Trader

“ And hence trade has become Trade, and each trader is involved in the comfort, success, and prosperity of many others. A single commercial transaction to-day involves the lives of hundreds of thousands, competes for their toil and life-blood, carries the decision of their destiny.
A great merchant is the real Kris Kringle. He stands at the centre of exchange, distributes from the tropics and the arctic zones. ”

“ After all the excitement of speculation, the pleasure of gain, and the pain of loss, the trader makes up his mind to face facts and to learn the exact quantity and quality of his solid and reliable possessions. ”

“ And with those people trading, which means also travelling afar, is a romantic and an honourable occupation. The trader must possess an adventurous spirit and a keen understanding; he should have the fearlessness of youth and the sagacity of age ”

“ The trader is most frequently a particular friend of the agent, often associated with him in business, and in many instances holds his position of trader at the instance of the agent. They are always located near each other. The trader is usually present at the distribution of annuities. If the agent, instead of distributing to the Indians all of the goods intended for them by the Government, only distributes one half and retains the other half, who is to be the wiser? ”

“ None of these things does the English trader do. If he falls a victim to the temptations awaiting the man from the wilderness in the dram-shop of the trading-post, he takes good care not to spend his all on the spree. ”

“ Legitimate trade, that is, the equitable exchange of the raw materials and the finished products between the producer and the consumer by means of a third person, the trader, who makes a profit on the goods he handles, giving them to the last buyer at a larger or smaller increase in the selling price over the cost, in these days rarely leads to the accumulation of great wealth. ”

“ This general trading, which, on the one hand, seriously threatens the small trader, and on the other hand offers greater possibilities of profit to the proportionately small number of persons who can undertake business on so large a scale, becomes infinitely more formidable when the general dealer endeavours not only to attract the trade of a town, but to make his place of business a centre from which he distributes by post his goods to remote parts of the country. ”

“ A trader buys one thousand of a given article per month from the manufacturer at ninepence an article and sells them to his customers at tenpence. The extra penny is his payment for acting as purveyor, and the customers recognise that it is an equitable charge which they pay contentedly. That is honest trading; and the trader makes a profit of a trifle over four pounds a month, or fifty pounds a year. ”

“ When a trader has made sufficient money to enable him to leave off work with his own hands, the custom is for him to supply some young dependant with a boat-load of goods and a crew, and send him away to trade with the Indians, depending upon his success and honesty for the payment of the twenty-five per cent. ”

“ For this reason, the trader keeps close observation upon all who owe him, almost daily visiting their houses and profiting by the occasion to help himself to whatever little fish or meat or other edibles he may find therein. ”

“ The principal and the interest, and the trader too, are all his master’s. And, more than that, after the wisest and the best trader has done his best, he will remain, to himself at least, a most unprofitable servant. ”

“ Another trader purveys the same article, buying it from the same manufacturer, but owing to the possession of larger capital, better talent for organisation, and more enterprise, he sells, not one thousand, but one million per month. ”

“ The selling of the goods is beneficial to the store-keeper because he makes his profit. The trader has a large variety to select from and having made a voluntary selection is satisfied, because he or she may secure exactly what the city cousin gets. ”

“ They are having fresh supplies weekly, and are going to keep a large, well-selected stock constantly on hand, to wit, "field-hands, house-servants, mechanics, cooks, seamstresses, washers, ironers, etc."
Let us respectfully inquire what is the process by which a trader acquires a well-selected stock. He goes to Virginia to select. He has had orders, say, for one dozen cooks, for half a dozen carpenters, for so many house-servants, &c. &c. Each one of these individuals have their own ties; besides being cooks, carpenters and house-servants, they are also fathers, mothers, husbands, wives ”

“ He expounded at length, with firstlies and secondlies and all minor subdivisions of argument, on organization, and order, and civilization. He contended that the trader was the bearer of civilization, and that the trader must be protected in his trade else he would not come. ”

“ Every trader now wants to buy, because he believes that prices will rise higher and higher, and that, by selling at the right time, the loss of any subsequent fall of prices will be thrown upon other people. ”

“ We draw such fine distinctions between the wholesale and retail traders that our cotton-spinners, calico-makers, and general merchants seem to think that they belong to a totally different sphere, from which they look down on the lady who has had sufficient brains, capital, and courage to open a shop. ”

“ Every one was honestly busy in learning either how to make or how to sell, and in conquering the difficulties that beset traders as they strove to push their way into the world’s market on equal or, if possible, more than equal terms with competitors who had long held unquestioned supremacy. ”

“ As there are several degrees of people employed in trade below these, such as workmen, labourers, and servants, so there is a degree of traders above them, which we call merchants; where it is needful to observe, that in other countries, and even in the north of Britain and Ireland, as the handicraftsmen and artists are called tradesmen, so the shopkeepers whom we here call tradesmen, are all called merchants; nay, even the very pedlars are called travelling merchants. ”

“ An intelligent gentleman of Tette told us that native traders often come to him with a tusk for sale, consider the price he offers, demand more, talk over it, retire to consult about it, and at length go away without selling it ”

“ Brokers and others, whose business calls them to the Royal Exchange, are also pretty constant visitors, to meet captains and traders—dispose of different articles of merchandise—engage shipping and bind bargains—it is a sort of under Exchange, where business and refreshment go hand in hand with the news of the day, and the clamour of the moment; beside which, the respectable tradesmen of the neighbourhood meet in an evening to drive dull care away, and converse on promiscuous subjects ”

“ The care of other traders was confined to special goods, special places and special times, and, moreover, these traders would be made poor and idle, and they would make the country around them poor and idle as well. ”

“ In such a market every purchase is made with the most thorough acquaintance with the conditions involved. Each dealer, each broker, each speculator, strives to obtain the best knowledge7 of the supply and demand, and the earliest news that may affect it, and each buyer or seller has an equal and a fair opportunity to profit by the resultant effect on the market of all these various agencies. The larger the body of brokers and traders, then, the more accurate the standards of value thus created. ”

“ I have never known a trader in philanthropy who was not wrong in heart somewhere or other. ”

“ The sneaking arts of underling tradesmen are thus erected into political maxims for the conduct of a great empire; for it is the most underling tradesmen only who make it a rule to employ chiefly their own customers. A great trader purchases his goods always where they are cheapest and best, without regard to any little interest of this kind. ”

“ You will please examine into the way in which the traders under your supervision conduct their stores, how their goods, particularly edible goods, are handled, stored, and given out, and see to it that in these respects, as well in respect of weights, prices, and account-keep-ing, the business is properly conducted. ”

“ But, if money sticks not in their purses, and if they haggle not over coins, yet are these men businessful with a purpose for large enterprise. In these latitudes, we have deep-counselled companies of traders who, while they love the sweet power of money, have ever bartered fairly, and know that 'mine' and 'thine' are different words which rhyme well in all reckonings. ”

“ Traders are dealers in pins, said he, and will be more obliged by a penny customer, than by a pound present, because it is in their way: yet will refuse neither, any more than a lawyer or a man of office his fee. ”

“ The life of trade, and the death of the trader. ”

“ They must accumulate and preserve enough food to carry them from one harvest to the next. They must improve and beautify their artifacts and constructs. Traders added a fifth must--they must produce and accumulate stocks to meet the needs of various customers as well as their own greed for profits. ”

“ Floor traders, who keenly study the markets and the general419 conditions of business, and acquire early information concerning the changes which affect the values of securities. From their familiarity with the technique of dealings on the Exchange, and ability to act in concert with others, and thus manipulate values, they are supposed to have special advantages over other traders. ”

“ Matilall.-- Ah, a brilliant notion! I am daily in need of money. Does commerce flourish in the bazar, or does it grow in an office? Is it merely the buying and selling that goes on in a sweetmeat-maker's shop? My business will lack all importance unless I am to be the chief agent of some English merchant. ”

“ Here is more poor stuff; for when I know the current prices of my Wares, both here and beyond the Seas, I may easily conjecture whether the profit of the Exchange or the gain which I expect upon my Wares will be greater. And again, as every Merchant knows well what he gains upon the Wares he buyeth and selleth, so may any other man do the like that can tell how the said Merchant hath proceeded: But what is all this to make us admire the Exchange? ”

“ Most wholesale merchants are content to confine themselves to one branch of trade: lumber, iron, wool, leather, grain, etc. Most of these merchants, moreover, rely further on specialists to help them with certain parts of their business. They depend constantly on the banker, the speculator, the broker, the forwarder, the warehouseman, the commission merchant, and agents of many different kinds. It is impossible, in this book, to do more than suggest the complex commercial organization which has grown up in the course of the century. ”

“ As large and populous as is the market, it is conducted with the greatest order. There is a particular place appropriated for the sale of each class of goods: thus in one place may be seen spinners offering their yarn to those who weave; in another, weavers offering their cloths; then those who sell iron-ware, sitting in their own quarters, and next to them the dealers in beads and other ornaments: here is the meat-market, and there the wood-market, and the clothing-market, and the place for the sale of live-stock, etc. etc. One man manages the entire affair with the greatest ease. ”

“ By this method a shopkeeper is able to stock his shop, or warehouses, with two or three times as much goods in value, as he has stock of his own to begin the world with, and by that means is able to trust out his goods to others, and give them time, and so under one another—nay, I may say, many a tradesman begins the world with borrowed stocks, or with no stock at all, but that of credit, and yet carries on a trade for several hundreds, nay, for several thousands, of pounds a-year. ”

“ It may be true, as some allege, that we cannot drive a trade for more goods than we have to trade with, but then it is as true, that it is by the help of credit that we can increase the quantity, and that more goods are made to trade with than would otherwise be; more goods are brought to market than they could otherwise sell; and even in the last consumption, how many thousands of families wear out their clothes before they pay for them, and eat their dinner upon tick with the butcher! ”

“ To mock her barren belly.
CHORUS.
For some succeed, and others fail,
That into commerce enter,
So sew are chaste, and many frail,
In this great trading Center.
In coney skins her commerce lay,
A charming stock she’d laid in;
She ne’er to smugglers fell a prey,
Her practice was fair trading: [35]
These skins when dress’d were red and white,
The fur of each fair creature,
Of diff’rent hues, hath day and night
Kept warm man’s naked nature.
For some succeed, &c.
The trading stock of this old Bawd
A vital stab sustain’d, sir;
The news like wild-fire flew abroad,
Each customer complain’d, sir ”

“ For a tradesman to open his shop in a place unresorted to, or in a place where his trade is not agreeable, and where it is not expected, it is no wonder if he has no trade. What retail trade would a milliner have among the fishmongers' shops on Fishstreet-hill, or a toyman about Queen-hithe? When a shop is ill chosen, the tradesman starves; he is out of the way, and business will not follow him that runs away from it: suppose a ship-chandler should set up in Holborn, or a block-maker in Whitecross Street, an anchor-smith at Moorgate, or a coachmaker in Redriff, and the like! ”

“ In the first place, the word 'trade' is often, and indeed generally, used in a broader sense, as equivalent to occupation, employment, or business, whether manual or mercantile. Wherever any occupation, employment, or business is carried on for the purpose of profit, or gain or a livelihood, not in the liberal arts or in the learned professions, it is constantly called a trade. ”