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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