Souvestre EmileLivre Rare Book
COPY BOOK FROM J. SALA & CO. NEW YORK WITH LETTERS RELATING TO SHIPPING IN PUERTO RICO DOMINICAN REPUBLIC HAITI AND CUBA
1893WRCAM55675Various places as described below 1893. 28pp. manuscript index followed by 499 onionskin leaves comprising 402 letters. Five leaves laid in between leaves 195-196. Quarto. Three-quarter leather and cloth boards. Backstrip missing but boards still holding firm; rubbing and wear to extremities. Some rumpling and curling to pages ink bleed heavy at times a few small tears in leaves several small tears or holes due to ink burn occasional mild spotting and foxing. Good. A comprehensive look at the operations of a major import/export company in the Caribbean for the first part of 1893. <br> <br> J. Sala & Co. was a large international firm headquartered in New York that did business of all kinds throughout the Caribbean in particular Puerto Rico the Dominican Republic and Haiti but also Cuba Jamaica St. Thomas St. Croix and Curaçao. In DELMAR'S.TRADES DIRECTORY 1889-90 they are listed in San Juan Puerto Rico as "Ship Brokers and Commission Merchants." In THE PORT OF NEW YORK. 1893-94 their entry describes them as "General Commission Merchants" and Juan Sala and Cosme Batlle are listed as agents. They also provided banking and finance services in particular in partnership with Batlle a Spanish merchant and banker one of the wealthiest men in the Dominican Republic and a chief creditor to dictator Ulises Heureaux. As this book only covers January through part of March 1893 one gets a sense of the extent of the firm's activities. <br> <br> The copy book begins with an alphabetical directory of recipients listed along with their location and the numbers of relevant letters in the copy book. 171 recipients are listed representing over forty cities in the Caribbean along with several in England France Germany and Spain. Letters are primarily in Spanish but also appear in French for letters to Haiti and France and English for letters to England Germany Jamaica and some clients in St. Thomas and St. Croix. Several leaves have a mimeographed memorandum form with the company name and address. Almost every letter is annotated in blue pencil with the numbers of related letters in the copy book providing a further index; some letters have additional annotations in black pencil. <br> <br> All letters are signed "J. Sala & Co." and deal with a wide variety of business issues including notices about payments received and credits processed along with inquiries about late payments; credit references; consignments of turtle shells; and shipments of lumber iron pipes and whisky among other things although most often the material in question is listed as "sundries." In letters to Enrique Nebot of Monte Cristi Dominican Republic a Sala agent discusses the schooner "Annie R. Kemp" which they have chartered on his behalf and introduces the letter's bearer - the ship's captain - who is not named. The letter is in English which is presumably for the Captain's benefit since other letters to Nebot are in Spanish. The letter goes on to note that Nebot's "sundries.do not appear on the vessel's manifest and we have assured him the captain in your name that he will have no trouble whatsoever with your Custom House on that or other account." The Dominican Republic had a notoriously corrupt customs system at this time and no doubt J. Sala & Co. made sure they took advantage of every available loophole. <br> <br> A densely-informative and very interesting record of an active business engaged in a variety of endeavors in the Caribbean. THE PORT OF NEW YORK: A SOUVENIR OF THE NEW YORK CUSTOM HOUSE AND INDEX OF THE IMPORTS AND SHIPPING FACILITIES OF THIS PORT New York 1893-1894. DELMAR'S NEW REVISED AND COMPLETE CLASSIFIED TRADES DIRECTORY AND MERCANTILE MANUAL OF MEXICO CENTRAL AMERICA AND THE WEST INDIA ISLANDS Chicago: Belford Clarke & Co. 1889- 1890. hardcover books
William Reese Company · États-Unis750,00 $US≈ 634,57 €
