380 INDUSTRIAL INSTITUTIONS. 



menced goes on until the shopkeeper, daily supplied by 

 people from the country, becomes wholly a distributor of 

 things he has not himself produced. 



In a kindred manner arises at an early stage the itinerant 

 dealer one who seeks buyers instead of letting buyers come? 

 to him. Incidents frequently occurring suggest how this 

 function originated. We hear one lady say to another 

 &quot; You are going to London, I wish you would buy so and so 

 for me.&quot; Requests of like kind, as well as converse re 

 quests, must have often been made in the days of sparse 

 population, when the relatively few fairs were held at rela 

 tively remote places, the journeys to which were dangerous, 

 wearisome and costly. &quot; My harvest work will prevent me 

 from going to the fair; &quot; &quot; I cannot walk to the fair, and 

 I have no horse; &quot; &quot; It is not worth while going to the fair 

 to sell this small quantity.&quot; Here, then, are some among 

 various reasons for saying to a neighbour who is going 

 &quot; If you will dispose of these for me I will give you such or 

 such a share of the price.&quot; Transactions of this kind, eco 

 nomical of effort and less risky, are certain to become com 

 mon. Xot only to sell certain things at the trade-gathering 

 is a prevailing wish, but to buy certain other things; and 

 the man who does the one is naturally employed to do the 

 other. As the habit grows some one person in a village, and 

 by and by in a cluster of villages, who by each transaction 

 gets some benefit, either as a gift or a share of the returns, 

 is led to make such agency a business. Thus in time result 

 chapmen, hawkers, pedlars, packmen classes of primitive 

 traders still represented among us. 



751. Among both fixed and locomotive distributors 

 some, more skilful in business than others, enlarge their 

 transactions until from retail they pass into wholesale. 



Incentives like those which originally led to the rise of 

 the shop, led by and by to the rise of the warehouse to which 

 the shopkeeper could go for supplies. The small retailer in 



