CHAPTER IX.

GETTING MONEY BY MERCHANDIZING-CONCluded.

THE TRUE MAN OF BUSINESS.

"As a nail sticketh fast between the joinings of the stones, says Ecclesiasticus, "so doth sin between buyer and seller." The writer does not mean to assert this as an unvarying fact, but to indicate a general tendency. There is temptation, there is peril to integrity, in the position and attitude of a trader; and this danger should be pointed out so that it may be avoided. It is a fearful thing to stand face to face with the fact that, if I were only able to buy such a one's property, or sell him mine, before he could receive the news brought from Europe by the last steamship, my fortune would be made. It must be hard for a merchant to know that if to-day's telegraphic dispatches would only embody the news, even though false, of a killing frost throughout the cotton-growing region, or the conflagration of all the mercantile quarter of New Orleans, he would be solvent and wealthy, while in the absence of such tidings he must inevitably suspend payment. Mercantile integrity is subjected to trials of which the farmer or artisan lives and dies in happy unconsciousness-trials none the less real that we all know how false and fleeting is the success or deliverance achieved through wrong-doing. For ages, for centuries, men have repeated, parrot-like, the axiom that "Honesty is the best policy;" yet how many profoundly realize its truth? How many really believe that a man in pecuniary difficulty who might extricate himself by a night of fortunate gaming would be most unwise in consenting to do so? It is so easy to be superficially honest, in the absence of any strong temptation to knavery, that a great many who are ingrained rascals have never yet suspected the fact.

A youth launches gayly and hopefully on the sea of active life, and sails smoothly on its placid bosom, impelled by gentle, favoring gales, unthinking of peril and unsuspecting the neighborhood of adversity—what can he learn from such a voyage? In the absence of danger, what is proved by his freedom from fear? Blest with abundance and ease, what merit is there in his refraining from deception and robbery. And thus it chances that very much which passes current for honesty is only undeveloped or undetected knavery.

Integrity is the corner-stone of the character of the true man of business, in whose absence the whole edifice topples to its ruin. It is quite possible, nay, it is notorious, that dishonest men have acquired wealth by traffic; but they are exceptions to the general rule, and their success, hollow and unreal at best, was a consequence of some good quality they possessed, and not of their lack of the best quality of all. If twenty have succeeded out of one hundred merchants who have traded in any county, or in any particular block in some city, at least fifteen of them would prove, on a careful scrutiny, to have been more upright and conscientious than the great mass of their less fortunate rivals. Vainly shall a man hope to live and thrive by buying and selling after his neighbors, his customers, have learned by sad experience that his word is not reliable that his representations of the cost or quality of his wares are not to be trusted. Of two persons of equal capacity, who have been ten years in trade, one having acquired therein only experience, with the decided confidence of his neighbors and a fair circle of dealers and customers, while the other has amassed some twenty thousand dollars, but at the cost of a reputation for slipperiness and dishonesty, the latter is this day the poorer man, as time will clearly establish.-Nothing is more common, or more fatal than the grasping of an advantage at the cost of ten times its value; and he who has traded out his neighbor's good opinion is pretty certain to die a poor man, however high the price for which he sold it.

But integrity, though indispensable, is not all-sufficient as a basis, of the true mercantile character. The true merchant must be impelled to his vocation by a conviction that therein can he best serve

God by blessing mankind. The merchant is an intermediate, an electric wire, a channel of intercourse, between producers in different sections, climes, or countries. Since it is certain that the heat of the tropics, germinates and ripens many useful plants which could never mature under the skies of the temperate zone, while even the polar regions contribute many things to the sustenance and comfort of man which could not be advantageously produced elsewhere, the honest and capable exchanger of the diverse products of these varying latitudes is a common benefactor. Though not literally a producer, he is essentially and practically so, by enabling each customer to satisfy his legitimate wants more cheaply and thoroughly than he otherwise could do, and thereby inciting to greater activity and efficiency in production. Without commerce, many who now earn and enjoy the material comforts of civilization would rest contented with the few, rude, and scanty devices and satisfactions of barbarism. Commerce increases both the impulses toward and facilities for perpetual progress in the useful arts, whereof intellectual progress is the natural counterpart and concomitant. The merchant, therefore, whose sole attachment to his calling is a sordid lust of gain, coupled with a belief that he can acquire property faster or easier by exchanging others' products than by directly producing himself, is most unlikely to honor his vocation, or even to be eminently successful in the ranks of its votaries.

Assuming, then, that integrity, with an earnest conviction that this is for him the path of duty and of philanthropy, should form the bases of the character and career of a true. merchant, let me proceed to indicate some of the qualities and capabilities for which he should be distinguished:

I. He should be methodical and exact in his calculations and dealings. His promises, however casual their origin or trivial their subject, should be performed to the letter, and he should insist on the like good faith from others, under penalty of never confiding a second time in one who has forfeited his word. The property or interest immediately involved may be of trifling value, but truth is no trifle. The merchant should, as early as practicable, separate his customers and others with whom he deals into two classes

those whose word is to be implicitly relied on, and the other sortand thenceforth, treat each class according to their respective merits. To the latter he should say frankly, whenever the proper opportunity presents itself: "I cannot again confide in your word, because you have shown me that you either cannot or will not redeem it. I do not judge you; but, if I trust at all, it must be some one who fulfils his promises at whatever inconvenience or sacrifice." By this course, he will perpetually and strongly inculcate the advantages of probity and fidelity, and thus conduce to their increase and diffusion.

II. He should inflexibly set his face against any system of loose, general credit on goods purchased for consumption. Credit is an excellent, a most beneficent device; but, like most good things, is susceptible of the greatest abuse. A poor young man, qualified to manage a farm or conduct some mercantile business, seeks credit for his farm or his stock, and perhaps for some share of his seeds and implements; though every man should earn something by working for others before running in debt for the outfit of an independent business. The merchant who sells largely may very well require credit for some part of his new stock, if he has taken notes which he cannot readily turn for the old one. But neither farmer, mechanic, nor any body else should run up bills from week to week for food and clothing, but should make a point of paying for his subsistence as he may require it. The neglect of this rule is one main cause of the prevalence of extravagance, over-trading, and general insolvency, frequently resulting in mercantile bankruptcy and general revulsion. The humble cultivator who owes for half his farm and cannot turn off more than two or three hundred dollars' worth of produce per annum, out of which one hundred dollars must be paid as interest on his debt, is often tempted, by the facility of obtaining credit, to buy silks and satins for his wife and daughters, broadcloth and fine boots for his sons, or allow them to buy such for themselves on his account, when he can by no means afford such expenditures. It is the duty of the true merchant to resist and correct this tendency, by insisting on prompt payment for all purchases except under peculiar circumstances. Cash should be the general rule; credit the rare exception. The

poor man who has encountered some sudden and severe calamity, such as the burning of his house or the destruction of his crops by hurricane or flood, may very properly be proffered credit for a season at cash prices; so may the poor widow whose children, this year at school, will be earning wages and able to help her next season. But in all ordinary cases the merchant, if only from a patriotic regard for the general well-being, should inflexibly refuse to sell on credit, since such selling is, and ever must be, to the uncircumspect majority, a temptation and facility for general improvidence and over-trading." Mr. President," said the eccentric John Randolph, interrupting himself in one of his Senatorial diatribes, "I have discovered the Philosopher's Stone!—It consists of four short words of homely English-' Pay as you go.'

III. On the same principle the true merchant will carefully consider, in selecting his goods, not merely whether he can sell them at a profit, but whether that profit, should he accept it, would not be made at the expense of the moral and pecuniary welfare of the community. He might seem to make a large profit on alcoholic beverages, implements of gaming, &c.; but he knows, in the first place, that he has no moral right to make money in any such way; and, next, that all the devil's gold that may thus be realized is sure to vanish, like dream-won treasure, even while the hand fiercely clutches it. The merchant who sells intoxicating liquors is burning up his customers for the little fat he can fry out of them, and wasting nine-tenths of it in the process. He gets some twenty dollars clear profit on a pipe of brandy, and uses up, by selling it, a customer, out of whom he had made fifty dollars a year, and who, falling into intemperance and insolvency, does him out of two hundred dollars or so charged on his books. Thus, all traffic which panders to vicious appetites is ruinous to the legitimate business of the dealer, and every dollar of profit he secures by it costs him ten, twenty, or thirty; but, even if such were not the fact, he has no right to seek gain through the enlargement of Satan's kingdom. The end of his mortal existence is quite other than that. He is here to do good and not evil-to erect barriers to the spread of vice, and not to facilitate and profit by its diffusion. He may, indeed, have a good opportunity to secure gain in this way; but to argue