Tuesday 4 September 2012

1902-01-10



The commercial and the manufacturing world generally begin the new year by balancing up books, finding out what is profit or loss. The past year has been one of profit, not only in Canada, but also in the United States, excepting here and there where the heads of firms lived beyond their income, with no capital to back them except the credit they were fortunate in having. Credit is a good thing to have, but it is too often strained; and the result is failure and business injury to every man connected, directly or indirectly, with that line of credit. Men go into business with little or no capital, and if they have had a good trade and lived within their means, they are able at the end of the year to pay their obligations; but once let a man draw on borrowed capital for current expenses and the chances are ten to one that in a year or two Dun and Bradstreet will be counting him among the list of failures, not able to pay twenty-five cents on the dollar. “Poor fellow,” his friends will say, “he struggled hard but his luck was against him.” There is no sympathy for the men he has injured by his failure. Probably if he had lived within his income, and given his business closer attention, he could have pulled through on the profit side of the ledger instead of with a deficit. Take the majority of failures that end up the year, and it will found that the men or firms who have gone out with the tide were doing a $50,000 or $100,000 business on purely wind capital, and that they were living like nabobs when they should have been saving at every turn of the wheel for the benefit of the firms who trusted them. What we call luck in business is only the result of get-up-and-get, and the man who is instant in season and out of season, may generally be counted upon to feel comfortable when accounts and notes in bank come in for the yearly balancing. A large majority of the businessmen of Hamilton begin the year with the happy feeling that in the last year ‘s prosperity they added of much to the capital stock, and that with another year like last they will be able to move a block higher on East Street.

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          This seems to be an appropriate time to take a look backward at the commercial and manufacturing industries of Hamilton. Examine the city directory that was printed 45 years ago and it will surprise you how few of the names are familiar today; how few of the men who were in the forefront of business enterprises have been followed by their children, even if the business were handed down to them. There were3 23 barristers then, of whom only three are left. Only one of the newspaper publishers has survived the years, and he is now in the civil service in another city. F. W. Fearman kept a produce store on Hughson street, between King and King William, and he is the only survivor of thirteen men then engaged in the same business. Of nine firms of tinsmiths and stove dealers, not one is left to tell the story of success or adversity. We look in vain in the list of nineteen show dealers, and not one name is familiar to the buyers of today. Of the twelve firms in the jewelry business then, not one is familiar now in the same line. Of the twelve hardware firms, wholesale and retail, the name of Andrew T. Wood stands solitary and alone to represent the strong firms who controlled the trade of the country west and north of Hamilton. Of the 69 men and firms that sold groceries in Hamilton 45 years ago, only the firm of James Osborne and Son is a familiar name now, and the son is doing business at the same old stand; the name of James Turner survives as representative of the wholesale grocery trade. George Webster made English gin at the foot of Wentworth street, but his descendants must have changed the occupation. Pilgrim made ginger wine and soda water in olden times, and his descendants are yet pilgrims in dispensing soft drinks.

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          Hamilton was the headquarters for the wholesale dry goods trade for Western Canada 45 years ago, there being eleven importing firms engaged in the business, the largest being Buchanan, Harris and C. The sales figured up in the millions. All of that immense trade has dwindled down to one wholesale house, and Hamilton has been the loser. George McKeand is the only survivor of the wholesale trade. It took 26 retail dry goods stores to suplly the demands of the trade away back in the fifties, and many of the firms carried as fine a class of goods as was in the market in those days. Only one of the old-time merchants has his name now connected with business – Thomas C. Watkins, and he died last Thursday. Drug stores are scattered all over the city now, so one has not to go far from home to get a prescription filled or to buy a bottle of patent medicine. Hamilton had only six retail druggists in the fifties and two wholesale firms, and not a member of any of the old firms is now living. F. F. Dalley is the only one who has succeeded his father in the drug line. There were 23 doctors to cure the ills that flesh is heir to, three of whom were homeopaths, two eclectics and two German, not one of whom is now living, Dr. Case being the last to pass away. Now there are 70 physicians to look after the health and ailments of Hamilton, three of whom bear the names of early practitioners.
          Twenty-five places were licensed to dispense high ball refreshments to the thirsty, and only one of the men is now living, so far as we can hear. One of the saloon keepers was named Budge – certainly very appropriate to the business. George Lee kept the Argyle Coffee rooms on King street, where one could get a good meal of roast beef and potatoes for 13 cents and finish off with pie at six cents. Gentlemen were requested not to smoke in the dining room. It now takes 17 licensed saloons to supply the hourly demand of those who need to have their tonsils levigated.
          The Hon. Issac Buchanan represented the city of Hamilton in provincial parliament; William Notman, of Dundas, the north riding of Wentworth; Joseph Rymal, the south riding.

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          Early in the fifties, Tom Burrows, the genial old auctioneer, who has a veritable curiosity shop on Rebecca street, came to Hamilton, a raw young Irishman and began clerking for T. M. Best, an auctioneer of great ability in those days. Best was a genius who could take a standard library and quote some trifle passage or verse from almost every book he put up at auction. When he had a book sale on hand, he would go through the volumes and here and there pick out some catchy sentence, and having an excellent memory, he used his reading to good advantage. Tom Burrows learned the tricks of the trade from his old employer, and being gifted with Irish mother wit, he has come down to the present a one with few equals in his profession. Give him a violin to sell and the genial old Tom will tune it up and play the Rocky Road to Dublin or an aria from an opera, before he offers the instrument for sale, and then he can always get a good price for it. He is the last of an illustrious line of auctioneers who were noted in their business half a century ago, and when death makes the last bid, “going, going, gone!” who is there to take his place? May the veteran auctioneer live many years to enjoy his curiosity shop and to throw bouquets of pleasantry to the lady patrons of his auctions; for it is said that half the women in town watch the newspapers ads to keep track of Tom Burrows’ sales, and they attend them as regularly as they would a matinee at the opera house.

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          We might fill columns in looking backward and comparing the past with the present. One thing is certain that but few of the men who were active in business and professional loife half a century ago will be here to answer roll call at the Hamilton Old Boys’ reunion this coming summer. Indeed one can almost count the survivors. There is A. T. Wood. George Roach, George Moore, F. W. Fearman, Tom Burrows, Thomas Beasley, Henry S. Papps, Edward Martin, Joseph Kneeshaw, William Edgar, C. W. Meakins, F. W. Gates, George McKeand, Alexander Murray, William Hendrie, James Walker, Joseph Kent, Joseph Mitchell, N. B. Robbins, John A. Bruce of the firm John A. Bruce and Co., seedsmen; Robert Young, J. H. Smith, the old schoolmaster, Richard Russell and others whom we cannot recall. Of course, there are many of the old stagers whose only prominence was that they were good citizens, made an honest living and paid their debts. The last of the old dry goods merchants, Thomas C. Watkins, died on Thursday. In his young manhood, he was a force in business circles, a liberal giver to benevolent and religious causes, and one of the old-fashioned kind of Methodists who attended class and prayer meetings as regularly as night came. Mr. Watkins was active in temperance work, and a working member of the Sons of Temperance, not that he needed the restraints of a society, but to help others. He was also a member of No. 2 Fire Company fifty years ago, when it was organized on temperance lines. His business life was  a record of industry, and he leaves a monument by which he will long be remembered – the finest business house in the city.

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