Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 22, Number 89, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 July 1901 — Department Stores. [ARTICLE]

Department Stores.

In “Shopping in New Ysrk” a writer in the Century gives a vivid description of the magnitude of retail business. Under the roof of the largest of these retail establishments there are gathered every morning, before the arrival of a single customer, three thousand three hundred and eighty-nine men, women and children, a community In itself; distributed at intervalo throughout the building from the engine-room, two stories below the street, to the little aeries of shops up under the skylights, where milliners and furriers are at work. This number does not Include tho buyers, the drivers and the stablemen, nor any of those engaged In the purchase and distribution of articles. A special department has necessarily been organised to meet the requirement* of shoppers by m»iL Ther? are often as roaby as sixty young men nnd women employed In It. From three to fonr hundred letters are received dally, sometimes ss many as & thousand.