Warehouseman

“ It is not just that the manufacturer who owns a mill, or he who merely owns a warehouse, and employs out-door work-people—that the dealer in money, the discounter, the various large agencies, the merchant who transacts his business in a single office and sends his ship all over the world, and the great carriers, because their business happens not to be rateable according to the law, should bear no greater burden than the shop-keepers in a great London thoroughfare. ”

“ I found the processes at the warehouse quite as interesting as Edith had described them, and became even enthusiastic over the truly remarkable illustration which is seen there of the prodigiously multiplied efficiency which perfect organization can give to labor. It is like a gigantic mill, into the hopper of which goods are being constantly poured by the train-load and ship-load, to issue at the other end in packages of pounds and ounces, yards and inches, pints and gallons, corresponding to the infinitely complex personal needs of half a million people. ”

“ I know some tradesmen are very fond of seeing their shops well-stocked, and their warehouses full of goods, and this is a snare to them, and brings them to buy in more goods than they want; but this is a great error, either in their judgment or their vanity; for, except in retailers' shops, and that in some trades where they must have a great choice of goods, or else may want a trade, otherwise a well-experienced tradesman had rather see his warehouse too empty than too full: if it be too empty, he can fill it when he pleases, if his credit be good, or his cash strong ”

“ All of petitioner's sales are made exclusively at the retail stores and no deliveries to customers are made from the warehouse.
Employees in the central office, which is located in the same building as the warehouse, perform the usual functions of checking invoices, paying bills, making out payrolls, keeping inventory records, checking store deliveries and the like. The various employees in the warehouse and the truck drivers handle the physical work connected with the receipt, storage and shipment of merchandise. ”

“ There used to be, and belike is yet, a custom, in all maritime places which have a port, that all merchants who come thither with merchandise, having unloaded it, should carry it all into a warehouse, which is in many places called a customhouse, kept by the commonality or by the lord of the place. There they give unto those who are deputed to that end a note in writing of all their merchandise and the value thereof, and they thereupon make over to each merchant a storehouse, wherein he layeth up his goods under lock and key. ”

“ The business of this place is conducted with great regularity, and the dealers and collectors of old clothes meet at a certain hour of the afternoon to make sales and exchanges, so that it is managed almost upon the same plan as the Royal Exchange, only that the dealers here come loaded with their goods, which must undergo inspection before sales can be effected: while the Merchant carries with him merely a sample, or directs his Purchaser to the warehouse where his cargo is deposited. ”

“ The warehouse is open, several barrows and men are before it, they are piling up the goods: a short figure that I could not make out in the dark, panting and whining, screaming and grumbling, is shuffling and tumbling about. I make up to the fellows with the stolen goods. ”

“ Appellants' warehouses, while nominally open to the general public as railroad freight stations, are not in fact public stations, but are confined to the warehousing of merchandise for their patrons. The services which they perform in connection with loading and unloading of freight, including the sending of arrival notices to their patrons after receipt of notice of arrival from the railroad, the collection of freight charges, and other incidental matters, are in fact performed for the owners of the merchandise rather than for the railroads. ”

“ In front is the brick sidewalk, the cobbled street, the bit of open space with Harrier's junk-shop on the right corner; and then the warehouses on either side, all leading down to the slip, Doty's Slip, which is flanked by noble wharves, with huge piles leaning awry and very slippery. The warehouses are roomy and full of queer smells, as if the varied merchandize of fifty years had left something for its old friends, the warehouses, to remember it by. ”

“ Ware′room, a room where goods are exposed for sale.—Warehousing system, the plan of allowing importers of dutiable goods to store them in a government warehouse without payment of duties until ready to bring the goods into market.—Benares ware, a fine ornamental metal-work made at Benares and other places in India; Delft ware (see Delf) ; Small ware, wares, textile articles of a small kind—e.g. tape, bindings and braids of cotton, silk, &c.; buttons, hooks, &c.: trifles; Tunbridge ware, inlaid or mosaic wood-work manufactured at Tunbridge ”

“ He may be the head of a department store or the owner of a large clothing establishment or a merchant tailor. Whoever he is, if he is not able to erect or to provide suitable factories instead of shifting the responsibility of workrooms upon his petty contractors, he would better delegate the manufacture of his goods to someone who is. There is no more necessity for any of these men except, perchance, the merchant tailor to make his own garments in little shops and in tenements than for him to make his own muslins and challies and lawns, his silks and linens and broadcloths. ”

“ Another set are actually in trade at the moment, if that can be called a trade, which consists of a shop of all sorts; these are called "general dealers," and partake much of the character of the jobbers; only that the latter for a shop, keep a "warehouse," upstairs in a garret; or their lodging room at the public house serves the purpose of a warehouse! I have known one of these, at the same time a dealer in cutlery, coffins, pictures, paper, hose, books, bandanas, and other heterogeneous articles ”

“ The warehouse system in the boot and shoe trade is of the same nature. Hundreds of small manufacturers bring their products once, or oftener, a week to these buying warehouses connected with thousands of centrally controlled shops open all over the country. ”

“ The stock of volumes in the library is on the increase; the window, counter, shelves and drawers, are all well filled; Mr. Wesden deals in postage and receipt stamps—ever a good sign of capital to spare—and has turned the wash-house into a warehouse, where reams of paper, envelopes, and goods too numerous to mention, are biding their time to see daylight in Great Suffolk Street. ”

“ Merchandise, if duly imported, with certain exceptions not necessary to be noticed, may be entered for warehousing without paying the duties at the time of the entry, in which event the goods are delivered into the possession of the collector, and are deposited, at the option of the owner, importer, consignee, or agent, at his expense, in any public warehouse or other place provided by law for the storage of such property. ”

“ Perhaps when we make use of the term ‘Brokers’ Shop,’ the minds of our readers will at once picture large, handsome warehouses, exhibiting a long perspective of French-polished dining-tables, rosewood chiffoniers, and mahogany wash-hand-stands, with an occasional vista of a four-post bedstead and hangings, and an appropriate foreground of dining-room chairs. Perhaps they will imagine that we mean an humble class of second-hand furniture repositories. Their imagination will then naturally lead them to that street at the back of Long-acre, which is composed almost entirely of brokers’ shops ”

“ Tell the Great Father that there is only one store here, and all the young men are shedding tears about it. If they had mowing-machines, such as they could ride upon, to ride around their country and cut hay, they would be able to earn something; but the agent considers that the country belongs to him personally, and cuts all the hay. My friends, I would like to have our agent, before the sun goes down, climb up into the second story of the warehouse and take down all the teepee cloths and blankets that he has there, and divide them among the people. ”

“ The same principle holds true in all other relations. The merchant would find a certain advantage in living at his warehouse, the engine-builder at his factory, the cotton-spinner at his mill, the carpenter at his shop, and the grocer at his store. ”

“ The factor often provides a store, together with a complete selling and office force, and every facility for receiving, storing, selling, and shipping the goods, and for financing the business. The salesmen of the house travel throughout the country, reaching all the important markets, and the managers of the different departments, who thus understand the needs of the market, are in a position to advise the mill with intelligence and exactness as to the kind of goods which should be made to meet the requirements of the trade. ”

“ A large proportion of the commodious and well-lighted warehouse level on the top storey is let off to individual traders in what are known as "fixed spaces," the demand for which is always in excess of the supply. Goods of great variety and of great value are stored here. The warehouse is found especially useful in connection with the extensive goods traffic carried by the Great Eastern Railway Company between England and the Continent. ”

“ A corps of men is kept constantly busy, [Pg 163] checking off the merchandise as it is unloaded. Husky porters, with hand trucks, seize cases, barrels and miscellaneous packages of every sort and, presto! they are whirled into huge freight elevators which presently depart for upper and unknown floors. There are three of these, in practically continuous operation. In addition to them packages brought by hand—generally from local wholesalers and in response to emergency orders—are carried up into the offices of the receiving department upon an endless carrier. ”

“ The factory hand spends his working day in a great, dingy shop, with the maddening din of machinery in his ears. His associates are strangers, with whom he has little or nothing in common besides his work. He labors for an indefinite, far-away consumer whose manner of life is unknown to him. ”

“ In our time, small shops are swallowed up in magnificent warehouses, in which every article of dress especially can be purchased under one roof—from a penny yard of ribbon to a hundred-guinea shawl. In splendour these bazaars, with one proprietor, rival the oriental with many competitors. But their distinguishing characteristic is the far-seeing organization, by which the capital is turned over with unexampled rapidity, and no unsaleable stock is kept on hand. ”

“ The immediate change to be desired for the tailors is the introduction of the back-shop. There are two or three reasons for such a change. In the first place, the owner of a factory does not require or expect his workers to pay rent for the room in which they work nor to own the machines they use. The factory system is supposed to have displaced domestic industry in this age in America. ”

“ Stores! stores! stores! miles of stores! ten thousand stores to distribute the goods needed by this one city, which in my dream had been supplied with all things from a single warehouse, as they were ordered through one great store in every quarter, where the buyer, without waste of time or labor, found under one roof the world's assortment in whatever line he desired. There the labor of distribution had been so slight as to add but a scarcely perceptible fraction to the cost of commodities to the user. The cost of production was virtually all he paid. ”

“ This warehouse-keeper, or wholesale-man, sells the goods which he buys of the merchant—I say, he sells them to the retailers, and it is for that reason I place it first there. Now, as they buy in smaller quantities than he did of the merchant, so he deals with more of them in number, and he goes about among them the same Saturday, to get in money that he may pay his merchant, and he receives his bag full of promises, too, every where instead of money, and is put off from week to week, perhaps by fifty shopkeepers in a day ”

“ He had a warehouse in which space was sometimes let for the storage of other people's goods, but which also served to hold country produce whenever, in view of a probable rise in the market, he chose to enter the field as a cash buyer in competition with the "storekeepers," who bought only in exchange for goods. ”

“ These persons, in ordinary times, act as salesmen or agents, and make up assortments of goods at the market price, for the use of the home or foreign dealer. They possess large warehouses in which to make up their orders, or keep in store articles purchased during periods of depression ”

“ The warehousing system would enable the importer to watch the market and to select his own time for offering his goods for sale. A profitable portion of the carrying trade in articles entered for the benefit of drawback must also be most seriously affected without the adoption of some expedient to relieve the cash system. ”

“ Stores in the occupation of persons desirous of engaging in the business of storing dutiable merchandise. Importers storing goods in such stores paid rent to the owner, but they also were required to pay a sum equivalent to the salary of an inspector, or half-storage to the collector, as in the other class of stores. ”

“ Owing to this distribution of manufacturers, it is evident that most of the workpeople would be within easy reach of an employer, and probably the most usual thing was for them to fetch their materials from his house, or warehouse, and after working upon them, to return the product. ”

“ I know not by what fatality, or by what confederacy, every catalogue of genuine furniture comes to her hand, every advertisement of a warehouse newly opened, is in her pocketbook, and she knows before any of her neighbours when the stock of any man leaving off trade is to be sold cheap for ready money. ”