The true northerner. [volume] (Paw Paw, Mich.) 1855-1920, 1886-06-03
AUCTIONS.
BY ANNIE +. MYERS.

1t is a matter Of history that women in
Babylon were publicly auctioned off to the
highest bidders for wives.
This sale occurred annually among those
old heather, at which time all virgins of
manageable age were required to as
semble at certain place in their respective
districts, and thither focked all the gay and
frolicsome young pagans TO select their
wives.
No doubt the dandies futtered and
bobbed around, stopped here and there,
put their turbaned heads together for con-
fidential confabs, much after the fashion
of the busy bee around an Intoxicating
clover blossom. The young fellows whose
silken purses were we'll lined with gold and
silver consulted and compared notes as TO
the comparative beauty of the candidates to
come under the auctioneers hammer, gave
passing attention to the probabilities in re-
gard to the dispositions and tempers of the
respective mothers law elect, while the
dusky swain whose bidding must be more
modest, and whose tastes and desires must
be regulated TO enjoy what may be left,
passed quietly yet observingly around,
mingling freely III the midst of the excited
throng, silently picking up points and
waiting their chances, after the fashion of
the hangers-on around the wheat pit in the
Chicago Board of Trade.
The style of conducting this Babylonan
sale was quite American in its main points,
but perhaps on fairer basis than deals in
Sept" wheat.
The most beautiful was put up first, and
he who bid the most money gained possess
sion of her. The second in appearance fol-
lowed, and the bidders gratifed themselves
with handsome wives according to the length
of their purses.
But, alas! Strange as it may appear to
modern civilization-our civilization in
which every girl may become n wife if she
can satisfy herself with what the gods pro-
vide-among the Babylonians there were
some ladies for whom no money was Of
fered.
1t seems that physical beauty alone was
the one thing desired in wife. Those
benighted heather had not acquired the
taste that could appreciate the aesthetic
loneliness of even protoplasmic psychology.
But the pagan dogs had all the inven-
tive genius of a maneuvering modern
mamma, consequently when all the beauti-
full virgins were sold the crier ordered
the least handsome TO stand up, when he
would demand who would marry her with a
certain sum, then who with smaller
amount, until she would finally be adjudged
to the one who would be satisfied with the
least. In this manner the money paid as
premiums for beauty served as brides for
disagreeable looks.
This custom emanated from the minds of
idol worshipers, at least one hundred years
before Christ came with His enlightening
religion, but in what movement of reform,
in what solution of mystifying social ques-
tons has more humanitarian doctrine
been adopted?
The contemplation of this unique stroke
of diplomacy has suggested modern adap-
tation.
Why would it not be a neat manner of
disposing of our men?
Use the premiums obtained from the sale
of the luckless young and old bachelors who
seem incapable of getting themselves mar
ried. as brides 10 hasten the disposal of mar
Iied men whose wives are anxious to get rid
of them.
Until n man is married his failings are
not observable, he is an adorable object
in the eyes of all fcmininity, unless he
wears geen goggles or parts his hair in the
middle. and most of them would 90 off un-
der the auctioneers hammer like dyna-
mite bomb or hot cakes in n gentlemen's
restaurant. and the sum realized therefrom
would be sufficiently large to greatly accel-
crate the disposal of the unfortunates
whose wives have disclosed TO the public
their heretofore hidden deformities- men
are so deceiving.
II such a sale were to occur at this season