Stationers' Company

“ The Stationers’ Company, sorely damaged in trade by the sudden and almost entire loss of their privileges, petitioned the Queen, representing that they were subject to certain levies, that they supplied when called upon a number of armed men, and that they expected to derive some benefit when they20 underwent these liabilities. ”

“ The stationers company have also a share in the Irish estate, and other considerable estates, out of which they pay about 300l. per annum in pensions, and other charities. Maitland.
Stationers Hall, a spacious brick building near Amen Corner. There is an ascent to it by a flight of steps, and the light is thrown in by two series of windows, [61] the lower large and upright, and the upper of an elliptical form. Underneath it, and at the north end are the warehouses for the company’s stock. This hall has but few ornaments; but it is however extremely convenient. ”

“ Stā′tion-mas′ter, one who has charge of a station, esp. on a railway.—Stationers' Hall, the hall in London belonging to the Company of the Stationers, who enjoyed until the passing of the Copyright Act in 1842 an absolute monopoly of printing and publishing; Stationery Office, an office in London for providing books, stationery, &c. to the government offices at home and abroad, and for making contracts for the printing of government reports and other public papers. [Fr.,—L. statio—stāre, to stand.]
Statist, stā′tist, n. a statesman, a politician. ”

“ The other was the Company of Stationers, which desired to keep the trade in the hands of its privileged members and objected to any increase in the number of presses, or of booksellers, because the greater the number the smaller the profits of the monopolists. The duty of meeting a legitimate demand weighed little with men who cared for nothing save their own interests, and naturally, the Company seeking its privileges from the Government, was at all times the willing instrument of that Government. ”

“ STATIONERY, a term embracing all the various articles sold by " stationers," who were originally booksellers having " stations " or stands in markets, near churches or other buildings for the sale of their goods (see Bookselling for the further history of the word) . The stationers were formed into a gild in 1403, the Livery Company not being incorporated till 1556. At the hall of the company in London, “Stationers' Hall,” is kept a book for the registration of copyrights (see Copyright) . ”

“ The trade of a stationer then was more comprehensive than now, for he was a bookseller and a bookbinder, but even then his business cannot have been large and would hardly be sufficient to keep him. It is clear, however, from numerous contemporary references, that stationers often engaged in other business apart from their own. ”

“ The station agent, bless him, is being emancipated by the telephone from specialized selection, and is gradually being accorded that recognition which is his due as an all ’round man. In short, our big corporate units are growing in strength only as the smaller units become complete and self-contained. ”

“ At the majority of the company's stations there is an agent, popularly known as the station master, who is in charge of both the passenger and the goods traffic; and at the larger stations the work is divided between a station master—who attends to passenger traffic, and is accountable to the district superintendent—and a goods agent, who is responsible for the goods work, and is under the control of the district goods manager. ”

“ They wonder how that station agent got to knowing all the men on the road, and how much a train of freight cars weigh, and how many cents per mile each loaded car earns for the company, and what cars ought to go to the shops for repairs, and how many new cars will have to be bought to handle the crops on his division. ”

“ Every Officer in charge of a Station is to be answerable for the Office and Buildings, and the Company’s Property there. He is also to be responsible for the faithful and efficient discharge of the duties devolving upon all the Company’s Servants at the Station. ”

“ The evolution of the so-called store department on most railways has been a striking instance of one-sided development. A railway exists to manufacture and sell an intangible commodity, transportation, not necessarily to carry either a large or small stock of material and supplies. The purchasing agent tells us in good faith how much money he has saved the company by time spent in driving good bargains. He is not in a position to know how many men have been worked to poor advantage, or have been idle, while waiting for proper tools, materials and supplies. ”

“ An account is kept with each locomotive, station agent, switchman, and flagman, so that to a penny everything consumed in the operation of a road is accurately known. To accomplish this the Store-keeper, of course, must be a good accountant, and at the same time be more or less of an expert in railroad material. Under an economical administration of his affairs he is able to save a great deal of money for his company. By his system, with the aid of data from the mechanical department, he can tell the average number of miles run during the year to a pint of oil or a ton of coal ”

“ A company’s operator might occasionally constitute himself a temporary agent for his company in his spare time after ordinary hours of duty, charging sixpence extra on each message, and this the companies rather encouraged than otherwise. ”

“ Among the servants of a railway company, or rather we should say of the public, there is no one who, in his secluded station, has more important duties to attend to than “the pointsman,” in charge of the switches for diverting a train from one set of rails to another. As it is of course necessary that these switches should be carefully worked and guarded by night as well as by day, there are usually appointed to each station two pointsmen, each of whom remains on duty twelve hours at a time, taking the night and day work week about. ”

“ A railroad corporation may be controlled by competent, watchful, and prudent directors, who exercise the greatest caution in the selection of a superintendent or general manager, under whose supervision and orders its affairs and business, in all of its departments, are conducted. ”

“ In the larger companies the need is found for yet other special departments. In the case of the Union Pacific, for instance, there are two such: First, the comptroller's [373] department, which establishes and is responsible for the whole method of accounting; second, a department which is responsible for all the numerous interests which a large railroad company almost of necessity develops outside of its strict, legitimate work as a common carrier. ”

“ Scattered in the ranks of the volunteers are a fair number of old soldiers, for the Company has a weakness for recruiting from the Army for its guards who may, in time, become station-masters. A good man from the Army, with his papers all correct and certificates from his commanding officer, can, after depositing twenty pounds to pay his home passage, in the event of his services being dispensed with, enter the Company's service on something less [Pg 255] than one hundred rupees a month and rise in time to four hundred as a station-master. ”

“ For from one side of the platform a set of active porters are centripedally wheeling from different spring-waggons innumerable packages to the recording clerks, as eagerly as from these clerks (whose duty it is to record the weight of every article, and to affix to it the Company’s printed charge for conveyance to its address) other porters, equally active, are centrifugally wheeling other packages to various railway vans, which, as fast as they can be filled, are drawn away from the despatching side of the platform, and immediately replaced by empty ones. ”

“ Yet the railroad companies are frying the express companies to a frazzle. The New York Central Railroad Company takes 40 per cent of the gross receipts of the express company that operates over its lines. But the frying is entirely friendly, and therefore the express companies do not cry out against it. A station agent does not complain because the railroad company for which he works takes from him the money for the tickets he has sold. He expects to give up the money. The officers of express companies expect to give up the money they take in. ”

“ It is impossible for any reasonable, unblassed, or practical man of business to assert that the railway companies would not be entitled to a somewhat higher rate of remuneration than second class fare, if bags are in charge of a mail guard, or that the rate for one from end-to-end parcel, is the proper [141] figure for mail bags placed in charge of a Company’s servant, to be worked by him as if he were a mail guard. ”

“ When one of these men is promoted to the charge of a large city station, either freight or passenger, he becomes really a local superintendent, his duties then consisting very largely in the supervision of an army of clerks and laborers who must, each in his place, be as capable as the agent himself. The agent at a small station has a great multiplicity of duties to perform. He must sell tickets, be a good book-keeper, and a faithful switch-tender. He generally must be a telegraph-operator and must be vigorous physically. ”

“ At this season of the year, owing to absence of friends, a great deal of stationery is used. One of our most important departments is our Stationery Department. We carry an immense line of all the newest conceits in writing paper, white, in colors and with borders. We are making special prices on fine stationery for summer use and suggest that you place your order now, either for calling cards, monogram stationery, or high-grade writing papers. ”

“ He is in many cases agent for the express company, and so must count, seal, superscribe, and way-bill money packages and handle oyster-kegs and barrels of beer at a moment's notice. Women with wagon-loads of loose household effects to go by freight, and shippers of car-loads of cattle, for which a car must be specially fitted up, will appear just as the distracted station-man is receiving a telegram with one side of his brain and selling a ticket with the other. The household goods must be weighed and tagged, the sewing-machine tied up, and tables repaired ”

“ The shop-walker or salesman is accustomed to move in relatively confined spaces, and so acquires a short, brisk step, and his dress tends to rather exuberant smartness; the station official patrols long platforms, often at a rapid pace, and so tends to take long strides, while his dress is dignified and neat rather than florid. The last-mentioned characteristics, you see, appear in the subject of our analysis; he agrees with the general description of a stationmaster. ”

“ Telegraph companies resemble railroad companies and other common carriers, in that they are instruments of commerce, and in that they exercise a public employment, and are therefore bound to serve all customers alike, without discrimination. ”

“ He got a job as helper to the local station agent at forty dollars a month.
Years passed. The youth was a youth no longer; he was nearing his fortieth birthday but still he served the railroad at Weeping Willow. So well and so truly had he served it that, step by step, the management had widened the scope of his duties until now he was the entire resident staff of the great transcontinental system which passed through Weeping Willow. He was station agent, dispatcher, ticket-seller, train-caller, express-agent, baggage-handler, janitor and porter, all rolled into one. ”

“ The location of stations and warehouses for receiving and delivering passengers and freight involves a comprehensive view of the interests of the public, as well as of the corporation and its stockholders, and a consideration of many circumstances concerning the amount of population and business at or near or within convenient access to one point or another, which are more appropriate to be determined by the directors, or, in case of abuse of their discretion, by the legislature, or by administrative boards in trusted by the legislature with that duty, than by the ordinary judicial tribunals. ”

“ Another avowed object is to get the division supply people closer to the train sheet, to give propinquity a chance to develop love, and to counteract that we-are-so-different feeling which comes on many railroads, not only in the spring, but under all signs of the zodiac. The logical development on divisions of considerable volume of supply business will be to make the division storekeeper an assistant superintendent. This method of store accounting is relatively closer to real transactions, especially where the division supply train is used, than might be supposed. ”

“ The term company train perhaps comes the nearest to a comprehensive designation. As a tentative proposition, to be modified by experience, I think I would distribute one-half of the expense of the train to supply, the other half to inspection and consider both halves as money well spent. With the enormous growth of business, with the increasing expansion of systems, we have had to leave more and more to departments. The result is that each department becomes more and more forgetful of the others. It isn’t enough to have the heads at the general offices take lunch together. ”

“ In between—that happy medium which I mentioned to you—stand the Harriman Lines with division stores under the division superintendent, who in turn as to supply matters is under the general storekeeper or other chief supply official, the latter already having in some cases the title and status of an assistant general manager. The man in direct charge of the one general store which is allowed each general jurisdiction is called a storekeeper. ”