THE “SAMPLE” CRAZE.

Hawera Star, Volume XLV, 5 February 1926, Page 2

THE “SAMPLE” CRAZE.

A BUSINESS RITE ALL. HOW ONE FIRM “FELL IN.” A Christchurch business concern, which had been full of enthusiasm and energy, is feeling discouraged, and with reason, too. It is all very well tor Fortune to slip over a half-Nelson occasionally, but this strangle-hold is barred in the best catch-as-catch-can cirles, and in this instance Fortune hasn’t stuck to the rules. The particular firm is the agent for motor trucks and such-like competitors of the railroad, and recently it received a request for a full set of catalogues concerning its brand of motor truck. The firm scented business in the offing, and a smart salesman was put on the trail, which led to a small North Island town on the Main Trunk line. He disembarked from the train in due course, made inquiries, and found that the address he sought was some miles out of the town. But enthusiasm spurred him on, and, bearing catalogues galore, he tramped it to his final destination.

The outlook, on arrival, looked tinpromising. He gazed upon a shack, a broken-down, decrepit affair of rusted corrugated iron, and faded and split woodwork. A scraggy individual with a discouraged growth of straggling whisker, answered his knock. “No, I never sent for no catalogues,” said the householder in answer to an inquiry. “That’ll be my boy Alec. Come on iu and I’ll show you a box full of ’em.” The collecting craze has swept the country, and cigarette pictures, chocolate cards, and blood alleys are flooding the homes. Young Alec had turned his fancy to catalogues. Had the opportunity been present at the moment the salesman of motor trucks would have turned collector. He would have collected young Alec and, having connected him with a piece of string to a fair-sized brick, he would have dropped him in the nearest pond. But Alec was absent. He was away collecting the postal mail, that operation having been a source of positive pleasure and interest since he had entered into the catalogue business.