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STATE BEE-KEEPERS ASSOCIATION. 129 



Mr. Wheeler — I have sold considerable honey in Chicago 

 this year. They would ask, "How much do your sections 

 weigh?" And I would tell them, 12 to 14 ounces. After that 

 my end of the story is done. Whatever the grocer tells is 

 nothing to me. I told him the truth, and I have no trouble 

 in selling them. 



Pres. York — I don't think the customers know very much 

 about the pound section. They but it as a package. 



Mr. Clarke — As to the public buying a box of honey — 

 the general public at the stores where they don't believe and 

 know — they suppose that they get a pound of honey. 



Mr. Niver — A man's belief is of no consequence to any- 

 body but himself, and what they believe is none of my busi- 

 ness. If I say that piece of honey is worth 15 cents — I didn't 

 tell him it was a pound, or two pounds. Why should he not 

 believe it weighs two pounds? and the same argument was 

 used when we came to one-pound sections. It is not a ques- 

 tion of weight. This piece of honey is 15 cents, 18 cents, or 

 20 cents, as the case may be. Say 20 cents that section is 

 worth. Well, if you want to for an experiment they will 

 weigh it for you, but no grocer can afford to take the time 

 to weigh it all. If you buy an orange, they say the orange 

 is worth so much. Take it or leave it. There is no dis- 

 honesty, because there is no claim setting forth that they 

 weigh a pound, or two pounds. 



Mr. Clarke — Some of the strongest laws in existence are 

 unwritten laws. I have had lots of experience. A lady sent 

 to two different stores for a bushel of potatoes, 60 pounds. 

 A section-box is supposed to weigh a pound, generally speak- 

 ing. This lady got 13 pounds short-weight on the one bushel 

 from the grocer who sold by measure, and the other grocer 

 sent her 60 pounds for a bushel. What is the fact? Every- 

 body says now, "B. will swindle you, and the other is honest 

 and will give you what is perfectly right," and I think it 

 holds good in honey as in any other goods. I never have a 

 month go by but what I have somebody come in to buy honey, 

 and I will say, "Well, that section won't average more than 

 14 or 15 ounces," and the customer says, "Why, I always 

 supposed that was a pound." They are misjudging it because 

 they are no judge. 



Mr. Moore — I hate to add ans^thing to this discussion. In 

 my mind it runs back at least 10 years. Dr. Miller has written 

 numerous articles in the bee-papers right along this direct 

 question as to whether it was moral and right to sell pound 

 sections in the way that they are sold in the trade. There is 

 no use in our deceiving ourselves. Fight the devil with fire 

 and tell the truth. There are no morals in business. Very 

 little of it in Chicago business. I hate to say it, but the 

 percentage of the people, take the retail grocery business, who 

 allow their morals to interfere with their business over the 

 counter, is very small in Chicago. 



Dr. Miller — Go to Cincinnati for that! ;' . ■ 



Mr, Moore — It is my conviction, after 17 years of selling 

 honey, and calling on hundreds of grocery stores, there is a 

 dishonest motive back of buying honey by the pound and sell- 



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