22                     THE   OLD  MERCHAJVTS
 

CHAPTER  III.

There was a wonderful difference in the manner of
advertising by the old merchants thirty years ago and
now. Then all the merchants advertised by the year.
The regular price was $40 — and that price included
the paper, which was left by the carrier. Without the
paper it was $30. Strange as it may appear, there was
no limit fixed to the amount of advertising in those
days. A mercantile firm, like Goodhue & Co., adver¬
tised all they desired. No respectable house would
overdo the thing. There was a sort of self-respect
about the articles advertised. Goodhue & Co. and no
other respectable house would have advertised cotton.
The reason was that cotton was an article sold alto¬
gether through cotton brokers; and to have advertised
1000 bales of cotton by any house, even if they had
that quantity for sale, would have appeared like a bom¬
bast or an attempt to show off". A cotton purchaser
did not look at the newspapers. He went directly to
the offices of the different cotton brokers. The cotton
brokers were even then an institution. Tho principal
ones were N. Talcott, G. Merle and D. Crassons.

What aided in making great merchants in this city
thirty years ago, was their having foreign or New Eng¬
land connexions.    The great shipbuilders and owners