Each year a half holiday for clerks in the retail stores is agitated, and now is the agitation time. When the heat becomes oppressive, then the clerks in the stores build air castles [dream of impossibilities]. The fact that the movement is so general throughout the East proves that it has been found by the employers to redound to their benefit; otherwise, the stores [in the East] would remain open all day Saturday.

Nor is it the clerks alone who wish the half holiday, for the merchants themselves would like to pass a half day each week at either the beaches of Catalina or in the country.

For some weeks past, the clerks in the dry goods stores have been talking the early closing over, and recently a meeting of clerks from each of the stores . . . voted to ask the employers to give a half holiday to their clerks. The meeting, however, did not go so far as to appoint a committee to see the employers, for it was thought best that a clerks’ association should first be formed . . . .

. . . an Express reporter called into a few mercantile houses and found the general feeling to be that it was a good thing for both clerks and proprietors to close, if all firms would agree to do so. . . .

• Manager J. M. Schneider, of the Boston Store: I will not stand in the way; if all the other stores will close, we certainly will. The first thing in my mind, however, is to get all the stores to do as the Ville de Paris and ourselves do. That is, give the employes every Saturday evening to themselves. You might go around here and ask the clerks which they would prefer, to have every Saturday evening in the year to themselves or keep open Saturday evenings except through the summer months, and in the summer months give them a half holiday. . . . All of our clerks get two weeks’ vacation at least during the summer. We pay them for one week, and then they can take another — or as many as they want — at their own expense. . . .
  
  
• O.J. Barker, of the firm of Barker Bros., furniture dealers: Yes, indeed, I am in favor of closing a half day each week, and Saturday should be the day, as the employees can then make their arrangement to spend the afternoon and all day Sunday at the beaches if they wish. I go East two or three times every year, and if I should happen to get into New York on Saturday and wanted to make a purchase of $10,000 worth of goods in the afternoon, it would be impossible. The people in the East have become accustomed to the Saturday half-holiday, and the merchants do just as much business as if they kept open. The customers have been educated so that they do not attempt to get into the stores during the half-holiday, but they buy everything before noon on Saturdays. . . .
  
  
• Thomas McKee, manager of Ville de Paris: We have set aside Saturday afternoons as a half-holiday during August for several years, and found it to be a profitable plan. . . . We will continue doing this in the future; but I think we will not extend the period to July. Our employees also have every Saturday evening to themselves.
  
  
• A. Hamburger & Sons, People’s Store: We will not express ourselves on this subject until after a meeting with our employees next Thursday night, when the matter will be discussed.
  
  
• H.W. Frank, London Clothing Co.: It is quite impossible for us to close Saturday afternoons as the greater part of our week’s business is done then. The working people of the city and the country people do their trading then, and to close would be suicide to us and a wrong to them.
  
  
• E.B. Tufts, Tufts-Lyon Arms Co.: . . . If the merchants of the city decide to close, we will follow suit.
  
  
• H. Jevne, grocer: If it was a question of our own convenience, we would gladly close; but the people must have food, and we need that time and more to serve them. Closing, for the grocer, is out of the question. I can easily see how the furniture or hardware dealer might do so.
  
  
• W.C. Bluett, Mullen & Bluett Clothing Co.: No, some of the traders may close, but we cannot. It has never been done to my knowledge during the period of my experience, which extends over a great many years. That is the only time many people have of coming to us, and we must be open to them. We give our employes a two weeks’ vacation every summer.
  
  
• J. Chanslor, Anderson & Chanslor: If you could get people to fast from Saturday until Monday, we could close Saturday afternoon. As it is, we are kept busy until late Saturday night. That is the situation of the grocer, and I guess it can’t be changed.
  
  
• J.G. Bullock, Broadway Department Store: For the past two years we have closed our store on Thursday afternoon of each week in August . . . . I do not think we will consider any other holiday proposition. [The store used that afternoon to treat its employes to a day at the beach. See story here.]
  
  
• F.M. Coulter, Coulter Dry Goods Co.: I do not care to express myself on the subject one way or another. The other merchants may do as they please, of course. Every man should run his own affairs. . . .
  
  
• William H. Hoegee, sporting goods: Saturday in summer is my ‘busy day.’ . . . I could not think of closing.
  
  
• Carl J. Jepsen, J. Jepsen & Son Harness & Saddlery, Main Street: . . . We have never done it in the past; still, we don’t say it isn’t a good idea.
  
  
• John K. Wilson, superintendent, N.B. Blackstone & Co.: . . . We give our employes a summer holiday of one week with full pay, and I think that is better than an occasional half-holiday. . . .

The suggestion . . . that some other afternoon be substituted for Saturday . . . was one most of the others had not thought of and may possibly be a solution of the half-holiday question after all.
 

One merchant . . . objects to Thursday on the ground that it is the [one] afternoon [that] servant girls usually have to themselves . . . , and if the stores close Thursday they cannot make any purchases at all.
 

Now the matter is well before the public and employer and employe alike, it is probable that the proprietors will get together and settle upon one afternoon each week during the summer that they will close their respective places of business, and then will begin the education of the public to so arrange their affairs that they need not desire to make purchases on that one afternoon.