100 Years Ago In Furniture World

Has the Orphan Asylum Outlived Its Usefulness?

Inasmuch as literally millions (of children) are tied up in "orphans homes" or as they are more generally known "orphans asy­lums, the furniture industry is interested in Dr. Reeder's contention that the orphan asylum has outlived its useful­ness and must be supplanted by the home - particularly at this time. Hav­ing been an important feature of the (furniture) industry in the past, the equipping of institutions of all kinds, orphan asy­lums are objects of interest to furni­ture men, and if they are to be abol­ished it will be interesting to see what will take their place. Should it prove to be smaller and especially individual units the change would be a marked one to certain manufacturers and dealers.

National Housewives League Denounces Sales Practice

Returns from a survey of the leading department stores of the country made by Mrs. Julian Heath, founder president of the National Housewives League, show overwhelming opposition to the so-called "hidden demonstration" system. The practice, familiar to the trade, but generally unknown to the public, consists of payment in whole or in part, of salaries of department store employees by manufacturers on the understanding that the employees will encourage customers to buy these manufacturers' goods.

World News: Italy

In the last Italian election Mussolini polled 4,600,000 votes, to 2,500,000 votes recorded for all the other groups combined, and 379 Fascisti have been elected to the Italian Chamber against 160 members of non-Fascisti parties.

Mattress Sales Education

In hair mattresses there is always a certain per cent of short hair and a certain per cent of long hair. Horse­hair is occasionally adulterated with fine threads of whalebone, goat hair, cattle hair and hog hair. The long hair is the best quality, but short hair must be added in order that the long hair may be kept from interlocking and matting. The hair as we get it in mattresses is processed very carefully to make it sanitary, and then curled. Hair is the most elastic and resilient of all fillings, is not absorbent, will not a pack, is free from odor and sanitary.

$50 Offered For Mattress Slogan

The better grade of mattress and pillow manufacturers affiliated with the Better Bedding Alliance of America, are offering a substantial cash prize for a slogan which will guard the public against second—hand or misrepresented filling materials in bedding, so the sale of better grade mattresses and pillows and induce the public to renew them more frequently.

Radio Craze

A radio sale conducted by Gimbel Bros, in this city last week is claimed that $1,000,000 worth of radio sets were sold in one day at slightly less than $100 each. It is pointed out as an evidence of the great growth of the radio craze that hardly three years ago the Gimbels began selling radios, and that its first month experience in its Philadelphia store, for example, netted them exactly one sale amounting to $8.

Creditors Arrested & Accused of Conspiracy

Samuel Salef and Harry Liberman, owners of Star Upholstered Furniture were arrested together with their wives, Leah Salef and Dora Lieberman, charged with conspiring illegally to obtain merchandise, also with assault.

Chestnut Blight 1925

Because of the chestnut blight now prevalent throughout the country, it is feared that within ten years, the chestnuts will vanish from America. The United States Bureau of Foreign Plant Introduction is endeavoring to acclimate certain flight-resistant species of chestnut from China and Japan to replace our native trees.

Furniture Manufacturers Indited for Price Fixing

Leading furniture manufacturers of the United States are charged with combining to boost prices and monopolize the trade in a Federal Grand Jury investigation in Chicago. Books, sales records and cost accounts of 250 furniture manufacturers were ordered seized on subpoenas. This investigation disclosed, according Federal officers, that furniture prices are set in many instances two or three times as great as a just profit based on cost and ope ating expenses would warrant.

NY Bedding Crime Spree

•  Max Eilenberg, 34 Allen street, New York City, fined $20 for having six pillows labeled feather down while same contained plain feathers.

•  E. Zimmerman, 57 Stanton street New York City, fined $20 for having in his possession and for sale, four mattresses without labels.

•  Mutual Mattress & Bedding company, Bronx, N.Y., fined $50 for failure to label re-made or renovated articles.