THE "COMMERCIAL" AT LARGE

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLVI, Issue 14133, 7 August 1909, Page 5 (Supplement)

THE "COMMERCIAL" AT LARGE

The commercial traveller of to-day is hardly the lordly person he. was even a generation ago. One gathers from the anonymous author of " The Random Recollections of a Commercial Traveller" (Sherratt and Hughes), that the old jovial type—the thirty shillings a day expenses man with a big salary—is. seldom to be met with in the smoke-room in the evening, and, the old wine-dinners (a pint of sherry to each man) are things of the past. More of the past still are the road-men who drove from town to town and from village; to village, and kept open house . for their customers at the Black Lion or the King's Head. But there is still some glamour' about the life, and at least it is better than sitting all day on a stool. . ' • QUAINT INSTRUCTIONS. That matter of expenses has 'always been a prickly one. The author gives an amusing letter on this subject, which is preserved at the Old Coffee House, Carlisle. Messrs. ; Pinsky and Co. are addressing their esteemed representative, Mr. Joseph Ernstein — " Ve haf r received your letter von the 13th mit exbense agount. Vat ve vant is orders. Ve haf big families to make exbenses. Mr. Ernstein, ve fint in you exbense agount 5s 6d for pilliards. Blease puy no more pilliards. Also: ve see £1 es for «i horse and gig. Vare is de horse, und what did you do mit the gig? Do rest von your, exbense agount is nothiu but schleeps. Vy "is it you dont ride more in de night times? Ve send you today two box zigars : one costed 9s, de oder 3s fid. You can schmoke de 3s 6d box, und give de oders to your customers. Ve did send you also samples of a necktie J vot costed us , 30s a gross. Sell dem at 33s a dotzen; if you can't get 33s dake 12s. Dey is a novelty, as ve haf dem in stock two years—und ain't sold none. Say de brice haf been redoosed von agound of do great demant." Mr Ernstein, one imagines, was not identical 'with the gentleman who frightened the maid by demanding what the " piece de resistance!' was for breakfast, afterwards translating hits query into " What is the leading line ?" MUMMIES • AND GHOSTS. One has a certain sympathy with the laborious countryman who, on being told that a mummy was three thousand years old, inquired how that could possibly be, since it was only 1851 then. But one can only have admiration for the salesman . in a Manchester warehouse who was handed a piece of mummy-cloth, with -- the inquiry. " Where was that woven?'' At Oldham," he replied, " and it is known in the trade as number eighty-five." Here is a good way of collecting overdue ; accounts by way of the post : " Our cashier* fell unconscious at his desk this morning. Up to this time four p.m.we have < been unable to get a word from him except your name. May we say to him, with a view to his immediate recovery that we have your cheque, as we * are afraid that is what is on hi.-;, mind?" The author of this book has no fear of ghosts. '• He tells us that the largest and pleasantest room in which he ever slept was the scene of the murder of Lady Cokayne. This was in the Ashbourne Hall Hotel, Ashborne, room No. 9, so adventurous readers may experiment- for themselves.