1891 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



483 



IS NOT EASILY PROVOKED ; THINKETH NO 

 EVIL. 



ONE OF THE DANGERS THAT THREATEN NOT 



ONLY OTJK NATION BUT THE WHOLE 



WORLD. 



I know this is an old, old subject through 

 these pages; but so long as I see troubles mul- 

 tiply, and quarrel after quarrel arise, simply for 

 the lack of the spirit indicated in my favorite 

 text above. I can not but protest. Our present 

 troubles and misunderstandings between labor 

 and capital seem to me to come very largely 

 from thoughtless jumping at conclusions, being 

 in haste to call men liars or rascals, and being 

 ready to think evil, even at the slightest op- 

 portunity. If this matter were confined to non- 

 professors of religion, it would be bad: but the 

 saddest part is, that followers of Christ are so 

 ready to think evil of their brothers or sisters 

 in Christ Josus. The illustration I am going to 

 use concerns myself, and I am well aware that 

 I shall lay myself open to the attacks that have 

 been recently made through these pages. But 

 I prefer to give items from my own personal 

 experience, rather than to take something I do 

 not know all about. In a recent issue of one of 

 our 6ee-journals appears the following: 



I never bought mucli of Root, but I bought a smo- 

 ker. I sent fl.35, supposing that was the price. I 

 was sent a 75-cent smoker, as I found by looking at 

 the price bst afterward; and when I found 1 had 

 paid too much I wrote and he said he liad credited it 

 to me. He did after I wrt)te, at least, and 1 hope he 

 did before, just as he said. Mrs. F. A. Daytox. 



Bradford, la. 



The above comes from a wommi, and a pro- 

 fessor of religion! Now let us see what 

 grounds she had for suggesting that our estab- 

 lishment might have had a purpose of taking 

 .*1.2.5 for an article that we advertised at 70 

 cents. Here is her order for the smoker: 



Jfr. Root;— Will you please send me one of your 

 best smokers — one that is light, and handy for a 

 woman to use? ' Mrs. F. A. Dayton. 



Bradford, la., July 30, 1889. 



The first blunder she makes is in thinking 

 that A. I. Root himself opens letters and takes 

 out the money, mails smokers, etc., while a 

 glance at our price list should show this to be 

 an utter impossibility. One of her own sex, 

 -and a Chi'istian woman, who has been for many 

 years, like myself, a professor of religion, re- 

 ceived her letter, gave orders to a sister-clerk 

 to mail the smoker, then sent her a bill, giving 

 her credit for the amount of money received, 

 tcUing her tluit the oocts. rermtineil to her creel" 

 it. of course subject to her ordel". The whole 

 correspondence went, to the ledgers, and then 

 another Christian woman placed the amount to 

 her credit. If, after a certain number of days, 

 this eredit is not used, the party having the 

 credit is notified, asking whether we shall re- 

 turn it in money, or whether he will be wanting 

 something from us again. ]\Iost of our readers 

 have had these credit cards, and know all about 

 it. There are about a dozen different women 

 employed in our ofifice, and they have charge of 

 almost all this sort of work — mailing goods, 

 making bills, answering letters, etc. In order 

 to send a customer a TO-cent article, and charge 

 ■*1.2.5 for it, there would have to be some system- 

 atic fraud among all these women. Like oth- 

 ^-r establishments, we have written or printed 

 rules, or directions, for clerks, covering almost 

 all emergencies in business. If my intention 

 were to build up a business by fraud. I should 

 have to have some rules something like this: 



" When a customer sends more money than is 

 needed for tlie article he wants, keep it and" say noth- 

 ing about it. If, however, he should afterward in- 



quire about it, hand it over to liim if you ai'e obliged 

 to." 



Just think for a minute of the idea of getting 

 a dozen intelligent women to undertake to do 

 business with rules like the above! One of this 

 kind of people who are ready to " think evil" 

 once' visited a widow lady wliose daughter was 

 in my employ, with the view of finding out 

 whether it were not true that the honey we 

 sold was made of sugar instead of taking it 

 from the hives. The woman turned on him 

 with such scorn and contempt that he was glad 

 to beat a retreat. Said she in substance, " Sir, 

 do you come here taking it for granted that my 

 daughter would continue in the employ of a 

 man who cooked up sugar, and labeled it pure 

 honey? Would she be a party to filling the jars 

 with this spurious stuff, and then pasting the 

 label on the outside, which she knew was a 

 falsehood and a cheat ? Your insinuations are 

 an unjust slander, not only on my daughters 

 veracity, but on all the rest of the men and 

 women in his employ." The man apologized, 

 and said he had not looked at it in that way 

 before, and that no doubt he had been thought- 

 Jess and uncharitable. Do you suggest that I 

 may be lacking in charity, and that the lady in 

 question did not get the hill ? Well, that is ex- 

 actly what I suggested when I first saw the let- 

 ter "in print: but here is a second letter from 

 her, written a little later: 



Mr. Roof .-—I sent you H 23 to buy a smoker. I had 

 understood lliat your price was $1.35. I had some of 

 you)' juice lists in my house; but liaving so much 

 work, and so nuich troubleon my mind, Idid not think 

 I could go tt) a list to learn. But after recei\-ing the 

 smoker I thought it was a high price for so small and 

 cheap-looking an article. Since 1 have examined 

 your list I find I ought not to have paid over 7.5 

 cents, postage and all. Now, I wish you to apply 

 what you owe me, on my subscription to Gleanings, 

 or send me a Bingham smoker, or return the money. 



Bradford, la., Sept. 11, 1h89. Mrs. F. A. Dayton. 



As soon as the above came to hand, the clei'k 

 transferred her credit of .5.5 cents to the sub- 

 scription list, and forwarded her Gleanings. 

 Then the book-keeper, who is an old hand at 

 all such matters, and. of course, easily touched 

 when anything reflects on the veracity of our 

 women-folks, sent her a duplicate bill and 

 wrote her the following: 



Mrs. Daytnn:— Bid you not receive our bill show- 

 ing the i)rice of the smoker to be 70 cents, postage 

 included, and that we held .5.5 cents balance due you? 

 See duplicate bill attached. If ycni use the smoker 

 according to directions, I think you will find it all 

 right. We have ijent thousands just like it, which 

 gave good satisfaction. If there is any fault, how- 

 ever, in this one. please state wliat it is and we will 

 cheerfully make it right. We will apply 50 cents of 

 your credit on Gleanings, as you request, which 

 will advance the date of your subscription six 

 months, and we inclose herewith 5 cents in stamps to 

 balance account, which we trust will be satisfactory 

 to vt)U. A. I.,KO(^T, per E. M. 



Medina, Sept. 14, 1889. 



Now, I have had our clerks look carefully, 

 but we can not find any reply to the book-keep- 

 er's question. The letter, you will notice, seems 

 to question (at least a little) our honesty: but 

 even after having been wiitten to thus kindly 

 by the book-keeper, she rushes into print with 

 the suggestion that A. I. Root's love of gain 

 was so great that he might have yielded to the 

 temptation to take .55 cents because he saw a 

 chance, even though the customer were a 

 icoman. INIy good friend, you say in your arti- 

 cle to the bee-journal that you have read Root's 

 A B C of Bee Culture. Could you believe it 

 possible that the man who wrote that book 

 could take .55 cents from anybody, much less 

 from a woman ? I beg pardon for what seems 

 like boasting, dear friends: but the point I wish 

 to make is this: People are thoughtlessly and 



