Second Shetland Truck System Report Part 95

3295. When a shawl is brought to the shop and paid for in goods, is it ticketed for the south market?-Yes; the fine shawls are ticketed.

3296. Wrap or winter shawls, 8s. 6d.: would these be ticketed?- No.

3297. Why?-Because my father knows the prices so well; they are sold by measure.

3298. The prices at which they are charged do not depend so much on fancy?-No.

3299. Then the prices of these shawls are fixed afterwards?-Yes.

3300. How do you know that the prices which are charged for these shawls are the same as have been paid for them over the counter?-Because I have seen haps sold at the counter for 8s. 6d.; and afterwards, [Page 74] when they were ready for the market, they were charged at the same, or nearly the same, price.

3301. Don't you sometimes see them charged at a higher price?-I cannot say exactly, because I do not always notice what the prices are; but I know that I have sometimes seen the same prices charged. I have noticed that particularly in haps.

3302. There are grey and brown long shawls, 20s. to 24s. are these also haps?-Yes.

3303. Are they generally bought at from 20s. to 24s.?-Yes.

3304. And sold at the same prices?-Yes, I have noticed that.

3305. You have nothing to do with the pricing of them yourself?- Nothing at all. I merely see the tickets, and recognise the article.

Perhaps there was something particular about it which led me to recognise it.

3306. How often has that happened?-I could not say.

3307. Has it happened a dozen times?-It has surely happened more than a dozen times. That is a very small number.

Lerwick, January 6, 1872, JOHN JAMES BRUCE, examined.

3308. Are you a shopman to Mr. Sinclair?-Yes.

3309. You are not the bookkeeper?-No.

3310. Do you know the prices at which hosiery goods are bought across the counter?-Yes.

3311. Do you also know the prices at which these same goods are invoiced to the southern market?-Yes.

3312. Is the price at which they are bought and the price at which they are sold the same, or different, on the ordinary run of goods?-They are charged to the wholesale or the retail dealer in the south at the same price as we pay for them in goods at the counter.

3313. Is that the invariable practice?-Yes.

3314. The goods, I understand, are not all ticketed when bought?-Fine shawls are generally ticketed, but haps and other goods are judged of afterwards, when being looked out in order to be sent to the market in the south.

3315. In the case of fine shawls, is it within your own knowledge that the ticket put upon them at the time of the purchase bears generally the same price as has been paid for them in goods?- Yes. Mr Sinclair puts up these goods himself for the market, and the ticket is put on them at the time of the purchase, in order to bring to his remembrance, when he is putting them up for the market, the price he paid for them at the counter.

3316. In all these cases there is only one valuation of the shawl, and it is made to the person who brings it to you for sale?-Yes.

3317. The ticket is put on them, and the invoice price is the same as the price on the ticket?-Yes, the same.

3318. Do you make no allowance, in that case, for the loss upon the dressing or the dyeing of the shawl?-When a girl comes with an article that is ill-coloured, she may ask a certain price for it; but we state that we cannot give her that price, owing to it being ill-coloured, and that it requires to be dyed. In that case we deduct the price of the dyeing from the price which is paid to her.

3319. Is that deduction made before the price is put on the ticket?-We don't ticket it then. It has to be sent south to the dyer, and to come back and to be dressed here.

3320. In that case you must make an estimate, because you cannot identify the shawl afterwards?-No; we just leave it to our own judgment afterwards.

3321. Then it appears that you don't invoice the goods at exactly the same price that is paid in every case?-We don't invoice them at the same price if we are selling them to private individuals; but when we sell them to a retail dealer, we invoice them at the same price.

3322. But you have said that very often you require to send them to the dyer, in which case they are not ticketed at the time you purchase them?-No; but the retail dealer must pay for the dyeing.

3323. But the goods are not always ticketed at the time they are bought?-No; not always. I did not say they were.

3324. Are they ticketed, as a rule, when they are bought?-The finest of the lace goods or shawls are ticketed.

3325. And veils?-No, not veils; but the fine lace shawls are generally ticketed.

3326. How is the invoice price of the veils fixed, if they are not ticketed when they are bought?-We can easily judge of the quality of a veil by looking at it, and we can tell what we paid for it. Of course, in fixing the price, we always refer to what we paid for it, and we know that at a glance by the quality of the work and the worsted.

3327. You cannot tell what you paid for a particular lot of veils, because you cannot identify them?-No.

3328. But you know by the quality what they likely to have cost you?-Yes.

3329. Is the price at which veils are sold generally the same as that at which they are bought?-Yes. Veils which have been bought across the counter are charged at the same price that we consider we paid for them.

3330. Are many of the shawls dyed?-A good many. Some are dyed on account of being ill-coloured. Perhaps we don't discover, at the time when they are taken in over the counter, that they are ill-coloured; we only find that out afterwards, and then we have to dye them. Sometimes we dye shawls, not on account of them being ill-coloured, but because we require them of a particular colour.

3331. Is that done with fine shawls?-Both with fine and coa.r.s.e.

3332. But not with haps?-Sometimes with haps too. We dye haps scarlet and black.

3333. Therefore there is a considerable quant.i.ty of the shawl goods which it is not possible to ticket at the time when they are bought, because they have afterwards to be dyed-Yes, a considerable quant.i.ty.

3334. And, in that case, the price is fixed afterwards, according to your own notions of the quality?-Yes.

3335. Who fixes the invoice price of shawls when they are sent out finally to the market?-Mr. Sinclair himself. He takes that department.

3336. Do you know whether, in doing so, he takes into account the market price in the south?-Although he makes up the articles, they pa.s.s through my hands in packing, and I see the tickets. They generally have a ticket on them, in order to guide the clerk in checking them and entering them into the book.

3337. But you don't know the principle on which Mr. Sinclair values these shawls when they are invoiced?-He just judges of them in the same manner as he did at first when taking them in over the counter.

3338. What proportion of the shawls may be revalued in that way?-Will it be one-third or one-half of them?-They are all re-valued in that way, unless those which are ticketed.

3339. But what proportion of them are not ticketed at first?-I could not say.

3340. Is it not the case that very few of them are ticketed at first?-There are only the finest lace shawls that are ticketed at first.

3341. Therefore the bulk of the shawls are not ticketed then, but valued afterwards?-Yes; they are valued in the same manner at that time as they were when taken in at the counter.

3342. Are you in a position to state whether or not that valuation which is made when they are sent out exceeds the valuation which is put upon them when they are purchased for the market?-I have reason to believe from Mr. Sinclair's long experience in the trade, that he will know to a fraction what he paid for the [Page 75]

shawls; and I can swear that they are not charged by him at a higher price than the price which was paid for them in goods at the counter. Of course deductions are made afterwards by the wholesale dealer, if he thinks the article is inferior.