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Mammoth Department Store

Mammoth Department Store image
Parent Issue
Day
24
Month
March
Year
1897
Copyright
Public Domain
OCR Text

KETCHEM SKINEM & COOKEMS A VERITABLE MERCANTILE HOSPITAL No. 4-11-44 Skin Street, eor. Humbug Avenue. We are in the bargain business. We also sell some goods at high prices to cover our Enonnous Expenses. We shoe horses, run thresliing machines, repair clocks, mend umbrellas, griud scissors, doctor furniture, peddle pilla, keep a livery stable. conduct funerals, dig wells, sell cemetery lots, pull teeth, and sell some goods. We want to do all the business on earth. We want to close up all the local dealers. We want all the local stores to be vacant. We want to ruin trade in all locations - except ours. Owners of real estáte ought to spend their last dollar with us, for we are running their property for business purposes on every street all over the city, except Skin Street, where our vast conglomeration of bric-a-brac is located. We sell $10 worth of goods for 9c. ; $20 worth for 19c. ; $30 worth for 29c, and larger lots still higher. We sell tbree spools of thread for lc. ïliis sale takes place at 2 o'clock in the morning. Only 3 spools sold at that price. The lady who gets it will not be allowed to leave the store until she buya some more stuff so that we can get even. We sell wall paper at lc. per roll. The purchaser bas to buy 19 yarda of border with eyery roll of paper at $2.25 per yard. Everything else in proportion. We pay cash girls 50c a month ; best salesladies $3 a week, and beads of departinents $3.50, but our iron-clad rules and system of fines geaerally bring them out in deht at the end of the week. The newspapers do not daré to say a word against us as we pay them thousands of dollars every month for advertising. Thousands of ladies visit our store every day, brought here by our cunning advertisements. Some of them buy sometbinü. We have opening sales, closing sales, enlarging sales, ensmalling sales, bankrupt sales, removal sales, repairing sales, fire sales, water sales, smoke sales, anniversary sales, calamity sales, reduction sales, alteration sales, birth sales, holiday sales and sales. When we put up a . new screen door we have an alteration sale. When we build a new coal box we have an enlargement sale. When we empty the garbage box we have a removal sale. When one of our clerks stubs bis toe we have a calamity sale until the toe gets well. By that time we have some other fake sale studied up. It's a cold day when we don't have a sale of sorae kind every day in the week, every week in the month, every month in the year. Anything that happens on the globe we inake the pretext for a losing "money snlo. We are here to humbug mankind and we do it. We pay enormous rents, immense advertisíng bilis, and an army of clerks, bookkeepers, buyers, porters, watchmen, swash bucklers, ropers-in, cleaners, sueepers, etc., etc., the pay for which comes out of our customers. So we really ran afford to sell Ipss than coat. We sell only for cash - bring your pocket-book with you. If you want credit go to your local dealer. Our own pick-pockets go through every department every 15 minutes. Outside pickpockets must keep out. Watch our "bargains." If you haven't money to spend with us, borrow ten dollars from your local merchant and come on up. In case of fire we guarantee a first-class panic and thousands of people maimed for life - some killed. We shall shortly add a small-pox and cholera hospital and another department for measeis and whooping cough. So extra charge for exposure to these diseases. This is ttie largest store in the world. All department stores are. We have our plunder scattered over more than fifty acres of flooring. This is just as true as any otlier statement in this advertisment. The ladies- bless 'em - are our game. If it wasn't for them we conldn't make the thing work at all. Men are not so easily caught, but the mimen just fall into our trap by the thousand. We get bigger prices out of tliem for our truck than any small dealer would dare to ask. Darling women! it is yon that makes the department graft a possibility. To sum it all up, we are about the whole tliing. Take a whole day, pay a lot of car fare, crowd in atnong a lot of bargain Inmters, aweat, struagle, and wear yourselves out and get glorioualy swindled on about al) the old truck you buy. Theu go homo and expect your local dealer to patronize you when he wants anything in your line. We conclude thig extraordinary advertisement with this stupendous offer. Wp present a grand prize i-ontest open to all our customers. We will givo $10.000 (in trade) to the person sending us the largest number of words made out of the alphabet. All the letters may be used as many times as desired. Send ten type written copies of each list. This contest runs indefinitely. At the end of that time the prizp. will be awarded. No such ofl'er as this was ever made before and probably never will be again. DON'T FORGET THE PLACE.

Article

Subjects
Old News
Ann Arbor Courier