The Newtown bee., 1879-05-27
Mock Auctions in New York,

Mock Auctions in New York.
 A New York correspondent exposes one of the disreputable business enter prises of the great city as follows: This is the carnival season of the mock furni- ture auction. The extent to which this business is carried in this city is amaz- ing, and the boldness with which the same old frauds are advertised every day in the year is equally astonishing. Imagine young married couple who have been economizing for some months to buy lounge or bookcase. The idea strikes them that there must be people who have lounge or a bookcase to get rid of, and they turn to the Herald, the great mediator between thousands of people who want things and those other thousands who have got the things which the anxious thousands desire. They take up the column of "Furni- ture" or Auctions" Why, how for tunate; the very thing they wanted! Here is Col. c. K. Bonner, just on the point of sailing for Europe, who is com pelled to sell off his entire household of furniture at auction, regardless of sacri- fees, and then follows a dazzling enu- meration of his possessions. He must have been man of very artistic tastes, for he has no less than eighty-nine oil paintings by ancient and modern mas ters = exactly eighty-nine = and two Steinway pianos, and a fairly bewilder- ing assortment of furniture of all sorts, in satin and silk and all manner of beau tiful stuffs-furniture enough apparently for steamboat. And here is another rare opportunity: "A private family, breaking up housekeeping after only six months use of furniture. will" etc. Here, again, is a prodigal variety of household goods: "Three pianofortes, four round Steinway pianofortes am quoting from an actual advertisement magnificent upright piano, also grand seven and half octave pianoforte"- nine pianos in one house! Oh, what a musical family was there, my country men! But this is not all; there are | thirty-seven carpets, ninety-threc pieces of bronze, fifty-one extra important oil paintings, etc.
 Of course, readers who are shrewder than my innocent young married couple have guessed by this time the secret of all this vast variety. "Col. c. K. Bon ner' is a myth and there is no private family in the case, nor is that family going to Europe. The auctioneers hire a private house in some central locality, arrange an underground connection with l furniture houses for all the old-fashioned, unstable, faulty pieces, and work them off upon the public in this way. There is one house in West Twenty third street, near Sixth avenue, which has been ad- vertised as "a private residence" in which an auction of the household fur niture'' is to take place, for eighteen years to my personal knowledge. The announcement appears every day, or almost every day, in the Herald, and its orm is never varied. There is another house in West Nineteenth street, and another in West Fourteenth street, which have been in the business for many years, and yet they find dupes every day who think they are attending a genuine auction.
 A visit to one of these auctions makes you reiterate that familiar wish that Dickens were still alive. A practiced eye can pick out at a glance the hired bid ders, who have been sitting about on chairs in matronly shawls and standing eha11t with the air of h,rei, ct dropped in to pick up a bargain, for no one knows how many years. Think oi growing old in such queer business bidding six days in the week, for ten years, on marble-top washstands and | fraudulent black walnut wardrobes! The semblance of actual residence is carefully preserved in these strange places. The brand-new carpets are laid on the unused | floors, the brand-new bed-clothes are laid on the brand-new bedsteads, the brand-new wardrobes and bureaus are stationed in their appropriate places, the rooms are half darkened, and it is only upon letting the light in, which is not done unless you insist upon it, that you can see the newness of everything. There are many strange trades in a great city, but I know of few stranger than this.