The Penn's Grove record., 1883-12-29

W
Is the thing from wIch the relic is
taken, not the relic itslf, which is in
teresting. The genue relic hunters,
though, are worth Rowing; funniest
chaps you ever saw. hey're a race of
beings by themselves The man who
sent these things hel for me to buy
says he's got eeven bxes more of the
same sort, the ccllec ON of q lifetime.
Look at this chip, nsrked, "PIece OF
the first sleeper laid for the Hudson
River Railroad On the mans list it
is entered, Bought $3.50 cents. =
1t may be genuine-tht is, if the COM
pany used elm wood f. their road-but
If this chip is worth 5tcents, the whole
sleeper must be wortlseyeral hundred
dollars, and the compny ought to saw
it up and sell 1T. Thee's no logic in a
relic hunter. The on who travelled
all over the world ad brought back
several trunks full ofnoses broken of
from ancient statues had a definite
idea. His followers ae curiously dilu-
ted specimens of theirNredecessor.
"Some of them, howger, have spe-
cialties not unlike tht OF the nose
breaker. One of the seliest of the
relic men collected tn hats of celeb
rites. / don't believe he would have
given a dollar for Napolon's grey over
coat; but the hat Of a resident of the
United States had for him an almost
priceless value. If necessary, he was
was ready to suborn a ,reat mans SER
wants to get the wisSed for article.
Some years ago l say his collection.
His finest specimens WIRE at that time
placed upon the heads 4 plaster busts,
and arranged in long ows. He after
wards discarded tins node of arrange
ment, owing to the Singular discrepan-
cies which often exised between the
size of the two a~rticls. He told me
that he had tried scaping down the
busts, which were generally much
larger than the hats but the result
was to give a peculiar appearance to
his collection. One O. two of his hats,
notably that of Thomas Fl. Benton,
were SO small as to Geate a doubt in
my mind as to theil authenticity. l
learned afterwards tlat hotel servants
and others used to palm of their own
hats upon the collector.
One of the greatest troubles with
relics is that they seldom bear the
least evidence within themselves oil
their genuineness. / have seen IN my
day several hundreds of the pens with
which Walter Scott wrote Waverty,
and in the old country Bobby Burns
drinking glass might almost be called
a staple article OF commerce. When
my poor father first took me into
business he gave me an awful talking
to because / bought three locks of
Byron's hair from a relic collector,
although l only paid sixpence for the
three. The trouble was they were all
different shades. Poe's hair used
to be sold largeg, but you can't DIS
pose of it nov unless you noun it
very expensiyeg in old gold; it takes
best III mourrdg rings or pins. There
was so mucl of Poe's hair sold that
the relic tride In hair has suffered
ever since. There was a time when
hair relic iunter would make an eff
fort to secrfe a lock from the head of
a great MA. even if the latter died as
bald AS th5 American eagle.
ssBiess me, if here isn't one OF the
twenty-five million canes that have been
turned out of the Mount Vernon man.
ufacte.y. 1t 1s marked From tue
gravf OF Washington And this fellow
50 Tor it. What's this? From
the Colosseum, Rome How's that for
q ,ock? Here's a rag from the dress of
Marie Antoinette as she was being led
i execution, and this hard-looking nap
in in a glass case is marked dipped IN
he blood of Lady Jane Grey. executed
the Tower OF London, August %,
$685. Value So, l see. Now, sir. If
Tou1l Just take q look at that pile over
here, which l haven't examined yet,
see a glass tube, sealed at both
nds, and containing a burnt stick.
Wait a minute and I'll tell you what it
5 without reading the label. It's a
piece of charred fagot found on the
pot where Joan of Arc was burned
Nil 1 thought so; I've seen cords of
hem / my day. This Is the most
precious lot of p~iayed-out relics I've
cen for some time. Yet there are peo-
lie in this city who are looking for just
UGH aracles. AID will pay heavily for
hem.
'tMany relic hunters 60 N only for
and a precious lot OF rub
,ish these mementoes almost always
re. If q man has a fancy to gather a
from the grave of Keats, in
rome, or a few leaves from Dryburgh
and make up a little album, it
) well enough. Bat an idiot who goes
round with a hammer chipping off
'ieces OF famous bridges or churches,
nd even gravestones, ought to be sent
0 a iunatic asylum. / know q man who
las a collection of bricks. Some n
ave him a Babylonian brick one day,
nd it set HIM crazy. The second brick
anne from the Old South Church, in
and the third from Indepen-
Hall, Philadelphia. He picked
lp enough of them in Rome to build q
with. Two years ago he got
.to trouble in Pompeii for taking some
ubbish from there; but when the u
horitles found he only wanted a brick
n two and was willing to pay well, they
ettled amicably. He always carries a
leavy steel bound trunk with him, and
he and his peculiar ~curiosities have
,aused much anxiety among Custom
House officers. He told me the other
lay, with great solemnity, that two of
lis valuable bricks had been broken by
n inspector. One was from the Col
of Traian. and the other from the
inc old Roman triumphsl arch in Mar
eilles. He used to hire men 10 pull
hem out for him while he remained N
doorway at a convenient distance.
By the way. the old gentleman lost a
of ius old bricks a year ago; 1t was
brown overheard by some sailors, who
hought it was dynamite. Itseens that
stowaway had screwed the cover off
n the belief that it contained gold. He
hen made a confdant of one of the
and persuaded them that it was
IN explosive. They promised him food
or the voyage if he would throw the
bricks into the sea. This collectors
brick from the house of Columbus was
.ost in the same way.
'sThe most costly of all the coliec-
lions of useless things / ver saw was
one which consisted wholly Of what
.--~kl A. A.. 4l1 HDAao ne oalaArotad