Archive for November 7th, 2011

7
Nov

The Mayor is Up in Arms

   Posted by: admin    in Accident, Court matters

The Fort Dodge Messenger: Nov. 7, 1905

The Mayor is Up in Arms

Says Distributing Pills and Medicines About The City Must Stop.

With the bringing before him a case where a little child had become dangerously ill from eating a sample box of pills thrown into the front yard by a distributing agent, Mayor Bennett has risen in his wrath and declares that distributing samples of medicines about the city especially at residences must be stopped.

He states that he will notify official bill poster and advertising agent W.P. Durmer that he must not take any more contracts to put out such stuff and will instruct his police to arrest all transients whom they find pursuing a similar work. His action will no doubt be approved through the city particularly by people with small children, from the fact that the little ones often pick up, and eat boxes of tempting-looking sugar coated pills, etc., that they found about the street and house.

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7
Nov

Seen and Heard

   Posted by: admin    in Merchants

The Fort Dodge Messenger: Nov. 7, 1906

Seen and Heard

A group of men were lounging in one of the drug stores of the city. The proprietor of the establishment was sitting at one of the little round tables used by soda water fiends during the summer months. After writing vigorously unaware of the discussions around him, he suddenly looked up, gathered a sheaf of neatly folded papers in his hand and said, “There’s sixty-seven statements of small accounts for one month which I am sending out. The items total from twenty cents ($4.79 today) to ten dollars ($239.40). Probably the whole amount involved is thirty-five dollars ($838.23).”

Cigars were relit and the loungers settled back in their seats. “Yes,” said the proprietor,  “I have seen men come in here, buy a cigar and have their five cent ($1.20) purchase charged. If the man is a fairly good customer I have my clerks do it. This shows how the charging habit affects people. I should think that a business man would have at least five cents in his pocket. Possibly that man will not charge anything else for that month. At the end of thirty days a statement must be mailed to him. This takes up a large amount of the profits accruing from the sale.

“There is another side of the charging question that I have noticed nad that is that most of the young men who are addicted to it spend far more than they have any idea of and far too heavily in proportion to their wages. Of course this benefits me but still I don’t think it is right. I think that the best way a father can teach a boy frugality and thrift is to warn him against the habit of charging promiscously (sic) every purchase he makes. It is so easy to charge a thing with no thought for the day of reckoning.”

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7
Nov

Iowa as Frontier State

   Posted by: admin    in Farm life

The Fort Dodge Messenger: Nov. 7, 1906

Iowa as Frontier State

Pennsylvania Boys Think it a Stamping Ground for Cowboys

Bearing a two cent stamp in one corner, the following enclosure of a letter directed to the Fort Dodge Post Master was received at the post office this morning:

Aspinwall, Pennsylvania
October 23, 1906

Post Master, Fort Dodge, Iowa:

Dear Sir – I would like to ask you to send me the names of some of the ranchers and ranchmen of Iowa that employ cowboys. A friend of mine and I have decided to go west to Iowa providing we can get work as cowboys.

Hoping you will oblige me by sending me a few names, I remain,

Very truly yours,

J.E. Snyder
Aspinwall, Pennsylvania.

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