Business Hints for Men and Women, Alfred Rochefort Calhoun [best classic books .TXT] 📗
- Author: Alfred Rochefort Calhoun
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Where an express company fails to collect, notice is promptly given with the reasons for failure.
When you wish an express company to collect, it will be necessary for you to make out a statement of the account. This is placed in a special envelope, provided by the company. It is properly indorsed and handed to the company’s representative.
The company charges a small fee for collection, whether it succeeds or not. In any case the fee is not much above a fourth of one per cent, unless there should be unusual trouble.
C. O. D. BY EXPRESS
As you know, C.O.D. means “cash on delivery”.
Cash on delivery orders constitute no small part of every express company’s business.
When goods are forwarded in this way, the sender furnishes with the goods an itemized bill duly receipted. The express company’s charges should be included in the bill.
The express agent is sure to collect the bill before he lets the goods leave his keeping.
MONEY BY EXPRESS
Should you desire to send money by express, it will be well to go to the company’s office before you pack it up.
Express companies have special receptacles or envelopes in which to store coin or bills. There is no charge for these.
The sender must himself seal the packages containing the money, and write on them the address of the consignee, also the amount enclosed.
Having received the packages, the express agent ties them up, affixes his official seal, which is so arranged that the package cannot be opened or tampered with, without breaking. This done, he gives the sender a receipt. This should be cared for as a vital part of the record.
The charges for sending money by express may or may not be paid in advance. They vary with the amount to be carried and the distance.
Packages of money are receipted for in the usual way. They are delivered only to the legal consignee, unless a second person should appear with an order, amounting to a power of attorney, and which the company cannot reject.
MONEY ORDERS
The foregoing by no means limits the express company’s usefulness or field of opportunities.
Express companies issue money orders much as does the Post Office Department.
As with the post office, the fees for orders vary, but no order is issued for more than fifty dollars.
If you want to send such an order, the express company will furnish the proper blank for you to fill out.
On this form must be written out very plainly the name and address of the person to whom the order is to be sent, with the amount, in words and in figures.
On receiving the money the express agent gives to his customer two papers; one is the company’s receipt for the money, the other is the order itself.
The order instructs the agent at the point to which it is to be sent to pay the sum named to the person named.
To complete the order the sender should sign his name in a place indicated for the purpose on the back of the paper.
This done, the order can be sent to the person for whom it is intended, in an ordinary envelope.
The receiver of an express money order can have it cashed at the express office in his town, or sign it and place it in his own bank as if it were cash.
Not everything about railroads, that would be a tremendous undertaking, but just enough to show what everyone should know about them as carriers of goods.
The express companies have practically a monopoly of the transportation of the smaller packages of goods requiring quick transit and immediate delivery, but the longer, heavier, and slower freight are in the hands of the railroads, and where it can be done, and time is not a first factor, the steamboat takes the place of the train.
BILLS OF LADING
As most of the goods in changing hands are carried by steamboat or railroad, the method of shipment should be understood by everyone who may be called on to use one or the other means of transportation.
The person shipping goods in this way is the “consignor.”
The person to whom the goods are shipped is the “consignee”.
The goods shipped are described in a paper called a “bill of lading.”
A bill of lading is a written contract, or statement of the goods shipped, their condition, and the time of shipment.
Bills of lading and receipt blanks are furnished at the offices of the transportation companies.
Two copies of the bill of lading should be made out. One of these is signed by the consignor and the other by the transportation agent.
The copy signed by the consignor is kept by the agent, and the copy signed by the agent is retained by the consignor, as a voucher for the goods shipped.
This receipt should be mailed to the consignee.
When the consignee gets this bill of lading, it is a voucher to the freight agent, where the goods are to be delivered, as to the ownership.
It is usual for the agent at the point of shipment to send a copy of the bill of lading to the agent where the goods are received. In this way he can compare the consignment with the consignee’s bill.
EXPENSE BILLS
It is not usual to pay freight bills at the point of shipment, that being left till the goods reach their destination.
The agent at the place of delivery makes out an “expense bill,” which is an itemized statement of the freight charges, and must be paid by the consignee before delivery.
This done, the consignee must sign a receipt for the goods delivered, and the affair is closed.
A BILL AND A DRAFT
Before wholesale houses or manufacturers ship goods, they are either paid for or they have a business understanding with the consignee as to when and how the payment is to be made.
There are occasions, however, when no such arrangement has been made, and a man not well known to the merchant orders goods shipped by freight.
In a case like this, the merchant may ascertain through a commercial agency—the agencies make it their business to keep posted in such matters—the standing of the man giving the order.
Trade has its risks and the merchant, even where the information is not quite assuring, may decide to fill the order and ship it.
As with express companies, goods may be sent as freight, C. O. D.
This is done by means of a bill of lading, to which is attached a draft. The shipper bills the goods to himself at the point to which they were ordered.
To the bill of lading he attaches a draft for the sum involved, but this, instead of being forwarded to the consignee by mail, is sent to him through a bank for collection.
Now before the consignee can get the bill of lading, which authorizes him to receive the goods, he must pay the draft.
The bill, which is in the shipper’s name, is then endorsed over to the payer of the draft.
Country merchants and sometimes farmers send produce by freight to be sold on commission in the city.
AN INVOICE
Delhi, N. Y., Sept. 9, 1910. Invoice of Merchandise shipped by Harry T. Jackson and consigned to Brown, Smith & Co., Newburg, N. Y. to be sold on commission. 120 bbls. Potatoes 70 ” green apples 40 Crates tomatoes.
Mark plainly all goods shipped.
Generally speaking, tax bills are paid with reluctance.
This is no doubt due to the fact that with every other form of payment one has something tangible to show for the expenditure.
If every good citizen could be brought to see that his private interests are closely linked with public affairs, he would take more interest in the local politics of his town and county, and so have a voice in the expenditure of taxes by selecting the best men to do the work for him.
Taxes are forced contributions levied on citizens to provide money for public expenses, such as law and order, schools, charities and public institutions.
All tax laws are made by the men who pay the taxes.
You say “No” to this.
“The tax laws are made by the legislators up at the state capital.”
Very true; but who nominates and elects the legislators? Did you not put them into office?
“No, the bosses did that,” you reply.
True again, but good men are in the majority and if they did their duty to their country and themselves, there would be no bosses and taxes would be honestly spent.
KINDS OF TAXES
Tax laws are enacted by Congress, and by the legislatures of our many states. Taxes cannot be collected without this authority.
State taxes are collected for the state use only.
United States taxes are expended for the benefit of all the people of all the states.
Taxes may be further divided into direct and indirect.
Direct taxes are, at present, only employed by the states. They are levied on realty and personal property, and are paid by the particular person named in the tax bill presented by the authorized collector.
The amount of these taxes vary each year, depending on the public requirements.
They are based on assessments made by officers appointed for the purpose and generally known as assessors.
CUSTOMS DUTY
Though there is no demand made on each individual to pay the indirect taxes required by the Government, yet indirectly every person who spends little or much money is paying them.
The Government’s chief means of raising the great sums of money needed yearly to carry on its machinery is by customs duties and internal revenue collections.
The customs revenue is obtained from a tax levied on certain articles imported from foreign countries.
This customs tax is called a tariff.
The question as to the goods that shall be subject to a tariff and the amount to be levied on the same, is one that has long perplexed statesmen and been a leading party issue.
The merchant, to whom the goods are assigned from a foreign port, must pay the duty levied on them by a Government Appraiser before he can take them away.
Private parties, landing from abroad at any of our ports of entry, are required, before getting their baggage, to write out a declaration of the things contained in their trunks. But this declaration does not prevent the customs inspectors from making a careful personal examination. All things found dutiable, whether declared or not, are set apart and held until the assessment or duty is paid.
The evasion of a customs duty is called “smuggling” and is punished by the confiscation of the goods, and penalties in the way of fine and imprisonment.
There are people who would consider it a sin to cheat their butcher, but see no wrong in cheating the Government.
To the merchant who pays tariff duties the amount involved is a direct tax.
When the merchant sells his goods to the retailer or consumer, he adds the tariff to his freight, insurance, interest, etc., as direct purchase cost. This is strict business, but the consumer pays all the bills with the profit added.
INTERNAL REVENUE
The second great source of Government revenue is derived from the internal revenue tax, or excise duties.
Manufacturers of alcohol, whether as wine, whiskey, or beer, and the producers of tobacco, in its manufactured forms, have to pay an excise tax in proportion to the amount and character of their products.
As with the customs tax, the excise tax is added by the manufacturer to the cost of production, so that at last it is the consumer who pays it.
STAMPS
While the
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