These one hundred and eighteen departments have been arranged after long study and experience and well thought out plans. In fact, so many conflicting and intricate features have entered into their planning that it is hardly possible within the space of these pages to give more than the broad general policy of the department organizations of the store. Yet it is another of these fairly obvious principles that upon its main floor--where its space, square foot by square foot, is by far at its highest value, and where there is a maximum of accessibility--should be displayed the items that sell the most quickly and the most readily. This follows the very reasonable theory that goods for which there is the most popular demand should at all times be the most accessible. Varying slightly in specific cases and conditions, as one ascends into the five upper selling floors of the store, the merchandise falls more and more into classifications that call for care and deliberation in the purchasing. Thus, upon the main floor, one will find such articles as umbrellas, books, candy, notions, and the like--to make but a few instances out of many--while upon the second, there will be yardage goods, linens, shoes and so forth. Parenthetically, it may be set down that in older days, yardage goods--meaning cloths and weaves of almost every sort--never used to be found above the ground floor of any department-store. Retail merchandising tradition in New York suffered a body blow some years ago when Macy's sent them upstairs. Even the men who worked in the department protested against the change. A sizable proportion of their income was and is in their commissions upon their total volume of sales. They could not see the sales upstairs. "For two cents I'd resign," said one of the veterans, just as the change was announced. No one offered him the two cents, however, and he remained. And the following year saw the department reach a new high level for total sales in its yard goods. One large reason for this in Macy's is the unusual accessibility of the upper floors from the street level. It required little or no effort for the customer to get to the second floor, or, for that matter, to the sixth. The store's unusual and fairly marvelous system of escalators, well-placed, smooth running, always available, and to be safely used by even a rheumatic or a cripple, bring these self-same upper floors at all times within easy reach of the street, and without the use of the firm's generous plant of elevators. With the exception of the abnormal stress and strain of the holiday season, the vertical system of Macy's transportation is never very seriously taxed.