Flour, Bran, Shorts, Middlings, Screenings, Etruscan Hen Feed, and Other
Choice Bric-a-Brac.
Highest Cash Price Paid for Neapolitan Winter Wheat and Roman Corn. Why
Haul Your Wheat Through the Sand to Herculaneum, When We Pay the Same
Price Here?
Office and Mill, Via VIII, Near the Stabian Gate, Only Thirteen Blocks
from the P. O., Pompeii.
Dear Sir: This circular has been called out by another one issued last
month by Messrs. Toecorneous & Cnilblainicus, alleged millers and
wheat buyers of Herculaneum, in which they claim to pay a quarter to
a half-cent more per bushel than we do for wheat, and charge us
with docking the farmers around Pompeii a pound per bushel more than
necessary for cockle, wild buckwheat, and pigeon-grass seed. They make
the broad statement that we have made all our money in that way, and
claim that Mr. Lucretius, of our mill, has erected a fine house, which
the farmers allude to as the "wild buckwheat villa."
[Illustration: 0080]
We do not, as a general rule, pay any attention to this kind of stuff;
but when two snide Romans, who went to Herculaneum without a dollar and
drank stale beer out of an old Etruscan tomato-can the first year they
were there, assail our integrity, we feel justified in making a prompt
and final reply. We desire to state to the Roman farmers that we do not
test their wheat with the crooked brass tester that has made more money
for Messrs. Toe-corneous & Chilblainicus than their old mill has. We do
not do that kind of business. Neither do we buy a man's wheat at a cash
price and then work off four or five hundred pounds of XXXX Imperial
hog feed on him in part payment. When we buy a man's wheat we pay him
in money. We do not seek to fill him up with sour Carthagenian cracked
wheat and orders on the store.
We would also call attention to the improvements that we have just made
in our mill. Last week we put a handle in the upper burr, and we have
also engaged one of the best head millers in Pompeii to turn the crank
day-times. Our old head miller will oversee the business at night, so
that the mill will be in full blast night and day, except when the head
miller has gone to his meals or stopped to spit on his hands.
The mill of our vile contemporaries at Herculaneum is an old one that
was used around Naples one hundred years ago to smash rock for the
Neapolitan road, and is entirely out of repair. It was also used in
a brick-yard here near Pompeii; then an old junk man sold it to a
tenderfoot from Jerusalem as an ice-cream freezer. He found that it
would not work, and so used it to grind up potato bugs for blisters. Now
it is grinding ostensible flour at Herculaneum.
We desire to state to the farmers about Pompeii and Herculaneum that we
aim to please. We desire to make a grade of flour this summer that will
not have to be run through the coffee mill before it can be used. We
will also pay you the highest price for good wheat, and give you good
weight. Our capacity is now greatly enlarged, both as to storage and
grinding. We now turn out a sack of flour, complete and ready for use,
every little while. We have an extra handle for the mill, so that in
case of accident to the one now in use, we need not shut down but a few
moments.
[Illustration: 0083]
We call attention to our XXXX Git-there brand of flour. It is the
best flour in the market for making angels' food and other celestial
groceries. We fully warrant it, and will agree that for every sack
containing whole kernels of corn, corncobs, or other foreign substances,
not thoroughly pulverized, we will refund the money already paid, and
show the person through our mill.
We would also like to call the attention of farmers and housewives
around Pompeii to our celebrated Dough Squatter. It is purely automatic
in its operation, requiring only two men to work it. With this machine
two men will knead all the bread they can eat and do it easily, feeling
thoroughly refreshed at night. They also avoid that dark maroon taste in
the mouth so common in Pompeii on arising in the morning.
To those who do not feel able to buy one of these machines, we would say
that we have made arrangements for the approaching season, so that
those who wish may bring their dough to our mammoth squatter and get
it treated at our place at the nominal price of two bits per squat.
Strangers calling for their squat or unsquat dough will have to be
identified.
Do not forget the place, Via VIII, near Stabian gate. Lucretius &
Procalus.
Dealers in choice family flour, cut feed and oatmeal with or without
clinkers in it. Try our lumpless bran for indigestion.