OLD SODA CHECKS.-Frank D. Green, of Philadelphia, a member of the firm of Robert M. Green & Sons, the enterprising soda-fountain manufacturers of that city, has in his possession what he believes to be, and what in all probability are, the first checks for sodawater ever issued. There are a dozen of them, printed from a copper plate on a piece of bristol board and bearing the legend, "Artificial Mineral Waters-John Hart & Son."

This John Hart was a son-in-law of Townsend Speakman, who came from England in 1771 and set himself up as an apothecary at 8 (now 24) South Second Street. In 1781 John Hart was indentured to Mr. Speakman as an apprentice, and, after the good old custom, married his master's daughter and later succeeded to the business. Mr. Hart made what was perhaps the first soda-water manufactured in this country, at the suggestion of a famous physician of the old times, Dr. Physick, to be used as a drink for dyspeptics.

Professor Remington, of the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy, is a descendant of John Hart, and the old store, which still enjoys an excellent trade, is now owned by David G. Potts, who found the checks while making an exploration among the old books and papers of the store, and presented them to Mr. Green.

The old apothecary and his crony, the doctor with the marvelously appropriate name, would no doubt be astounded were they to witness the proportions which the soda water business has reached in these days.— Druggists Circular.

THE TRAVELING MAN.

First in the crowded car is he to offer-
This traveling man unhonored and unsung-—
The seat he paid for to some woman young

Or old or wrinkled: first he is to proffer
Something, a trifle from his samples maybe,
To please the fancy of a crying baby.

He lifts the window or he drops the curtain
For unaccustomed hands. He lends his case
To bolster up a sleeping child, not certain

But his mamma will frown him in the face,
So anxiously some women seek for danger
In every courteous act of every stranger.

Well versed is he in all those ways conducive
To comfort, where least comfort can be found:
He turns the seat unasked, yet unobtrusive,
His little deeds of thoughtfulness abound.
Is glad to please you, or to have you please him,
Yet takes it very calmly, if you freeze him.

He smoothes the Jove like frown of some official,
By paying fare for one who cannot pay.
True modesty he knows from artificial;

Will "flirt" of course, if you're inclined that way.
And if you are, be sure that he detects you,
And if you're not, be sure that he respects you.

The sorrows of the moving world distress him;
He never fails to lend what aid he can;

A thousand hearts to-day have cause to bless him—
This much-abused, misused commercial man.

I do not strive to cast a halo 'round him,
But speak of him precisely as I found him.

-ELLA WHEELER WILCOX,

in New York Tribune.

No. 4.

VOL. XI.

THE

barely perceived, but the results of repeated doses

When our antiquated system of weights and measures and our abominable orthography shall have felt the reforming hand of common sense, what a weight will be removed from the minds of schoolchildren. In a report to the British House of Commons, it was estimated

This is the meaning of "cumulative advertising." The term is not a fanciful phrase; it represents the essence of intelligent preparation for the harvest.

A little courtesy to the men who conduct the socalled detail canvasses of the medical profession in any district will seldom prove ill-bestowed. These men are in excellent position to repay handsomely any assistance that they may receive from the druggist, and they are seldom averse to giving him some very desirable advertising in return for a small investment in the products they are introducing. Do not treat them churlishly. Give them a hearing; lend them a hand when you consistently can, and mark the benefit which is almost sure to follow. This applies particularly to the representatives of reputable houses, who rarely desire to overstock their patrons, and who cheerfully relieve them of surplus goods by means of exchange.

So much has been said about the use of "alcohol in the arts" that we may well inquire about the precise

The people of Omaha are not letting the grass grow under their feet in preparation for their great Exposition in 1898. The railroads have been persuaded to subscribe for stock in sums ranging from $20,000 to $30,000. Congress has appropriated $200,000 for an exhibit. Nebraska, Utah and Montana have passed appropriations, and bills for the same purpose are now pending in most of the legislatures west of the Mississippi.

In business the influence exerted by advertising partakes much of the peculiar action manifested by those drugs which must be given for a long time until the system is saturated, when the medicinal effect is suddenly experienced. Advertising, like arsenic, must be sustained and uninterrupted. The effect at first is

ing list represents some of the mechanical arts in which alcohol plays a leading part:

Artificial lubricants; furniture polish; finish; varnish; lacquers; enamels; celluloid; zylonite; gunpowders; aniline colors; dyeing and preparation of colors; dissolving resins for hat makers; collodion; goldbeaters' skin; filling spirit levels; floating mariner's compass; extracting vegetable alkaloids; making vegetable extracts (dry); manufacture of transparent soap; quick-drying paints; preserving objects of natural history; chemical and anatomical research; sulphuric ether; chloral hydrate; chloroform; fulminating powder; liniments of soap, compound camphor, aconite, and belladonna; hypersperm oil, etc.

No one will deny that a French novel is more fascinating than a disquisition on our pharmacy laws. Yet every druggist worth his salt will concede that the dry subject of pharmaceutical legislation is fraught with the most serious considerations bearing upon his welfare as a bread-winner, and will be glad to see the topic treated

with the clearness and force visible in Professor Beal's paper on another page. We cannot forbear remarking in this connection that the too common neglect of important professional interests, simply because they require a greater effort of thought than the skimming of a newspaper or the hasty perusal of a cheap novel, is not creditable to the intelligence of those at fault and very naturally arouses contempt in all who expect from grown men a greater capacity for concentrated attention than that possessed by nursery graduates or the ornaments of a young ladies' seminary.

Any man of character could afford to be proud of the kind of criticism which some of the Massachusetts legislators are bestowing on their State Board of Pharmacy. Criticism, misrepresentation, detraction will continue to be theirs in ample measure so long as they do their duty by the Commonwealth; but they should have the manhood to persist without faltering. It is natural that those who want to use pharmacy as a cloak for the saloon business should resent the interference of the State Board, but that kind of resentment is merely the measure of their fidelity to the trust reposed in themthe more they arouse, the greater their claim on the confidence and backing of every respectable druggist. The hatred of some men is a distinction to be coveted. Unless we are erroneously informed, the Massachusetts Board is doing the right thing by its constituents, and its enemies are, with few exceptions, those whose ill will produces no insomnia in men of public spirit.

The BULLETIN expresses its cordial sympathy with the successful efforts of the Wheeling (W. Va.) druggists to prepare a suitable grave for the State Bill permitting physicians to have a pharmacist's license for the mere asking. The druggists are perfectly right in their contention that, in the main, only those representing the lowest layers in the medical profession would avail themselves of such a short-cut to pharmaceutical practice. The doctor's right to dispense his own medicine in country practice or in city emergencies, or as a regular custom when it involves the mere giving of powders or tablets, it would be useless to assail-nothing would be gained. But it is quite a different matter to grant any physician the pharmacist's license to compound and dispense all manner of liquid and solid combinations. The road to such a license should lead straight to and through a stiff examination by the Pharmacy Board. And those who cannot pass such an examination have no right to call themselves pharmacists. If they cannot climb the fence, they must keep out of the orchard.

"I haven't time to read," is the plea not infrequently heard when the druggist's attention is directed to some book, journal or article of practical bearing on his call

ing. "I haven't time to attend to business-I haven't time to make money" would be an equally rational objection. The truth is a druggist must keep himself informed and abreast of the times, if he expects to advance and prosper. Now, there are only two means at the command of the information-seeker. One is the pharmaceutical journal; the other, the conversation of the traveling man, whose keen ears, sharpened wits and open eyes perceive everything worth noticing as their possessor travels from town to town. The wide awake traveler is a mine of valuable suggestions. Do you realize it? Do you delve in that mine? Do you draw on the free fund of ideas and hints which it offers you? The clever traveler is willing to help you-he wants to talk-he is hired to talk and he can tell you many things which it will pay you to heed and utilize in your store. Many a good scheme has thus been borrowed and engrafted on a languishing business. "Work" the journals, "work" the drummers-you may not have time to read, but you surely have time to talk.

What shall we do to be saved? This is the great question which the retail druggists of the land are trying to solve, and which has formed the subject of endless thinking and writing in our journals. It is the essence

of our professional existence. By its answer we stand or fall. What volumes of literature have not yet accomplished, it would be folly to essay in a few lines, but it can never be amiss to declare and reiterate, in season and out of season, that in business as in theology each individual must work out his own salvation. In trade there is no vicarious atonement for faults and blunders. In the arena of competition it is personal effort which triumphs-a close study of business requirements, of sectional peculiarities, of suitable methods, of economies, improvements, novelties. The surest guaranty of business success is horror of routine—a constant and shrinking dread of stereotyped, mummified, mechanical habits of buying and selling. The habit of criticizing one's own methods is the beginning of success.

Organization and legislation are excellent and potent, but neither will work wonders-neither will dispense the druggist from the necessity of a personal and strenuous battle for existence.

What a delightful chaos prevails in the pharmacy legislation of the Empire State! In the cities of New York and Brooklyn the proprietor of a pharmacy must be registered; elsewhere the employment of a passed assistant suffices. In the city of New York a physician may be registered on merely displaying his medical diploma. The New York City Board registers without examination every applicant possessing a diploma of the New York College of Pharmacy: the State Board ignores that diploma and demands re examination. Yet when a