Evening Republican, Volume 17, Number 146, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 June 1913 — STORIES from the BIGCITIES [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

STO RIES from the BIGCITIES

New York’s Second Hand Queen Moves Up Town

NEW YORK.’—A new woman merchant has just moved from downtown into the theatrical district of West Forty-second street. She is Mary J. McShane, who lived next door to "Paddy” Divver’s where, at No. 5 Madison street, she did a thriving Ibusiness for thirty-seven years, bought the land occupied by her store and reared a family of ten children. ‘Til tell you how I did it all,” she ®ald the other day. "I was a child in ■Cork, Ireland, whpn my father was buying gold laca and the discarded trappings of the English officers who were suddenly ordered 1 to India and •other parts of, the empire. He was «uch a fine, square'man that he had friends everywhere. As the officers ■changed their barracks, my father not ■only bought all the regimentals and supplies, but got the gowns and draperies of the ladies, so that I instinctively absorbed a knowledge of values. “When I came to New York in 1872

as a girl, I was ready to buy anything. knowing well that I could sell at a good profit. First I bought little job lots of ornaments; then household goods, until I £ook the contents of entire tenement houses. “Presently I had the monopoly of the best yearly hotel sales of the city and was making money rapidly when I expanded into a still higher branch of the business. The hotel mfn introduced me to representatives of rich New York families until I began to have the patronage of the four hundred.’

“It may surprise lots of people to know that thousands of beautiful garments are sold every year in New York because families go Into mourning or suddenly go to Europe. Mourning means selling their colored clothing. In Europe they want the Paris styles, and so sell moi t of their wardrobes before leaving here. Then thousands of families take apartments and give up housekeeping in their homes. I buy everything they have to sell, from silks and satins to diamonds and jewelry that longer meet-their taste. Others sell because they want money. Few know how many people meet with reverses in the course of a year. Every day lam receiving notes to call at fine mansions to look over the wardrobes and set a price.”