Democratic Northwest. [volume] (Napoleon, Ohio) 1869-1894, 1886-08-26

y
money TO buy carpets and cushions?
Do you ask si,e pr,arie;oT Of the Herald
or Times to drop iIi!o your treasury all
the money that they may receive for adj
vertisements aud Sales on the first day
Of June? Do you ask Mr.. Choate to
hand you over his professional income,
as nearly rs he can compute it. for
Monday, the 22d? TO ask me for money
is one thing; but to ask for blank
check with INV signature Is quite an
other" The lecturer smiled as benig-
nantly as the chairman. but did not
look in the least degree puzzled. ''Ohr'
said the chairman. PRECISELY" re-
turned 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 II lyccum COM
mittee, in his private capacity of mer-
chant, negotiates with another merchant
for piece of cloth, or q case of shoes,
or cargo of flour. But he finds that
he has miscalculated The market,
or there is some mishap, and he loses
by the bargain. Does he thereupon re-
pair 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 mischance the merchant will per-
haps agree to take half of the price
agreed upon? 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 tradl, he is not
fit to be Il trader.
Owise young judge! And what was it
you were saying just now. not to the
flour merchant or r.e shoe dealer, but
to the lecture merchant We're YOU or
were you not saying 10 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 per-
haps-perhaps-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, o
wise young Judge! have not made as
much money out of him rs you hoped to
make?
To decline to do this, Mr.. Cough, like
other eminent masters If the platform,
did not hold to be u mercenary view of
his calling. II it was not mercenary
for the baker to ask sixpence for his loaf
or the milkman fair price for his milk,
neither was it mercenary for the lectu-
rer 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 with
out price. But he cannot support his
family by that course. All the mer-
chants in town, if they choose, may
give away all their goods. But they
cannot be reproached with venality if
they prefer to sell instead of to give.
Mr.. Cough. so far as he turned his
powers and gifts to making 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 requested
the gift of all the profits of future
transaction, were unquestionably we'll
meaning, but they were unmindful of
the laws and usages of honorable busi-
ness.
Mr.. Edwin P. Whipple, one of the
most accomplished and popular pioneers
of the modern lecture platform, said that
he once declined to suffer in the way
that we have described. and the contro-
verted ten dollars was at last paid. He
departed homeward congratulating him.
self upon the triumphant vindication of
a sound principle. But, said he, with
sly smile of appreciation, that money
was an apple of the Dead Seat turned
to ashes. 1t was Il counterfeit bill.
Doubtless it was intended by the austere
committee as stern rebuke of the mer-
cenary disposition of the lecturer
George William Curtis, IN Harpes's
Magazine for May.