Am'  Se°ptr'  FgT9rm'  )    Economic  Value  of  Wholesale  Druggist.  613 
ages,  breakage,  returns,  etc.,  as  the  average  retailer  is  a  poor  corre- 
spondent. The  retailer  relies  on  the  drug  traveler  to  bring  him 
news  of  events  affecting  his  business. 
"  Many  retailers  are  not  good  stockkeepers,  and  were  it  not 
for  the  presenting  of  seasonable  things  in  rotation  by  the  drug 
traveler  they  would,  generally  speaking,  be  buying  holiday  goods 
the  day  before  Christmas,  and  everything  else  in  a  similar  manner. 
It  is  here  that  the  customer  is  accommodated,  as  it  is  through  the 
efforts  of  the  drug  traveler  that  he  is  able  to  purchase  the  latest 
commodity  when  he  wants  it." 
From  the  fifth  of  these  essays  the  following  abstract  is  given: 
"  The  principle  of  distribution  operates  in  the  normal  processes 
of  nature.  The  elements  of  bone  and  tissue  in  the  animal  economy, 
and,  in  a  sense,  fluid  and  fiber  in  the  vegetable,  are  assembled  at  a 
common  center  from  numerous  sources  and  thence  distributed  to 
every  part.  When  this  process  is  functioning  properly  we  have 
health  and  development,  but  when  interrupted,  decay  ensues. 
"  So  in  the  commercial  life — particularly  as  it  pertains  to  the 
drug  business — the  same  processes  are  essential  to  a  wholesome 
condition  and  a  perfect  balance. 
"  The  wholesaler  himself  recognizes  the  advantage  of  this 
process  and  is  in  his  turn,  a  patron  of  other  distributors  still  nearer 
the  source  of  production,  such  as  the  importers  and  brokers  in  the 
remote  world  markets.  He  does  not  purchase  his  cinchona  in  the 
forests  of  South  America,  nor  his  opium  in  the  poppy  fields  of 
China.  Neither  does  he  visit  the  factories  of  France  to  buy  their 
exquisite  perfumes  or  other  rare  luxuries  of  the  toilet.  These  are 
purchased  from  importers  and  others  who  comb  the  fields  of  foreign 
production  and  assemble  them  here  at  points  for  convenient 
distribution. 
"  This  he  does  because  no  other  plan  is  practical  or  even  pos- 
sible. And,  for  the  same  reasons,  the  retail  druggist  must  depend 
upon  a  like  service  through  his  wholesaler. 
"Now  if  the  wholesaler  were  eliminated  and  the  retailer  bought 
direct,  this  would  mean  a  separate  transaction  with  each  of  more 
than  a  thousand  manufacturers,  instead  of  one  wholesale  house. 
It  would  mean  many  accounts  payable  on  his  books  where  other- 
wise one  would  suffice;  the  writing  of  thousands  of  letters  in  the 
course  of  replenishing  stock  where  now  an  order  given  the  whole- 
