The true northerner. [volume] (Paw Paw, Mich.) 1855-1920, 1883-11-01
Commercial Travellers.

What an army they have become in
the last score of years! No passenger
train, East or West, is ever without its
representatives of this popular class, so
we'll known by their heavy travelling
bags and ponderous trunks, that rival
III size the famed "Saratogas, and,
better still, by their easy manners, we'll
dressed appearance and man-of-the-
world air. The cares of their profession
seem to rest lightly upon them, and the
anxieties casual traveller experiences
about timetables, unexpected stop
pages, meals and SO forth, never disturb
their tranquility. If a train is showed
up on the prairie, with a prospect of re-
naming stationary for day or two,
everybody else Will get into nervous
excitement and run about hither and
thither, making absurd suggestions to
the train-men. asking absurd questions
and offering to help. But the travelling
man exchanges good-humored with
cisms with the conductor, ingratiates
himself with the engineer, or quietly
smokes his cigar on the rear platform,
confesses himself bored, but keeps his
temper and finally takes out his tablets
and wires heartrending account of his
hardships to The House." smiling to
himself and knowing that THE House"
will smile, too, more ruefully than he.
The average traveller has few aspira-
tons outside of his profession. He has
comfortable salary and no fear of
getting out of employment, for the
openings in his line are countless. If
he is married, he has heavy insurance
on his life. Beside, there is a fascina-
ton in the business hard to shake off
after one has got accustomed to its pc
culiar features and activities-the con-
slant change from day to day; a shake
of the social dice-boX, and a familiar
face coming up once n month; the cor
dial welcome of II favorite landlord as
he opens his doors to what he considers
his best customers, because they always
have ready money and well-tilled cigar
cases; the picking up of general and
local news on the trains and in the
towns and villages, and even the rum
bling and banging of the cars over
poorly-ballaste roads; short rides be-
tween points short "stop-ofr;" up
and away again; always good-natured,
never in a hurry, and never behind
time; meeting each other with cordial
hand-shake and the offer Of cigar
passing and requesting, with an exchange
of mods from car-windows, journeying
together and clubbing, half dozen
perhaps, at some favorite hotel over
Sunday; entertaining each other at
tending whatever amusements are at
hand; playing game of billiards, if
there is decent table-for they are
fastidious: and, in fine, doing their
best to make life pass pleasantly.
The profession has greatly risen in
dignity in the past decade. Young men
of fine abilities and aspirations toward
higher but less lucrative pursuits have
stepped into it because it is easy of ac
cess and pays well, and finally, becom-
ing reconciled to it-when they see
their former comrades fighting poverty
In law-chambers, or n doctors Office
have given il certain tone among the
many businesses of this fertile age. It's
followers form respectable and we'll
organized corps in the great body poll
tic; one that has mutual life-insurance
companies, and n free-masonry indi-
Gated TO the public in occasional ban
quets and other social entertainments
under its acknowledged auspices, and
by the ostracism of a member at rare
intervals for some unlucky breach of
etiquette.-LippincOFS Magazine.