"HORDERN, THE MAGICIAN."

Wanganui Chronicle, 25 July 1901, Page 1

"HORDERN, THE MAGICIAN."

A GREAT FIRM'S ENTERPRISE

Messrs Hordern's business has been reestablished with marvellous celerity in the Exhibition Building. Mr R. Gillott, head of the buying department, made the following statement in an interview on Thursday, the morning ' after the' great fire: — "At half-past four p.m. on Wednesday the City Council met to grant us the use of the Exhibition Building. At a quarter past five I was herel, and found the place deserted, an hour passing before I got in. A quarter of an hour after I gained admittance we had the gas turned on, and a constant stream of 80 carts began to deposit tons, of goods here from our bulk stores. Simultaneously, 50 carpenters, relieved at intervals of four hours by. 50 others, began the work of putting up the counters and shelves, which you now see all round the building. "Three hundred and fifty employes are engaged in the work'of unpacking and displaying goods. At half-past eight this morning we took our first money over the counters, and we :have had' this constant stream of customers ever since, buying briskly. This recess is our temporary office, and from it telephone wires have been run' 6ut in every direction to all our other premises and elsewhere. To do all this we have not had to engage a single man who was not in our employ before, or to buy a stick of timber beyond what was already in our mills. But our heads of departments have been up all night, and many of us have had nothing to eat since Wednesday. I am busy, so you may look around and see the rest for yourself." ~ The reporter addsj — : The whole of the-main floor has been mapped out into departments, correspond-' ing with the departments, of the Palace Emporium, every single department being represented there. To each department, as the vans disgorged their valuable freights afe the entrance, the respective I class of good's was transferred with light-ning-like rapidity, there to be unpacked and displayed in less time than it takes to describe the operation. Thus, in one place lan array of kitchen clocks covered the counters, in another great heaps of blankets . were being assorted and marked, in a third huge rolls of tweed were being neatly packed in readiness for sale, in others furniture, ironmongery, fancy" goods, and all 1 the ten thousand articles which a universal provider should keep in stock, were being similarly treated. Great piles of merchandise, a dozen feet : in* height, \vere strewn in every, direction, but. prder was rapidly making its appearance out of what had been chaos.