little fish and 'twill be many a moon before it fades from, their memory.

It is, my opinion, however,. that some of us will have passed to tlie great beyond befbre we again find ourselves in the midst of another "Blue Thursday," such as the one I have just related. I coritend that when the railroad's throughout he country are as prosperous as they are at the present time it is always well to invest in good stocks after they have suffered a reasonable decline—that the buying on that basis will Always bring good returns. Do not wait until prices are away out of sight. Don't hustle into the market because you feel that if you keep your hands on your pocketbooks the market in general will run a way. Always bear in mind that you are sure to be accommodated: especially when this state of things exists, for in my experience,. when the wires are kept hot with stock orders the reaction is about to take place, and you awake to find yourself strongly ^n the market—almost at the top.

A little earlier in my story I said you were sold out—"near the bottom." Now I say that you have come back to roost—"at the top," which is demonstrative of this much, that it is always best

:to.

get in after the declinc and not

when thing6 are skyward. I was once asked to execute, an order after this fashion: "You will please get me in at the bottom and get me out at the top."

Now I could hardly accomplish that wonderful feat, but this I know, I would prefer getting my clients into the market before all the good news comes out. During the past twenty days. May wheat has advanced from 74 3-4 to $2.5-8 due to the fact that Mr. Armouy was a, heavy buyer.

As usual, the public: were absolutely motionless until the pirictes ranged into the 89's. Mr. Armour's position was fully explained through-the press and An immediate decline followed. The good flews "came Out" -when the performance was all over and the public "went in" when the curtain waiv ready to be rung down. fR ^Tt is said that the richest heiress in Europe i/? the-Princess Marie Bonaparte, Whose mother, was Mile. Blattc, daughter of the original Blanc, who started the Monte Carlo gambling place. Her father is Prince Roland Bonaparte. The princess, now twenty-two years old, lives in Paris with her father..

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