VOL. 
No. 2280. 
NEW YORK, OCTOBER 7. 1893 
PRICE, THREE CENTS 
$1.00 PER YEAR 
ANOTHER SIDE TO THE COMMISSION BUSINESS. 
Where was the Fault this Time? 
BUSINESS SCREWS THAT NEED TIGHTENING. 
A Letter and Its Investigation. 
1 am a fruit grower, and live In Ithaca, N. Y , and take Tub Rural, 
which I think a very valuable paper. In it I found advertised as 
commission-men F. I. Sage & Son, of New York, and thinking they 
were all right, for otherwise the advertisement would not appear in 
The Rural, I sent them on July 14 a small consignment of 25 baskets 
of currants, worth about $12. I have not been able to hear about them, 
although our expressman says they were delivered all right. I have 
written them, and have not received any answer. On August 18 I 
drew a small draft on them, but it was returned and on It was the 
following: “ Says knows nothing about draft; never heard of drawer.” 
Then I got an attorney to write them. He says they do not answer 
him. Now, will The It. N -Y. be kind enough to attend to this matter, 
so that others may not be defrauded as I have been ? A. P. h. 
The above letter was handed me. Of course, here 
was a plain case of fraud. There was no doubt of it. 
The writer had shipped the currants, the expressman 
had delivered them, and the receivers had declined to 
honor the 
draft, de¬ 
claring that 
they had 
never heard 
of the draw¬ 
er. Plain 
case, wasn’t 
it? Still I 
had the curi¬ 
osity to won¬ 
der what 
possible ex¬ 
cuse could 
be given for 
such con¬ 
duct. I hied 
me to the 
offise of the 
aforesaid 
firm, with 
full intent 
to paralyze 
them for 
such duplic¬ 
ity after 
winning the 
confidence of 
the farmers 
through the 
columns o f 
The R.N.-Y. 
But they 
didn’t para¬ 
lyze worth a 
cent. On the 
contrary, 
they calmly 
produced a letter from another agricultural paper to 
which this victim had written, stating the Bamj facts 
as recited in the letter given above. They also showed 
me an account of sales and cheek for the currants in 
question, already inclosed in an envelope, stamped 
ready for mailing. The following facts were also 
given by Mr. Sage : 
What the Commission-Man Has to Say. 
About the date mentioned, 25 baskets of currants 
were received by express. There was no mark of any 
kind on the baskets to tell from where, or by whom 
they were sent. No message of any kind was received 
to throw any light upon the matter. The currants 
were sold and entered upon the books as being re¬ 
ceived by express. That was the only way to distin¬ 
guish them. If the express receipts had been pre¬ 
served, these would have shown from what offi ;e 
they were shipped. But this had not been done, as 
they are always destroyed as soon as paid. Several 
weeks afterward a draft was made by this party upon 
the firm. Of course it was not honored, as no com¬ 
munication had ever been received from him. The 
letter from the attorney also failed to state any facts 
that threw any light upon the matter. Not until 
these letters had been sent to the agricultural papers 
in which the advertisements of Mr. Sage had ap¬ 
peared, in which the facts were clearly stated, was it 
known by whom the currants were shipped As soon 
as this was learned, the check was forwarded. 
As to the value of the currants : they were in the 
common 10-pound baskets, holding considerably less 
than 10 pounds of currants, and would need to be extra 
fine to be worth the value placed upon them by our 
correspondent. Mr. Sage says they were very soft 
when received, and sold low. But is it possible to 
conceive of such carelessness in shipping produce ? 
How in the name of common sense could any receiver 
be expected to know by whom the goods were shipped? 
Every package should be marked. If any shipper 
will send to any commission merchant to whom he 
expects to ship, he will be furnished with a stencil 
plate for marking his goods. This stencil plate is 
numbered, and the number corresponds with the 
man’s name on the books of the firm He need not 
then mark his name on the packages, for every¬ 
thing marked with that stencil plate will be credited 
to him. 
“ The worst of it is,” said Mr. Sage, “ that in a case 
of this sort, the man who thinks that be is so badly 
cheated will injure us more than all of h ; s business 
is worth, because he will tell his friends not to ship 
to us. It is to our interest to satisfy our customers. 
There are some chicken coops belonging to a man 
who has shipped us a large number of chickens. He 
writes us that he is well satisfied, and th&t a number 
of his friends will send us their chickens. So you see 
it pays us to do the best that we can to please our 
shippers. It’s money in our pockets to do so.” 
Where the Shipper is at Fault. 
“But are there many such cases as this one?” I 
asked. 
“ More than you would think. List fall, about this 
time, when the first chestnuts arrived in market, I re¬ 
ceived several bushels from a town in Pennsy lvania, 
but there was no mark on them to show from whom 
they came, neither was any notice received by mail. 
I was very sorry, for I sold the chestnuts at once at a 
very high price, and there was a good demand, so that 
I might have sold a lot more had I had them. But I 
never learned who sent them until I received a letter 
from the shipper, blowing me up for not settling for 
those shipped. How was I to settle till I knew who 
was the shipper ?” 
“ I suppose you hear from these careless folks in 
some way, sooner or later ? ” 
“Generally we get a letter after awhile, calling us 
all sorts of pet names, and accusing us of dishonesty 
and fraud. 
Som etimes, 
though, we 
don’t, and I 
s u p p o s e 
these people 
have put us 
down as such 
big rascals 
that there is 
no use in 
spending 
any postage 
on us. Last 
July we re¬ 
ceived a lot 
of strawber- 
r i e s from 
Mexico, N. 
Y., by ex¬ 
press. The 
shipper’s 
name was 
plainly mar¬ 
ked on the 
crates. We 
sold the ber¬ 
ries, made 
out the ac- 
count of 
sale, drew 
a check for 
the proceeds 
and mailed 
ail to Mexi- 
co, N. Y., 
the place 
from which 
the berries were shipped. We had received no ad¬ 
vices by mail. In due time the letter was returned 
unclaimed. It lies there in the drawer now, check 
and all, waiting for a complaint, that we may know 
where to send it.” 
“ What was the probable trouble ? ” 
“ The shipper probably gets his mail from some 
little P. O. back from the railroad, but ships from 
Mexico, but we have no means of knowing where 
the P. 0. is.” 
A Lonesome Tub of Butter. 
“ But couldn’t you find out from the express com¬ 
panies the man’s location ? ” 
Sometimes we do this, but often the express 
agents don't know. Several months ago we received 
a tub of butter from an express offiie in New York 
State. It was good butter and sold well, and we 
would have been glad of more of the same kind. But 
there was no name on the tub to show who the ship- 
Typicad OedjNew Engrand Farm House. Buii.dings on the Rhode 1st.and Experiment Station Farm when Purchased. 
Fig 217. (See Page 068.) 
