Changes in the role of the commercial drummer during the thirty years prior to the Civil War are suggested by comparison of reports received from a salesman in the 1850's with similar reports received from a salesman for the same firm in the 1830's. The trips and reports of the earlier salesman, who traveled for J. M. L. & W. H. Scovill, a Connecticut brass rolling and fabricating partnership, were described in the last issue of this Bulletin. The chief complaint of the salesman in the 1830's was that the merchants of any importance made regular trips to Philadelphia or New York. Such merchants preferred to make all their purchases at one time in order to save trouble and expense in transportation and they also bought most of their goods from established jobbers to whom they were known and who would extend credit.

The experience of the Newberry Library in handling a mass of business records may be of value to other libraries, as well as to scholars, in an important field which, notwithstanding a number of recent excellent books, is still one of the least worked in American history. The primary question which disturbs librarians is, of course, whether the provision of shelf space and the cost of cataloguing, or otherwise arranging for scholarly use, are justifiable for records as voluminous as these.

Dr. Paul H. Giddens, professor of history and political science at Allegheny College, has undertaken to write a history of the Standard Oil Company of Indiana. He has been granted a leave of absence from his teaching duties and is already at work in the records of the company at its home office in Chicago.