The Evansville daily journal., 1859-04-08
Correspondence N. r Herald
Partisan Auctions.
PARIS. March IL

auction is curious. 1t is complete system,
differing essentially from any ! have ever
seen elsewhere. Despite their reputation
for irregularity and friyolity, the French, in
matters of business, are as methodical and
careful as their neighbors on the other side
of the Channel, or their former allies on the
other side of the Atlantic. Everything in
which trade plays part is done upon fixed
and immutable principles, and OF all their
systems, that of auctions is one of the most
remarkable, both for its extreme simplicity,
as well as for its perfection. &s @&
In sales of Importance, such as of land,
houses, or other transactions involving large
sums of money, the affair is placed in the
hands of a notary, who, for the time being,
becomes an auctioneer. The property, what
ever be its nature, is usually first examined
by competent judges, who fix upon it a
price, considerably less than its value, but
always sufficient to prevent ruinous loss
By concerted plan or combination of bid
ders. The property is then offered, conform
ably to previous notice, with this fixed
valuation stated. The notary -auctioneer is
provided with number of small wax tapers,
each capable of burning three or five min
utes. As soon as a bid is made, one of
these tapers is placed i'll view of all the
interested bidders, and lighted. If, before it
expires, another bid is made, it is immedi-
ately extinguished and q fresh taper placed
in its stead, and SO on, until one fickers
and dies of itself, when the last becomes IL
reyocable. This simple plan prevents all
contestation among rival bidders, and affords
each reasonable time for reflection before
making higher offer than that of his
predecessor. BY this means, too, the auc-
tioneer is prevented from exercising undue
influence upon bidders, or hastily accepting
the bid Of favorite. 1t also saves him
from deciding between two parties each pro-
testing himself to be first as it must be-
come evident before the taper expires, who
the purchaser really is.
This for the large and important sales.-
The smaller ones are scarcely less curious,
and certainly far more amusing. Here, too,
all is reduced to a system, and an admirable
system it is one which American auction
GERS would lose nothing in adopting.
In the rue Drouot, a few steps from the
Boulevard des Italiens, is building called
the /" Hotel des Ventes literally, " hotel
of sales This edi6ce is handsome con-
struction, nearly, if not quite as large as the
Merchants Exchange in Wall street. 1t
it is devoted, and here take place the prnci-
pal auctions of Paris. The building is two
stories in height and is divided into about
twenty different g salles,' or halls, each
bearing distinctive number, and each de-
voted to sales of particular nature. Thus,
in one of these halls are only pictures and
works of art; in another, only books in
another, furniture; and so on. Everything
Al l. 1 L
comes from the shep of some bankrupt
whose chattels have been condemned to be
sold to the highest bidder.
The Paris auctioneer is a very different
parsonage from the American knight of the
hammer. The latter cries his own wares,
cracks his own peculiar jokes, throws him
self by his exertions into a profuse perspira-
ton, and not unfrequently takes off his coat
and appears in his shirt sleeves before his
auditory. The Partisan commissaire- priseur,
on the contrary, is quite an aristocratic fel-
low, who impresses upon people proper
appreciation of his importance by making
them wait perhaps half an hour after the
time fixed. He then enters the hail, seats
himself costly behind high desk, at which
IA clerk is already busily engaged preparing
| for business, leisurely takes package OF
gum drops from his pocket, and deposits his
| handkerchief with his sugar plums on the
| desk before him.
Everything being now ready, the first ar
ticle to he sold is placed upnn high bench,
where all present can see it, and now the
criers work begins. The, crier, you must
know is here a distinctive feature. The
arstocratic auctioneer seldom says Il word,
except when he raps upon the desk with IL
/ 4 1
usual one-two--no more ?-and exclaims
mechanically" sold! The crier's sole
business appears to be q violent eulogium
| upon every article, uttered in stentorian
tones, and apparently addressed to the good
people on the other side of the river-say a
mile and half distant. You will notice
that the crier is very red in the face, very
heated in manner, and extremely addicted
to grimace and gesticulation in all OF
which respects he differs entirely from the
head of the establishment, who smiles pla-
cidly from behind his desk and munches his
gum drops as assiduously as if that were the
chief end of hishappy existence. 1t is true,
the latter now and then scans the bidders
who manifest their inexperience by offering
more than the prime cost of the lot, or
now and then looks at his watch, in an aris-
| tOcrdtlc sort OF way, aS IL business were
| bore But there is no excitement in either
of these acts, Indicative of mild surprise
and patrlcian ennul.
Meanwhile, the crier grows still redder in
the face, and perspires more and more CO.
piously, as the sale proceeds; occasionally
mopping his face, particularly the apex OF
his Uranium las if the humidity oozed up
from that spot, like from tountain) with Il
bandanna of formidable dimensions. 1t is
not the practice here, as with us, TO wait for
IL bidder to make the first offer. The crier
sets has price, and seems to take peculiar de-
light in naming the sum out of all reason,
proclaiming at the same time his solemn
conv iction that the article is worth "tWice
the money" If nobody responds, he then
commences the descending scale, until some
one makes a bid, and then again increases,
up to the price at which the lot is Sold
Should the bids reach the amount first
named, the ecstacy of the erier knows NO
bounds. He reproaehes everybody with
their stupidity in not having taken him at
his word, dances about the room in state
of demoniacal excitement, gesticulates as
energetically as Western trapper in mos
quito time, and is only calmed by the gen.
tie tap of his superior, announcing the ter
mination OF the bargain.