but the mistake should not be made of ascribing its growth wholly to this natural advantage, great though it admittedly is. Other stores are in the immediate locality, but not one of them has begun to approach the Hegeman pharmacy in the size of its operations. It has remained for Mr. Ramsey to seize upon the opportunity, and with the instinct of a commercial architect build up a business far and away larger than anything the drug trade of the country has so far seen or is likely to see for many a day.

ORGANIZATION IS THE KEY-NOTE.

The organization of this great pharmacy is elaborate and complete. It is a piece of nearly perfect human machinery. Every man has his particular work to do: he is responsible to the head of the department: the head of the department gets his orders from the superintendent: the superintendent is in hourly touch with Mr. Ramsey. There are upwards of two dozen checkgirls and bookkeepers; every transaction in the business is recorded; every detail is kept under careful espionage; every employee stands or falls by his daily and weekly showing.

Mr. Ramsey sits in his office on the mezzanine balcony in the rear, and quietly, modestly, easily directs the operations of the business. His staff is a considerable one, and his orders are all executed through the members of it. There is the superintendent, Mr. E. G. S. Berwick, who is also assistant secretary of the corporation, and who is in charge of things in Mr. Ramsey's absence. There are the three buyers, Messrs. Whitehill, Smith, and Hull, whose daily purchases run up into thousands of dollars. There are the managers of the eight branch stores. There is the young physician who has recently been employed to take charge of the advertising and to do some "detail" work among physicians.

Organization is the key-note in every aspect of the business, and this considerably explains the remarkable growth of the corporation. One man is given one thing to do: responsibility for that one thing is centered in him: his record is kept: he is under the responsible eye of his immediate chief: he is selected for his task because of his fitness for it: he is expected to "make good:" if he succeds he is in the line of promotion and advancement of salary: if he fails he must either do better or soon give way to some one else who

can.

TWO INSTANCES.

Here are two instances, out of many that could be given, to show the degree of specialization in this business: (1) Two professional window dressers are employed whose whole time is consumed in going from store to store and devising and arranging two trims a

This view shows only a small portion of the prescription department. The six dispensing counters, described in the accompanying article, are located immediately at the left of the illustration, and are at right angles to the counter seen in the engraving. In this picture patrons are handing in their prescriptions through the window and are receiving claim checks for them.

on aggressive advertising campaigns in the newspapers. The Hegeman Corporation never purchases a cent's worth of newspaper space. It never pays any attention to department store competition. It never pays any attention to the competition of the other big drug stores, except perhaps as to prices. In securing business it depends upon such things as its position, its admirable and complete stock, its attractive store, its fine displays, its close prices, and its first-class and expert service.

A TRIP THROUGH THE STORE: THE GREAT SODA FOUNTAIN.

Let us now make a hurried trip around the Hegeman store under the guidance of Mr. Berwick. We

shall find that only the ground floor and the two basements of the Hegeman Building are used by the pharmacy. The sales floor is shown in the illustration on the opposite page, but it is larger than the picture indicates. The dimensions are 50 by 177 feet.

At our right as we enter the pharmacy is a beautiful fountain of onyx and bronze especially designed by the Liquid Carbonic Manufacturing Co. It is 36 feet long, cost $20,000, accommodates 50 people at a time, and utilizes in season the services of 12 dispensers. When I visited the store in January, 3500 soda checks were being sold daily. The summer sales often mount up to 10,000, and a large proportion of the checks call for 10 and 15 cent drinks. The soda business is so large, indeed, that it has been found necessary to install a separate but smaller fountain on the opposite side of the store, at which ice cream sodas are dispensed. An interesting feature of the big fountain is a narrow passageway behind it, entered direct from the basement, and the fountain is thus filled entirely from the rear, beyond the observation of patrons and without interfering with the dispensers.

The remainder of the right wall of the store, beyond the soda fountain, is entirely devoted to the patent medicine department until we reach the mail-order and truss rooms in the rear, located under the mezzanine balcony. The prescription department is also situated under this balcony, but reserving our inspection of it until later on, we turn and go back up the same aisle down which we have just proceeded.

the entire width of the store with the exception of the space provided for truss and toilet rooms. There are three sets of two dispensing counters each, placed back to back: each counter provides accommodations for three men, and thus the services are utilized of 18 prescriptionists in times of emergency. The department is a busy one. Between four and five hundred prescriptions are compounded daily. The prescriptions are filed in books in the good old way, and they are found when wanted by means of a book-index that is kept constantly up-to-date. Each one of the six dispensing counters is intended to be reasonably complete in itself, and to save space the dispensing bottles on any given shelf are placed back of one another on little platforms until they are sometimes six deep. The prescription department is under the jurisdiction of a competent manager, and a complete daily record is kept of every dispenser's showing. of every dispenser's showing. These records, handed each morning to Mr. Ramsey by the manager, are made out on the following blank, shown in reduced size:

PRESCRIPTION Department.

The number of prescriptions filled by each man

were as follows:

In

the handsome "Silent Salesman" show-cases in the center of the room at our right we find an elaborate display of sponges, brushes, combs, and many other sundries, until the cigar department is reached at the front. The latter now occupies the place represented in our full-page engraving by the cashier's "cage:" this engraving was made from a photograph taken some years ago, and since then the cashier system has been abolished and the cash-carrier method established in its place.

On the other side of the pharmacy, beyond the cigar department, is another aisle like that which is seen in the illustration on the right side of the store. Proceeding down this in turn, we find the wall cases and counters at our left devoted respectively to liquors, drugs, pills and tablets, and finally sick-room supplies. Meanwhile the center cases on the right are seen to be devoted in turn to cigars, toilet goods, and surgical supplies.

THE PRESCRIPTION DEPARTMENT.

We have now reached the lower end of the pharmacy again and are facing the prescription department. This runs along under the mezzanine gallery and occupies

making the daily and detailed record of the business which forms so necessary a part of the organization. In the farther corner of the balcony at the left is Mr. Ramsey's private office, seen in one of our illustrations, while in front of it and extending a little beyond the limits of the balcony proper are the seven bookkeepers.

THE BASEMENT A BEEHIVE OF INDUSTRY. Descending now into the basement, we shall find this a perfect beehive of industry, and one of the most interesting sections of the store. Under the street is a cool, dark room for the storage of essential oils and explosive goods. Elsewhere is a soda-water room containing an automatic carbonator and two machines for the manufacture of ice cream, each with a daily capacity of nearly 150 gallons. There are several stock rooms for different classes of goods, such as one for soaps, another for rubber articles, a third for the more salable "patents" and the like. There is a large "receiving department" where incoming supplies are taken, opened, and distributed. There is a laboratory 20 by

Here we have a portion of the office force, located on the mezzanine balcony over the prescription department in the rear of the pharmacy. Mr. Ramsey's private office, provided with glass partitions, is located at the end of the balcony. The gentleman in the foreground, writing at his desk. is Mr. Whitehill. the chief buyer, and if he were to stand up he would be facing the front of the store and would be looking out over the balcony upon the busy scene described in the closing portion of the accompanying article.

80 feet in size, utilized chiefly for the preparation of the Hegeman line of specialties and toilet goods. There is a sifting room, equipped with machines, and used for the manufacture of such things as talcum and tooth powders. A "finishing room" is seen to contain two girls, and here the 200 special preparations com

prising the Hegeman line are bottled, capped, and placed in packages ready for sale. And, finally, we discover a very interesting "humidor" for the storage and preservation of cigars. This has a floor of brick and walls constructed of two thicknesses of pine, four inches apart, with sawdust in between them. The brick, kept wet, exhale the necessary amount of moisture to keep the cigars in proper condition, while the walls of sawdust and pine exclude the heat of the basement.

Descending now still farther down into the subbasement, we find this, large as it is in dimensions, utilized chiefly and almost entirely for reserve storage purposes. A series of slatted rooms are employed for bottled liquors. All about may be seen original cases of patent medicines properly classified and arranged, as well as large supplies of other articles of stock. The tremendous amount of goods stored in this sub-basement suggests the statement that the Hegeman corporation does a considerable wholesale business with its own line of preparations.

IMPRESSIONS.

Returning finally to the pharmacy proper, and ascending to the balcony outside of Mr. Ramsey's office, we look for a minute or two before leaving the establishment at the varied scene spread out underneath and beyond us. At our left, on the balcony, are the three busy change-makers in their "cages,' and the cash boxes run to and from them in a constant, steady stream. Behind us are the 12 or 15 girls counting sales checks. At our right is Mr. Ramsey's office -the center and hub of the system. Below us are the 18 busy dispensers in the prescription department. Beyond, out in the store proper, a ceaseless, neverending, surging crowd of people are coming in the front door, proceeding to the various departments, quietly making their purchases, and going out again. There is not an instant of quiet. The scene is instinct with change and variety. The motion is constant. And yet everything is orderly. There is none of the discordant yelling of "Cash!" "Cash!" heard so often in department stores. It is a man's business, and a drug business, and there are no bargain rushes. The men know what they want; they get it; they go out again; others follow them in. Everything moves like clockwork, and when the day is done something over $3000 is found to have accumulated in the cage occupied by the three feminine change-makers.

Thus is business transacted in America's greatest pharmacy.

Το "think before you speak is a good rule for speakers. To "think before you act" is no less valuable a caution for those who depend on acts to attain

success.

THE MANY ADVANTAGES.

Really valuable ideas occur to every thinking person, and if no record is made of them they are forever lost. Often, too, the germ of an idea presents itself, and for the moment the busy mind cannot give due thought to its development, and it is permitted to flee the memory. These embryonic ideas, preserved for a time and later planted in a soil of leisure, may bear rich fruit. Many people, of the what's-the-use kind, do not allow themselves to think of a project until the tunity comes for realizing it. When the opportunity does come it finds them usually unprepared; there is a hurry-call on the mind to furnish ideas, which, when supplied, show signs of haste, and may prove impractical. Certainly they would be more efficient if they were given previous thought and the test of time to confirm them.

oppor

In this connection success, to change the simile, may be likened to a game-bird for which you go hunting with the gun of ability, ideas being the ammunition. The latter must be all ready for use the moment the bird comes in sight. Many an opportuuity is lost through being unprepared.

The habit formed early in life of making written memoranda of any original thoughts must, it seems to me, at some future time repay one for the trouble incurred. It is an excellent training for a young man, tending to make him observant and thoughtful, and it may lay the foundation for future success. Our industries have all been established only after careful previous thought and subsequent action. Our best literature has been written in the same way. It is more than likely that the many bits of philosophy or the delightful touches of humor which go to make a novel successful occur to the author long before the plot is in his mind and the book written.

HOW TO MAKE AND KEEP MEMORANDA.

To illustrate the memorandum habit as applied in the drug business, let us take the case of a druggist who has, among a number of formula, a few that give

such general satisfaction as to encourage him in the hope of some day placing them on the market. At various times ideas will occur to him relating to these preparations. They may be suggestions for a name, for some improvement in the formula, style of package, forcible arguments for circulars and other advertising, or some good plan for pushing the preparation. If he makes memoranda of these ideas as they occur to

him, it will save him a good deal of thinking later on. A small penny memo. block is kept in the coat pocket and each individual idea is recorded on a separate slip before the mind has been distracted by other thoughts.

At lunch, on the car, or even when in bed, these ideas may come: jot them down! Or it may be while walking in the street, or while talking to a friend or reading the newspaper, some extraneous circumstance will suggest an excellent idea: jot it down!

Suggestions will come if the mind is properly trained to be alert and open to receive them. No doubt many of these ideas, in the light of more mature thought, will appear very elementary or impractical, but it is better for time to confirm or deny their value than to

devise them hurriedly and then act rashly with consequent loss.

Every evening all these memoranda may be thrown into some desk drawer reserved for the purpose. When a large number of them have accumulated they may then be sorted out and transferred to their proper places in what may be called