1882 



(JLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



283 



i 



iiU 



urc 



99 



This department is to be kept for the benefit of those who are 

 dlssatistled ; and when anythini? is amiss, I liope von will ' ' talk 

 right out. " As a lule. we will ouiit uamt'S auii addresses, to 

 avoid being too personal. 



f RECEIVED the book by express, with or after 

 paying charges of 80 cts. I must confess that 

 — ■ you have curious ways of doing business. I or- 

 dered my goods by mail, and sent money to pay for 

 them at your advertised rates. I sent for A B C in 

 paper, and you say that you take the liberty of send- 

 ing cloth instead of what I ordered, as though I did 

 not know what I wanted myself. If I had ordered 

 A B C in cloth, I would say nothing about it; but I 

 did not, and I want my money. .And then you say 

 I have balance left due me. That surely is a nice 

 way to use my money in goods that I did not order, 

 and leave balance in your own hands, and make me 

 pay a big bill of expressage. I am not at all satisfied, 

 and I want you to make it right at once, or quit your 

 loud claims of fair dealing. I at first said I would 

 send the goods back, but I was reminded by a friend 

 that you would then have both goods and my mon- 

 ey, and that you would charge for expressage both 

 ways, and for that reason, in part, I took them. I 

 have noticed in the journal time and again your 

 loud professions of fair dealings; now I will see 

 what you will do. I want nothing but what is right. 

 I claim that there is due me from you as follows: 

 overcharges on A B C, ~3 cts. ; balance due me, 14 

 cts.; total, 36 cts. You will please forward this 

 amount in three-cent postage-stamps at once. I hope 

 we will have no quibbling about this, but that you 

 will respond at once and redeem your honor.. 



J. L. RUTHERFOIO. 



Campbellsburg, Ind., April 24, 1883. 



I confess, friend E., I was a good deal 

 " riled " when I read the above ; but I think 

 we may get some good lessons from it after 

 all, because it strikes on several of the vital 

 points that enter into almost all troubles in 

 business transactions. We are all forgetful; 

 and when stirred up, as you doubtless were 

 when you wrote, we forget to take into con- 

 sideration the fact that we may be mistaken. 

 You say, — 



" I ordered my goods by mail, and sent money 

 enough to pay for them at your advertised rates." 



Friend R., you did not send one cent of 

 postage for the foundation, and not nearly 

 enough for the section boxes. The postage 

 on these two alone would almost pay the ex- 

 press. The closing words of your order are 

 these : — 



" If you can put the goods all in one package, and 

 send them cheaper, and get them to me just as quick 

 as by mail, I give you liberty to do so. My pobtoffice 

 or express olhce is," etc. 



Po you not see how sadly you had forgot- 

 ten? You did send enough for the cloth ABC 

 book by mail ; but as the weight of the oth- 

 er goods would bring the postage up to $1.2-5 

 or over, we of course sent by express as you 

 said (and you will notice we saved you 4.S 

 cents by so doing); and as the cloth-bound 

 are very much more durable, I directed the 

 clerk to put one in instead of paper, mean- 

 ing to give it you at tlie same price, as a sort 

 of pleasant surprise, as I often do Avlien a 

 customer buys a number of articles. By 



mistake, you were charged the price of a 

 cloth A B C when the bill was made out, and 

 this little omission provoked you, and called 

 forth the above unkind letter. " How great 

 a matter a little tire kiiidleth!'' Tlie next 

 time [ take the liberty of sending people 

 more than they pay for, I will try to have it 

 plainly stated. 



There are three points in your letter I want 

 to speak of. First, you command me, per- 

 emptorily, to return your money. No one 

 likes to be so commanded, and the disposi- 

 tion rises up strongly within me to say, 

 " Let's see you get it!'' Secondly, you say 

 you don't want any '' quibbling." I am 

 rather sorry this word quibbling has been 

 recently used as commonly as it is. Once in 

 a great while the word is needed ; but I am 

 sure it is never needed between gentlemen, 

 or even respectable business men. Third 

 and last, you meditated returning the goods, 

 because of these imagined wrongs. Sending 

 goods back, under such circumstances, or 

 under any circumstances, without iirst hav- 

 ing informed the sender, and getting his 

 consent, is upon a par with taking an ax and 

 smashing a neighbor's property because you 

 have a grudge against him. I do not know 

 how the custom started, but it is, to my 

 mind, one of the most unreasonable and un- 

 kind things I ever heard of being done. 

 Write the shipper, if j'ou choose, that the 

 goods do not please, and are subject to his 

 orders ; but never send them back until told 

 to do so, unless you are ugly enough to set 

 his house on lire, poison his dog, or some- 

 thing e(iually bad. A boy once pushed an- 

 other into the mud. The muddy one got up 

 quietly, and went along by his side as if 

 nothing had happened. ''"Why didn't you 

 push him into the mud, to pay him back V " 

 said a looker-on. " Because there would 

 have been two suits of clothes to wash, in- 

 stead of one," was the philosophic rejoinder. 

 Dear friends, are there not troubles and 

 mistakes enough, even if we all keep pleas- 

 ant, and avoid doing any thing for spite V 



SOITIE KIND WORDS FROM A nillVISTER. 



BEES AMONG THE CLERGY. 



W HAVE some one and two banded fellows that 

 J8|[ stung a Methodist ministtr who also keeps 

 bees, and who is my dear friend, very severely 

 the other day. I think he intended to show off a 

 little, and his great boldness caused him the annoy- 

 ance of an enormous upper lip, and cheeks that 

 made him look like an orang-outang. It is a good 

 joke on him. I can say, I have not been stung in 15 

 years; and why? Because I protect myself proper- 

 ly. You could not get me into the pulpit with a 

 nose like a flst, or closed eyes, and I simply do not 

 give the bees a cbance when I perform with them. 



FEEDING PAYS. 



I have been feeding to breed up, and I can tell you 

 it paj'S. I have some hives that could now occupy 

 25 frames. Box hives, and. In fact, all hives that are 

 not properly cared for, will be lost this and next 

 week if they are not already gone. There Is no 

 honey coming in now, and the bees were without 

 much for some time. I saw two swarms out of 

 their hives at my neighbor's, and he thought that 



