Part 93 (2/2)

3227. I understand you have two shops?-Yes.

3228. One of them is a shop where you only deal in drapery goods?-Yes; where we only deal for cash.

3229. There are no hosiery dealings carried on there?-No.

3230. Are the same prices charged for the drapery goods in the two shops?-There is a very small shade of difference on some things.

Some things are exactly the same in both; on others there is a small difference. I should say that there is such a difference on calicoes. There are several things we sell in that shop, such as fancy goods and sewed articles, which are not kept in our hosiery shop at all; but winceys and stuff goods, such as camlets and satteens, and other things for dresses, are charged alike in both shops, so far as I remember.

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3231. Is there any difference made in the price of the tea?-We don't sell tea in the drapery shop. While on this subject I would call attention to one thing that was stated in Mr. Walker's evidence. He said that the merchants gave mostly flowers and ribands, and things of that description in exchange for the hosiery; while the fact is that flowers and ribands are just the kind of goods which I would avoid giving, if I could, because we do not realize a profit on them. In our cash shop we never have flowers or ribands, unless when we are obliged to have them for the accommodation of our customers; and we would rather want them. I was four years in the trade, so far as I recollect, before I had any flowers or ribands in stock at all, because I knew from former experience they were a thing which did not pay.

3232. What is the reason why these things do not pay?-They may pay some people in the south, who charge a higher rate for them; but we do not charge so high for them as in the south.

3233. How are you obliged to have them now?-Because the people will have them, and they have got into the habit of buying them at the ordinary rates. An ordinary retail profit put on any of these things won't pay us, because so many of the flowers are lost, crushed, or destroyed; and sometimes I have seen us have to throw a box of them from the pier. Another thing is that ribands go out of fas.h.i.+on. There are boxes of ribands standing in my shop, which I would sell for one-fourth of the cash I paid for them.

3234. Do you not keep these, goods because you find it necessary to have them in order to induce people to come to your shop with their hosiery goods?-By no means. They come without any inducement of that kind.

3235. But they want them when they are selling their hosiery?- We could do without them, for that part of it. There are many customers who come for them, as well as hosiery customers.

When we want a particular article of hosiery, and have an order for it, we can arrange, and often do arrange, to buy it for cash; and the people may go and buy their goods where they like. That is frequently done when we have a standing order for an article; so that we do not keep these things as baits for the public at all.

3236. You buy a good deal of wool from the north isles?-Yes.

3237. I think you said you did not send any of it south?-No; I don't require to send it south.

3238. Are you aware of Shetland wool being bought and sent south in considerable quant.i.ties?-I was told by a south-country dealer that he had bought a considerable quant.i.ty of wool from Shetland; but that is all. I know about it. I have no personal knowledge of the thing being done.

3239. You don't understand that it is bought up by the proprietors or factors or middle-men?-I never heard anything about that, except from Mr. Walker's evidence; and it is a dream.

3240. You don't buy it yourself for any purpose of that kind?-No; there are none of the merchants who do that. There is one thing in my previous evidence which I wish to correct: I thought of it after I left here. In calculating the value of a 30s. shawl, I put down 14s.

as the value of the knitting; but in that case I did not make the deduction I should have made for the percentage of the goods paid for it, which would increase the real profit to the dealer. As, however, in a great many instances, when we require a fine shawl of that kind, a good deal of it is paid in cash, I think that, taking it as a general thing, not more than 1s., 6d. would fall to be deducted for that from the figure I gave. In some cases the price is paid wholly in cash, especially for things of that kind. That sum of 1s.

6d. would therefore fall to be added to the profit if the article was paid in goods; but if paid in cash, then my statement was quite correct.

3241. Did you hear the evidence which has been given by Mr.

Anderson with regard to the cost of making shawls and veils?-I did.

3242. It was mostly veils he spoke to, and the selling price of them: do you think his calculations that on subject were generally near the truth?-I believe they were perfectly correct, so far as my own experience goes, but I may say that my experience in that matter has been somewhat different from his, inasmuch, as for that cla.s.s of wool, and knitting. I often pay a higher rate to good knitters. There is this; however, to be said in my case, that I do not have so many job lots, which compensates to a great extent for the difference; and another thing is that I do not charge such a high price for them as he stated, when sending them south. If I am selling to a private individual, I may but it is very seldom that I sell to private individuals.

3243. That may be accounted for in this way: that you sell more to wholesale customers, while I suppose Mr. Linklater's business in Edinburgh is really a retail business?-Yes; he has a very extensive establishment in Edinburgh.

3244. His own establishment there is a retail one; so that the prices Mr. Anderson was speaking of were probably retail prices?-I suppose so. I think if the one was balanced with the other, there would be found to be very little difference between Mr. Linklater's experience in the trade and my own. I wish it to be distinctly understood, that when I said we got no profit, on the goods except what we realized on the first purchase, I meant that we do not realize indeed we often don't realize so much-as the price we paid for them in goods. In particular cases, we may charge a shade over what the thing has actually cost us; but there are a great many articles for which we must charge less, and that much more than balances the other. If our customers in the south were private individuals or consumers, we could very easily pay the same rate in cash that we now pay in goods, but as we have to sell to retail dealers in a wholesale way, we cannot afford to do that, unless we were to rob the retail dealer of his profit altogether.

Lerwick, January 6, 1872, ISABELLA SINCLAIR, examined.

3245. You are the daughter of Mr. Sinclair, who has just been examined, and one of the a.s.sistants in shop?-Yes.

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