with
a promise of assistance if the buyer is not able to meet them when due.
It usually happens that the assistance is needed. The renewal notes
are discounted at six per cent, and re-discounted by the importer after
he has placed his name on the back, at four to five per cent., and from
that time on he has a good customer at profitable prices. Some good
salesmen never escape this condition of dependence; others do, but the
importer generally has enough such customers to insure an outlet for a
considerable amount of goods, and even if the buyer graduates into the
class able to pay bills when due, the former relations have begotten a
confidence which inclines him to buy, other things being equal, of the
man who formerly assisted him to establish himself.
For
several reasons the import trade is done principally by Jewish firms.
They constitute about eighty per cent, of the number who regularly
import diamonds into New York, and have headquarters in that city. The
total number of importers is about sixty. Of these about thirty-one are
importers whose volume of business entitles them to be reckoned as of
the first class, and twenty-nine smaller houses may be termed of the
second class. Two-thirds of the first class and over ninety per cent,
of the second class are Hebrews. This does not include a number who
class themselves as importers though they seldom import direct, but
usually buy through a large house, either here, or on the other side,
and have the goods forwarded through the Custom House to the importer
in New York, who pays the duties and makes an American settlement with
the buyer. Nor does it include some who occasionally import small lots,
and foreign dealers who visit New York irregularly.
