ECONOMIC CAUSES OF DEPLETION 67 



called other men from her looms to become porters of 

 the webs woven; she must have bidden her plowmen 

 become delvers of the soil. In China the mattock 

 replaces the plow, and the roller is drawn, not by horses 

 or oxen, but by men. To this pass Europe was coming, 

 was perilously near, when the power of steam came to 

 her rescue. The world had come to a pass where ad- 

 vance in civilization or regression towards savagery 

 were the only paths possible. There was no middle 

 way of stability. The new order came to relieve alike 

 the weaver at the loom and the husbandman at the 

 plow. 



The loss of village commerce is following that of the 

 village crafts. A quarter of a centiiry ago the village 

 storekeeper was a prosperous man. He was not uncom- 

 monly the wealthiest man in the community. His 

 place of business served, in a way, as a social centre. 

 His family, and he himself, were helpers and leaders 

 in every social enterprise, including the church. Then 

 in 1876 John Wanamaker organized the Departmental 

 Store and the Mail Order System. He had earlier 

 become a disciple of Ruskin in holding that chaffering 

 had no legitimate place in trade, and that an absolutely 

 one-price system must prevail. Cheap and rapid tran- 

 sit made the mail-order system possible. The one-price 

 system and exact description in advertising, together 

 with large turnover and direct service, made it efficient. 

 Retail trading has in consequence been revolutionized. 

 Wholesaling half a century ago was done over the 

 counter. The country trader travelled to the city to 

 place his orders. Then came the drummer, the modern 

 " commercial man." As completely as wholesale trade 

 was thereby recast in new moulds, so fully is retailing 



