Morris tribune., 1883-10-13
THE BOOK AGENT.
Description Of the Familiar Char
acter by a Texas Journalist

Texas Siftilgs
We used to think that the book agent was
a mercenary miscreant-a flend In nuilAh
form-whose stock in trade was pfaD7n
cheek, command of second hand language
and the prospectus of an illustrated book In
twelve monthly parts. We confess that We
believed him to be bold, bad man, stepped
in inquiry and lost to shame. Weeven wrote
of him and printed what we wrote. We
called him a vampire and worldly minded
outcast. We wrote what we called hun1or-
GUS articles, in which we described how ne
worked on the feelings of his landlady ana
scattered eloquence all over the house, from
attic to cellar, until she was pur-
suaded to purchase 81 copy OF "Civl
Engineering in Five Easy Lessons" and
we told how when old Fulcrum re-
fused to buy the "Female Beauties
of the Eighteenth Century," and kicked the
agent down the front steps, he found him nVe
minutes afterward in the kitchen selling
"Book of Business Forms to the hired girl
But we have had an awakening. We have
experienced change of heart against the
book agent since we have given his peculiar
usefulness in the economy of nature more
mature consideration, and since we have
book written by ourselves now being sold by
subscription and by book agents. Our
conscience stings us for what we may have
said in the past that may have hurt the sersf-
tive feelings of. the book agent. We wish
to atone for the injury we have done him
and make amende honorable. The book
agent is an educator. He is conscientious,
self-sacrifcing dissemination OF intelh-
gence and second hand woodcut Mustra-
lions. He is an exemplary citizen. He bears
the proud mans contumely with equanimlty,
while he induces him to buy leather bound
edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica,
which not only instructs him, but affords
him an excellent thing to strop his razor on
He goes out into the country and tackles the
agricuturist in his lair and sells him The
Diseases of the Horse and Their Cure, in one
volume-a book without which the farmer
might go down to his grave ignorant that his
horse had several diseases with long Latin
names.
The book agent ministers to the rich and
poor alike He calls on the mechanics VIE
and sells her every Lady Her Own Cook"
a book containing 600 useful recipes, with
collection of Latin and Greek phrases In an
appendix; book that will teach
her how to construct rhubarb pie
or build a hard boiled doUghnut, and that
the dead language while she is waiting for
cake to rise. Now that several thousand
book agents are tramping over the country
offering our book for sale we regard it one Of
the greatest oversights of the last legislature
that it failed to pass a law making it a felony
to use rude language to book agent, The
members of the legislature would have
earned the everlasting respect of all classes OF
citizens if they rendered money subsidy TO
every book agent who visits the state on his
mission of mercy and disinterested benevo-
lence Parents should instruct their children
to watch out, and if they see man whom
they suspect of being book agent invite him
to come to the house and take dinner.
When book agent is expected to arrive
at a place the mayor and leading citizens
should have the decency to meet him at the
depot with garlands and brass band, and
conduct him in triumph through the streets
to the banquet hall, where, after pre-
senting him with the freedom of the city, they
should subscribe, and pay in advance, for the
book, providing it was our book he was try
ing to sell Perchance some captious person,
lost in sin and wickedness, and unable to find
his way out, will intimate that we are little
too liberal in our proposed treatment OF book
agents To all such we say-we don't propose
to say anything to them. Let them exercise
little patience and the book agent himself,
with copy of our Mustang" will say
something to them. He will tell them in
low, soothing tone of voice, of its 100 pages,
its 300 original illustrations, its pellucid w.t.
its chase statistics its giddy humor, and its
wealth of canned information about Texas
and Mexico, and as they subscribe for o
cloth bound copy, with gold-p plated picture
A. coll hlocSineru
on the head of the man who invented the
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