Evening Republican, Volume 19, Number 57, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 March 1915 — Page 3

MAKES MONEY BY COMMON SENSE

Martha Greenlaw Is Visiting Bookkeeper to Retail Merchants. FOUND HER PLACE IN WORLD Noting the Habitual Lack of Method Of Smaller Shopkeepers, She Hat Been Earning Good Salary by Correcting Their Errors. By RICHARD SPILLANE. (Copyright. McClure Newspaper Syndicate.) The boss, in announcing that there was to be a redistricting- of the branch food products houses, was delighted. His branch was to be closed but he was to hare charge of another in a larger city and was to have an Increase of salary. He wanted to take most of his subordinates with him. He told Martha Greenlaw, who had been his bookkeeper for seven years, that she was to be transferred with him.

Miss Greenlaw went home with no sense of elation. What was an ordinary happening to a big business concern was a matter of supreme importance to her. If she moved ft meant the breaking up of her home, the sale at a sacrifice or the rental of the little house she had purchased out of her savings and to which she was greatly attached, separation, from friends of a lifetime and the opening of a new existence under conditions she never had known before. She might face the change alone but it would go hard with her mother. Her mother was old and none too strong. Martha was her sole support. It is difficult for an old tree to fake root in new soil. Miss Greenlaw thought it all out for herself. She knew she was a good bookkeeper but she also knew it was no easy matter to get as good a position as the one she held. The more consideration she gave to the matter the more convinced she was that she couldn’t leave the home town. She told the boss. He said he was sorry. Then he forgpt Miss Greenlaw. His mind was full of the details of moving and' the big prospects before him in his new field. Following the ordinary method Miss Greenlaw went among her business friends and acquaintances looking for a job as bookkeeper. Most of them told her times were dull. None of them knew of a vacancy just then but they assured her they would keep her in mind and when they heard of anything they’d let her know. It usually is that way. Weeks passed an<T no work came to the woman. Then she concluded that if she was to get employment she would have to make a position for herself. Lax Methods of Retailers. One of the many things she observed in the years she worked in the -branch office of the food products company was that the average small retailer to which the company sold goods was lax in his business methods. Many of them were slow in paying their bills. Some of them got mixed in their accounts with the company and apparently didn’t keep their records straight She had heard the traveling men of the house tell remarkable stories of the slipshod ways and general carelessness of men whose trade amounted to many thousands of dollars a year. Unable to sell her services t 6 one large concern, she got to wondering If she could not sell them to a number of small ones. The more she considered the matter the more it appealed to her. She went to the credit man of a large jobbing house and told him what she had in mind. He was impressed favorably and gave her a lot of names of possible customers. She got lists from other men and started out. These lists Included millinery houses, jewelry stores, grocers, etc. The first place on her list was a general store. One glance at the exterior convinced her that It would be Useless for, her to talk to the proprietor. Everything indicated slovenly habits on the part of the oWner. It would be a hopeless job to straighten out such a man. Thenext was a jewelry house. It was neat and inviting. The owner was not too busy to give five minutes of his time to her. • She always talks well and she talked particularly well that day. She told a little about herself and about the general idea she had In mind. * Jeweler Gave Her a* Trial. “I am not a business expert, a business doctor or a business quack,” she said. “I simply am a good bookkeeper. I think the small business men need nothing so much as good bookkeeping. That has been my observation from my business career. Tou keep your own books you tell me. Possibly the time you give tor-your books could be used more advantageously by you. in looking aftpr your customers. I do not know. What I do know, however, is that proper bookkeeping will perform the same function for you in regard to your whole business as your electric light meter does in regard to your electricity or your gas meter does in respect to your gas. The meters keep books for you on your electricity and your gas. If your bills run high the meters tall you there is a leak or waste somewhere. They do not stop the

leak or the waste but they start you hunting for them. Good bookkeeping will show you where there are leaks or waste In your business if you have any. That will start you to thinking along economical lines. You can employ a cheap bookkeeper for much less than I will do the work, but what I may do in two days a less experienced bookkeeper would take a week in doing and, with all due modesty I may say, is not likely to do so well. Do you wish to engage me to give a -certain amount of time each week to your business? If you find, after a month or two, it is not to your advantage the arrangement can be discontinued.” U . The Jeweler thought over the proposition for a day and then engaged Miss Greenlaw. Within two weeks she entered into a like agreement with a retail grocer and a milliner. She took desk room in the office of a general stenographer, got her name in the telephone book and sent out an announcement of her business—visiting bookkeeper to retail merchants. It is astonishing what a bright, clever person with a well-trained mind and business knowledge can discover in a business house where system has been noticeable for its absence. That jeweler was a good artisan and a good salesman. He did a business of about |20,000 a year and employed several hands. His store was in a fairly good location, his rent not heavy and he should have been prosperous, but he had a hard time meeting his bills. He had been in the same location nine years. He owed $2,000 to the wholesale houses. They pressed him continually. If they were inclined to do so they could close up his shop at any time'. The only reason they did not was because they felt they had $2,000 invested in his business and it was perfectly safe. In addition they knew he would have to buy from them at their price and was not in a position to balk or protest He was hitched, hobbled, tied —an independent retail merchant in name but not in fact. His Business in a Jumble. One of the first things Miss Greenlaw did was to inventory the stock. The jeweler said his stock invoiced $30,000. Miss Greenlaw found ft did not invoice $15,000. There a lot of “dead” stuff in the collection, articles that had a fair value when the jeweler bought them but which passed out of style long ago. In the

stock were such things as clocks that were not much as timepieces but had all sorts of statuary to set them off. Then there were old-time cruets for oil and vinegar, neither ornamental nor particularly serviceable but certainly costly. AU this junk had been acquired from the man who had been the jeweler’s and was considered quite fashionable just after the historic meeting between Lee and Grant at Appomattox. When Miss Greenlaw tried to check up the jeweler’s books she found they were id an awful mess. She asked him to explain some discrepancies and he could not. Gradually she got to understand his method, or, rather, lack of method. When he needed money for anything he simply went to the cash drawer and took what he required. Sometimes he left a memorandum to account for the money. Sometimes he did not. At any rate he helped himself. She found, too, that he drew more out of the business for his living expenses than the business warranted. Despite the fact that he awed the wholesale houses $2,000 he had refitted his house and had paid $2,000 for furniture. One of his relatives had been seriously ill and the jeweler had paid the hospital bills. He figured all this time that with a $30,000 stock on hand he was amply able to do these things and that sooner or later he would catch iip and be able to pay off his outstanding obligations. The jeweler was greatly depressed when Miss Greenlaw made plain to him the real situation. He could not deny her findings. He had been care--less, unsystematic, loose in his business affairs. To make matters worse his bank balance was low. “I don’t see what I can do,” he said despairingly. “I may as well shut up shop.” “Oh, no,” Mias Greenlaw responded. “Nothing of the kind. Remember what I told you about the electric light meter and the gas meter. What you should do now is to give consideration to subjects of economy. You should stop one leak after iwwithar until everything is shipshape. Tour business is all right. The trouble • 7 A*- 4 ''-Av-* s '!!-'-' .■■7’. ,1 *

THE EVENING REPUBLICAN, RENSSELAER. IND.

fs, that you have not given the right kind of attention to ft. If your bookkeeping had been good you would have discovered the leaks long ago.” Miss Greenlaw’s Wisdom. He asked her to suggest things for him to do. She made various recommendations. First of all she told him he must look upon his business as an institution and not as his personal possession. Then she proposed that he put himself on a salary and that he should not take a penny in excess of that salary out of the business for himself. Next she did some figuring on the various branches of the business. The jeweler did a good deal of repair work. His way of estimating what he should charge was to guess how much time it would take to do the job, how much the material used would cost and then add 100 per cent for overhead charges and profits. She advised that a card record be kept of every repair job and on this card should be entered the time the workman was engaged on the repairs and the material he used. She- advised, too, that the charge should be based on 115 per cent instead of 100 per cent as formerly. Then she suggested that ten per cent should be added to the price of certain items of the jeweler’s stock. She considered his prices low and she ar* gued that the average person would not haggle over the price if the goods were right

That card system worked well. It had a good moral effect upon the men. They didn’t dawdle or waste time. They didn’t waste material either. This resulted in a saving, small it is true, but important nevertheless. The jeweler became more careful. He was more earnest and painstaking in everything that he did. He became a better business man. As a result he was able at the end of a year to pay off nearly all of the $2,000 which he owed to the wholesale houses. Today he is out of debt, a free man and a better merchant than he ever was before. The grocer who engaged Miss Greenlaw had some surprising things disclosed to him. She figured the various items of his business from a strictly bookkeeping standpoint. For example, she showed how it cost him about eight cents per unit to deliver his goods. Whore the delivery amounted to 32 cents gross for the goods, there was no profit to the grocer. The cost of delivery wiped out what he thought was profit She organized a neighborhood store delivery

"I Don’t Bee What I Can Do.”

system by which three retail dealer* used the same delivery equipment. This reduced the expense of delivery about one-third and made the grocer prosperous; before he simply had made a living. In a millinery establishment her card system brought about a reorganization of the working force and resulted in better work and the stoppage of a .variety of leaks. Today Miss Greenlaw has her own office and several assistants. These assistants are trained to work along the lines she laid down. She keeps the books of about twenty retailers. She is making more than twice as much money as she received when she was bookkeeper for the food products company, and she has the great satisfaction of knowing that she is doing a very good and helpful work. She says that when you come to think that the great volume of business in this country is not done by the trusts but by the small manufacturer and small merchant, it is surprising that they have managed to exist in view of the lax methods that have prevailed in regard to their bookkeeping. Most of them are all wrong in the way they figure their finances. They estimate that they ■have so much stock at a certain . amount. They never take account of depreciation of stock, of fixtures or equipment. Economically, she says, the small merchant is not half baked —not even warmed through—and that he never will be a really rood merchant until he becomes a good bookkeeper or conducts hi* business on good bookkeeping line*.

There is some difficulty in making paint adhere to cement, hnt if the cement is-first washed with 1 per cent sulphuric acid (one part concentrated acid to one hundred of water), rinsed and allowed to dry thoroughly, the paint will find the surface suitably prepared for adhesion. Or the cement may be covered with three coat* of water glass (silicate of sod*), one part to four of water, apd then painted. A first coat of linseed oil varnish followed by the usual paint i* effective— Scientific American. ? '

Oil Paint on Cement

German and. Austrian aliens are being Interned in concentration camps at various points in Canada, and have been set to useful public work—clearing land and building roads. The photograph shows a batch ot prisoners airing their bedding at Petawawa. Canada’s permanent military camp, situated in the wilds of northern Ontario.

TO PAY THE GUARD

Uncle Sam to Be Paymaster for State Militia. Proposition Receives Unanimous Approval of Senate Committee — Will Help Solve Problem of Military Un preparedness.

By EDWARD B. CLARK.

(Staff Correspondent Western Newspaper Union.) Washington.—The senate committee on military affairs has given favorable and unanimous report to a bill which will make Uncle Sam in part the paymaster of the national guardsmen of all the states in the Union. This means that every Republican and Democrat holding membership in the committee is in favor of paying the state troops out of the funds in the United States treasury, for the actual military work which" they perform. Army men hold that this will increase largely the efficiency of the National Guard, will help solve the problem of military preparedness and will largely increase the enlistments in the military organizations of all the states. This federal pay bill for the militia may not become a law at this session, but members of congress seem to think that its passage virtually is certain in the near future. Under this bill the enlisted men in the guard will be paid 25 per cent of the pay of a man of their rank in the regular service, but of course-the money will be given them only for the hours in which they are engaged "in necessary military drill, book instruction and the like. For years the officers of the National Guard from nearly every state have been advocating this measure. The government’s division of militia affairs in the war department has recommended it time after time. Congress was opposed to it, but recently seemingly there has been a complete change of sentiment, the vote in the senate committee showing this conclusively for it has been said every Democrat and every Republican in the committee gave the. measure his sanction. Regular army officers and guardsmen alike have urged that nearly all men when they are paid to do a thing, no matter how small the payment may be, feel an obligation to do IL They say that drill attendance will be increased largely, that interest in the guards’ work will be keener and that

SAPPER AT WORK

A French soldier engaged in sapping operations. ""

ALIEN PRISONERS IN CANADA MILITARY CAMP

the relations between the state troop* and the regular troops will be closer than ever. In truth the unanimous vote of the senate on this bill and the approval which has been expressed of the measure go to show seemingly that this legislation is considered to be one means of making the country more thoroughly prepared to defend itself if the occasion ever should arise when defense will be necessary.

GIRL IS VICTIM OF GOSSIP

Sent to Home for Friendless After Death of Woman She Thought Her Mother. La Crosse, Wis.—Fifteen years ago Mr. and Mrs. Fred West decided their childless home was incomplete and they resolved to adopt a baby. A little girl, one month old, was-taken by the couple, and upon her Mrs. West proceeded to lavish a mother’s love and devotion. The girl was named Hazel West. Two weeks ago Mrs. West died and the child, heartbroken over her loss, heard neighbors whisper that she.was not Mrs. West’s child. For the first time the girl learned she did not know who her parents w_gre. Unable to stand remarks made concerning her birth, the girl appeared before Judge Brindley. Inasmuch as she had never been legally adopted, the girl was sent to the home of the friendless.

POISON LOVED ONES

Heroic French Girls' Tragedy Thrills All France. Kill Their Husbands When They Find Latter, Who Were German Born, t Planned to Poison Garrison With Arsenic. Paris. —How two little French girls poisoned the busbands they loved, to save the life of an entire garrison has just been made known in Paris, and it has created a tremendous sensation. Rose and Marie Dupont, two eight-een-year-old twins were born at Ville* nipt, a small village on the Lorraine frontier. In 1912 they married two students of chemistry, named Ulrich and Wilhelm, who loved them so much that they became French citizens and bought a drug store in the town. Both unions were most happy until July 29 of last year, when the husbands received a letter from across the frontier. < Immediately both became very nervous and asked the two girls to go to their grandmother’s home in Longwy until the situation cleared. Both went to Longwy, but found that their grandmother was not there. They returned very late the next day to Villerupt. When they arrived at the drug store they found it closed. Going through the back garden they peered through the closed shutters and saw their husbands, to their great amazement, talking in quite a friendly manner to two uhlans in full uniform. They could not believe their eyes at first, but they were horrified later at the conversation they heard. A deep plot had been arranged by Ulrich and Wilhelm. They had stored a big dose of strychnine and during the night it was planned to drop it tn the wine casks reserved for the French garrison. • ? "Are you sure the dose is strong enough!” asked one of the uhlans. “Why” answered Ulrich, "it. is strong enough to kill all the garrison and its reserves.” With a low cry Rose shuddered and almost fainted., Both realized they had been fooled, and tliat instead of being loved they were the wives of the worst of scoundrels and even worse than that —traitors. “We . must act,” said Marie, “to prevent this most awful crime, even if we must commit one ourselves?’ Half an hour later they rang the front door belt They appeared very Joyous and explained their elation by saying they had heard the war had been averted. They said they were so glad that they wanted to open some wine in honor of peace and the friendly uhlan soldiers.

“HOLD THE FORT” MAN DIES

Samuel Wagner Wigwagged the Famous Message for General Sherman. Terre Haute, Ind. —When in the Civil war General John M. Corse, with a small force was holding Altoona pass, in the Kenesaw mountains, Tennessee, and signaled General Sherman for succor, the latter general caused the famous message, "Hold the fort, for I am coming,” to be wigwagged, Samuel Wagner, who died recently at the age of seventy-three at Paris, 111, did the wigwagging from a limb of a tall tree. He was a member of an Illinois regiment, from which state General Corse was accredited.

Entirely In Order.

Phoenix, Ariz. —A letter from Mollie Shane of Brooklyn, asking for the names of unmarried members of the Arizona legislature, who might be interested in a matrimonial proposition was referred to the committee onmilitia and defense.

Germane Open Rail Service.

Amsterdam. —The German administration in Belgium has announced that a limited railway service will be opened on thirteen lines In the region of Brussels, fourteen in that of Liege, five around Luxemburg and five In the vicinity of Charleroi.

Marie went out and brought back a champagne bottle. She poured the liquor and they drank it. Next morning they ran out of the house. They were widows, for they themselves had used the poison. They went straight to the chief de gendarmes and told him of their sorry plight “We have, killed our husbands,” they cried. “Do what is right with us.” But the official simply wept with them and kissed them, for it was found that the plot had been deeply laid and that the sacrifice of the girls, which has no precedent in history, had saved thousands of French troops from certain death. Marie and Rose have been critically ill and for two months were hovering between life and death, and it was feared they would lose their reason, but they have recovered, and are now Red Cross nurses. In caring for the wounded they are trying to forget their terrible lifedrama.

DR. HENRY VAN DYKE

This picture of the American minister to Holland was made during a recent visit to his home in Princeton, H.J. At-present Doctor Van Dyke tar actively engaged in aiding the homeless Belgians who have taken ref ige in Holland.