Four Large Pharmacies under One Management-Pictures of Two-The "Gift" Feature-The Novelty of Having China, Bric-a-Brac, and Pictures under the Same Roof with Prescriptions-Drug Department Stores. On this and the next few pages of the BULLETIN pictures are shown of two of the four drug stores owned and operated in Philadelphia by Mr. George B. Evans. The success of Mr. Evans's drug stores makes evident the value of finding out what the people want and giving it to them. MR. EVANS'S HISTORY. After clerking in a drug store for seven years, Mr. Evans saved a thousand dollars and started a small store for himself in 1883, with some help from a friend who is still his partner. He has now four stores in Philadelphia-three in the center of the city -and each of them is the model of an active, businesslike, and helpful store. Mr. Evans started by being very particular to use only the best possible quality of drugs; and he built up a big business by selling patent medicines at popular prices. Soon he saw that people liked to buy the different "sundries" that are sold in a drug store, and he gradually added to these until his business is now as much in gifts, china, bric-a-brac, pictures, leather goods, and things of that sort as in drugsalthough he has the largest retail drug business in Philadelphia, and one of the largest in the country. In Mr. Evans's advertising and catalogues he has always made it a firm policy to tell the truth about his goods, whether it was for or against the articles. If his 25-cent hair-brush was not a good hair-brush, he told people so. If they wanted a 25-cent hairbrush they bought it of Evans just the same. BUSINESS METHODS. He has built up an immense soda business-4000 people a day at one store, on a hot day!—just by serving the best soda for the money. He has built up a good candy business in the same way. One of the reasons why people like to buy at Evans's is because they feel that if any mistake is made in the buying or selling-whether it is their mistake or Evans's-they can get their money back. This doesn't seem exactly fair, but it makes people glad to buy of the store that deals in that way, and therefore is profitable. 2. The store at Eighth and Arch Streets, showing the main salesroom with its glittering variety of sundries and department-store tables exhibiting such "gift" goods as picture frames, china, and the like. Everywhere are seen cards giving the prices of the goods displayed. Each panel of the handsome metal ceiling has an electric bulb; and when at night these are all lighted the effect is very beautiful indeed. In connection with these stores, Mr. Evans operates a laboratory, comprising four floors and a basement, 20 by 100 feet in dimensions. In this laboratory are made candies, soda flavors, toilet waters, talcum powders, and many other articles used and sold in the Evans drug stores. This is a wonderful growth in twenty years, for a young man with only a thousand dollars capital and 8-are views of the store at Eighth and Arch streets. Looking at the Chestnut Street views first, we see the building itself in picture No. 3. As we enter the store we are confronted with the magnificent soda fountain shown in picture No. 4. This is really a series of three or four fountains, however, and extends down the store nearly 60 feet. On hot days. the counter is thronged all day long with thirsty folk, many of them standing and waiting for a seat. Each customer is given a small platter of crisp biscuits; and, unless objected to, a liberal quantity of shaved ice is invariably put into every drink. This makes the soda very cold, and pleases the majority of customers. 6. The Chestnut Street store. This shows the patent medicine department, situated at the lower end of the store. 7. The Chestnut Street store. The "gift" room on the second floor, reminding one of a typical department in a china store. 8. The store at Eighth and Arch Streets, showing the magnificent opportunity for window advertising-an opportunity which is made the most of. On the other side of the store, opposite from this long series of fountains, are the candy and perand a few years' experience in a very conventional fumery departments. These are not shown in any drug store! DESCRIPTION OF THE CHESTNUT STREET STORE. All but two of the accompanying illustrations show the Chestnut Street store-the first and best known of the four. The two exceptions-Nos. 2 of the illustrations. Beyond the soda counter are two ells, 18 by 90 feet in size. The first affords a side entrance from Eleventh Street, and has a stairway leading to the "gift room" on the second floor. Picture No. 5 looks down this stairway and shows a portion of the ell, with its handsomely decorated walls. The great variety of fancy articles displayed belong, of course, to the "gift" department. The second ell is just beyond the first one, and is utilized as the drug and prescription department. This is shown in picture No. 1, which is used as the headpiece for this article. The picture shows something novel in the way of a prescription department. Mr. Evans's operations are so large that he is enabled to separate the prescription business entirely, and make what is really a separate feature of it. At the other end of the store, beyond these two ells which have been described, is the patent medicine department shown in picture No. 6. THE STORE AT EIGHTH AND ARCH STREETS. Pictures No. 2 and No. 8, as has already been mentioned, show another one of the Evans storesthat situated at Eighth and Arch streets. From picture No. 8 it will be seen that this store has a long line of windows admirably suited to an effective display. That this opportunity is grasped to the fullest extent need hardly be said. The window displays in the Evans stores have become famous. Finally, picture No. 2-the full-page illustration -shows a general view of the Eighth and Arch streets store as one enters at the front door. This view will strike the average druggist as being something very unlike anything within his experience. There is a bewildering variety of goods displayed which are not ordinarily seen in drug stores; while, on the other hand, those sundries which are familiar to every one are shown in immense quantities. A SECOND-STORY WINDOW. Mr. J. Jungmann, of Greater New York, has two drug stores in that city which are very unlike ordinary pharmacies. Both occupy four-story and basement buildings; and both have three floors open to the public for the sale of goods. The first floor in each case is devoted to the commercial aspect of the application of trusses, braces, supporters, and instruments to correct various deformities. The display shown in the accompanying illustration was recently made in the second story window of one of Mr. Jungmann's stores-that located on Columbus Avenue. It shows an exhibit of nursing |