Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1881-10-29

A Curious Chapter About Auctionccrs.
| THEIR HISTORY. ANCIENT AND MoDERN-vARIoUs
| SYMBOLS OF THE PRATERSITY-THE Auc-
! TIoNKERs WHO SOLD AN EMPlRE-oTHER
| FAMOUS SALES AND Statesmen.
The Letter from an Auctioneer" published
below. contains some novel and interesting
Information. 1t is from forthcoming volume
entitled Letters from q Lot Of Odd People"
| edited b Mr.. Charles Lanman
LETTER FROM AN AucrroNEER
| 1t is motley world with which Ihave to do,
and next to that of the grave digger. mine is
| supposed to be the jollest of all ordinary occu-
| patiOns. Indeed the calling upon people for
| the highest bid is the burthen of my perennial
| song. and the human hopes that have persisted
at the utterance Of my 'last call, cannot be
| numbered. Excepting q noted scholar who
never listens. and a fashionable woman who has
been spoiled by fattery, ] am the most inces-
SAINT talker in the community. 1t ia my trade:
| receive my revenue from my tongue; but the
perpetual contact with suffering saps my heart
OF It's best affections, and my jolly manners are
sham. But my object in this letter Ia not TO
play the moralst, but merely to submit little
| gossip about my trade.
MY FIRST SALE
took place many, many years ago, and the arti
Giles sold were lot Of carpenters tools: they
belonged to merchant, who had received hem
| for debt, and the purchaser was young man
who. in great poverty, was Just commencing the
occupation OF a carpenter The merchant pitied
| MIN ana gave him his patronage. but still his
struggles against poverty were unceasing To-
| day that merchant is an old man. and under my
hammer every vestige of his property has passed
out OF his possession and the children of that
poor carpenter are owners Of many houses and
| men of business influence
The smallest sale that remember to have
| made was OF a breastpin, which had been left
with a pawnbr0ker. by poor widow, when she
parted with it to obtain the means wherewith
to keep her children from starvation. 1t was
family relic. which had come through three gen.
eratiOns. but the widow died and the relic was
not redeemed and had to be sold. The gold i'm
that bit of jewehy was intrinsically worth
twenty times more than it brought but the
braid of hair which it contained had been es-
teemed by the broken hearted woman as with
out price.
THE MILLIONAIRE WHO BECAME BEGGAR.
The largest estate ever sold was inherited BY
man who never performed a single days hon
est labor in all his life He Jared sumptuously
every day on the fat of the land, kept the best
Of horses, looked patronizingly down on all
| those who could not match his Sscutcheon and
for term Of years lived and flotrished as If he
had nothing to do but enjoy the pleasures of life.
| But change came over the spirit Of that mans
! dream, and to-day he would not scruple to 60
| upon an errand for his next door neighbor and
to receive the fee of shilling for the service
| The lands and the great houses which were once
| his property, and much of which sold under
the hammer. are now owned by the hard-fsted
man who once held the pillow or gathered In the
| harvests on his estate.
! A GREAT SACRIFICE.
| OF the many sacrifices of property which
have witnessed in my day, perhaps the most
| striking instance was that OF manufacturing
establishment, which cost two hundred thou
sand dollars, and under a foreclosure brought
only fifty thousand dollars. In that case there
was no special sympathy extended to the vic
tim, for he had been mean and selfish man, as
well as drunkard and otherwise depraved.
When was boy, l wanted a certain clerk
| ship in the town where live. and to secure it
! applied to man whose influence was I'M
bounded He wan one who had received mil
lions i'm the way of business, and he lived in
princely style, having both a town and country
residence. l obtained the position, and while
struggling for stinted support, my patron
died, and the papers were filled with eulogies
OF the departed, all of which he well deserved.
For several years his widow lived in solemn
spendor, when she died, and among those who
followed her to the grave there was not one who
was OF kindred blood. In the meantime, | had
become established in my profession, and was
called upon to sell, under the hammer, not only
the elegant country seat of nv old friend but
hundreds of rich and beautiful things as well as
superb library, which had been a source OF
| comfort for one of the most noted and purest
| men Of his time.
THE AUCTIONEER's LOT NOT HAPPY ONE.
Can it be wondered at that, with such incl
dents as the foregoing. constantly happening in
my experience, should sometimes feel sick
and tired of my profession? And in comparing
myself to the grave-digger, as have done.
| utter more pathOS than bathOs. When the
grave-digger has performed his task, the per-
son for whom he has cut away the sod, is en-
tirely at peace; but not 80 with the victims of
my hammer, for its sound is too Often-alas!
| how Often?-the very knell of blasted hOpes and
of the deepest physical and mental suffering! It
cannot but be. that the cries Of poor unfortunate
humanity, as they often ascend from under the
heel of the rich men of the world, are heard by
| the al-mercifui!
How much gentlemen-how much for this
beautifui?-. 1 beg the readers pardon, my
count my own exploits or experiences as an auc-
| tiOneer, but would say something in defence of
my calling Douglass Jerrold, George A. Sala
and other noted writer's haveattempted to cover
| think that, in so DOING they were more foolish
than funny. They have branded US as ignorant
and dishonest, and chiefly gifted in dealing out
words without ideas Such limitations are
simply slanderOus and untrue.
AN HONORABLE FRATERNITY,
In my experience Of more than forty years
I do not remember to have heard Of q single
auctiOneer who had been hanged, imprisoned or
driven into Obscurty because of his crimes, and
| yet can recall many merchants and LAWYERS
and even statesmen, whose names are linked
with infamy. No. this trade of ours is as re-
spectacle as any other, and we gentlemen of the
hammer cannot, in that manner be ''whistled
down the wind" albeit our more remote ances-
tors were, undoubtedly, hard lot of adyen-
| turerS.
BAND OF FIFTEEN THOUSAND AUcTIoNEERs
BY turning over the pages of history, we find
that there once existed in a single city an entire
army of auctioneers and that an empire was
once sold by auction. It was in the second
century and in imperial Rome. The men who
had the management of affairs were known
as the PraetOran band, and they numbered be-
| tween ten and fifteen Thousand. They were in
reality the owners Of the empire and when there
happened to be scramble for the position of
emperor, they offered their property for sale.
Yes. they ran out upon the ram parts and with
| . loud voice proclaimed that the Roman world
was to be disposed of to the highest bidder by
| public auction" The first bidder was one Sui
DicianuS the oOyarnor Of tho city who pro,o;,od