Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1886-05-13

to Do the same thing. Tho fact that I
am . lecturer is not = reason that
you should make the application to
me rather than to q lawyer, or . mer-
chant, or an artist. Do you ask Mr..
Booth to bestOw his receipts for 1Sxt
Saturday upon your society bec4tfse
your society is poor and wants money
to buy carpets and cushions? Do you
ask the proprietor of the Herald or
Times to drop into your treasury all
the money that they may receive for
advertisements and sales on the first
day of June? Do you ask Mr.. Choate
to hand you over his professional in-
come, as nearly as he can compute it,
for Monday, the 22d? To ask me for
money is one thing; but to ask for q
blank check with my signature is
quite another The lecturer smiled
as benignantly as the chairman. but
did not look in the least degree puzzled.
''Ohr' said the chairman. Precisely"
returned the lecturer.
There is sometimes queer lapse OF
good faith IN one of the parties to the
business to which Mr.. Cough devoted
his life A member of lyceum COM
mittee. in his private capacity of mer-
chant, negotiates with another merchant
for piece of cloth, or a case of shoes,
or a cargo of flour. But he finds that he
has miscalculated the market, or there
is some mishap, and he loses by the bar
gain Does he thereupon repair to the
other merchant, and say to him that he
hasn't made as much as he expected by
the venture; that, in fact. he has lost
money, and in view of that sad mis-
chance the merchant viii perhaps agree
% &,I- l,1 0f fha r,rtoa arrQaH unnr9
No; the worthy member of the lecture
committee has never been guilty of such
an act as that. If he can not take the
chances of trade, he is not fit to be .
trader.
wise young Judge! And what was
it that you were saying just now, not to
the flour merchant, or the cloth mer-
chant, or the shoe dealer, but to the lee
ture merchant Were you or were you
not saying to him that you were very
sorry that the audience had been so
small and the expenses so large, and the
treasury was so Low that perhaps-per-
haps-in view of everything-so hard to
sustain course of really good lectures
-that-that, in fine, the merchant
would perhaps take off half the price
stipulated, because you, D wise young
Judge! have not made as much money
| out of him as you hoped to make?
To decline to do this, Mr.. Cough. like
| other eminent masters of the platform.
did not hold to be mercenary view of
his calling. If 1t was not mercenary
for the baker to ask sixpence for his
| loaf or the milkman a fair price for his
milk, neither was it mercenary for the
lecturer to ask an equally fair price for
his commodity and his labor and his
time 1t is, indeed, open to any man
to give bread and milk to his neighbors
without price. But he can not support
his family by that course. All the
merchants in town. if they choose,
may give away all their goods.
But they can not be reproached
with venality if they prefer to sell in
stead of to give. MIR. Cough, so far as
he turned his powers and gifts to max
ing money, was merchant, and was
amenable only to the laws and usages OF
honorable business, and those who asked
him to renounce half his fee, or who re-
quested the gift of all the profits OF a
| future transaction, were unquestionably
well-meaning, but they were unmindful
of the laws and usages of honorable busi-
ness.
Mr.. Edwin P. Whipple, one of the
most CcOIl pllSlltu anu poPuifti PiohCoIo
of the modern lecture platform, said
that he once declined to suffer in the
way that we have described, and the
controverted ten dollars was at last
paid. He departed homeward congrat-
ulating himself upon the triumphant
vindication of sound principle. But,
said he, with sly smile of apprecia-
ton, that money was an apple of the
Dead Seat turned to ashes. 1t was .
counterfeit bill. Doubtless it was in
tended by the austere committee as q
stern rebuke of the mercenary DISPOSE
ton of the lecturer.-George William
Curtis, in Harper's Magazine.