THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



41 



MERCHANDISE SHOOTING THE) CHUTES IN A CHICAGO MAIL-ORDER 

 ESTABLISHMENT (SEE TEXT, PAGE 33) 



ment boards of hotels, each slip carrying 

 the rating of a customer. 



By the time the packages are wrapped, 

 the sales tickets have gone to the credit 

 department, and Mr. Black and Mrs. 

 White have been submitted to the acid 

 test of the financial Who's Who. If the 

 ticket comes back properly checked the 

 packages are delivered and the two cus- 

 tomers depart without realizing that their 

 debt-paying reputation has been thor- 

 oughly scanned in the interim. If the 

 tickets bear a different notation, the 

 salesfolk politely tell the customers that 

 they can arrange the charge matter with 

 Mr. So-and-So. Before that no question 



is asked and no word spoken. The Who's 

 Who heard a silent appeal and rendered 

 an inaudible verdict. 



Another feature of this mercantile es- 

 tablishment is its delivery system. Cov- 

 ering nearly 400 square miles of territory 

 and making some 30,000 deliveries a day 

 as an average, it is natural that efficiency 

 should be the keynote of its operation. 

 The handling of the orders as they are 

 collected in the basement of the establish- 

 ment and then separated according to 

 delivery routes is but little less compli- 

 cated and yet equally as efficient as the 

 methods at the mail-order house men- 

 tioned previously. 



