The Montgomery advertiser., 1905-02-16
THEN AND NOW.


 In this day of liberal prices for lec- lures and literary work 1t Is interest ing to compare the pay with what it was but half a century ago. Senator Chandler of New Hampshire has pub- lished extracts from an old diary, in- cIuding the years from 1851 to 1855. showing the prices paid for lectures delivered under the auspices of Ia nous literary club in Concord in those years. In the list of names we hnc such as Sake, Holmes, Emerson, Theo- dore Parker. Greeley, Meagher, and number of other literary celebrities of the period. The general price paid the lecturers was from $2o to $S0, and the receipts were in the same prop IT, ton. A Miss Kimberly was paid $50 for a lecture and the receipts ran up to $s6. The Irish patriot. Thomas Francis Meagher, was paid $50 for one lecture and S75 for another, and receipts were $60 and $s0. One lec- turer. John G. Hoyt, was paid $15 and the house took in $7.75. Thomas Wentworth Higginson received $15 and the house got back $S.75 of it. and they paid Bishop Hopkins $2O and got $9 back.
 These figures are sufficient to show how poorly paid were the lecturers of those days, and how small the au- diences were. The list contains some twenty-three names, and among them are some of the most famous men and women this country has produced. They were men famous in the world of literature, science and the arts, some of whom would now. command practi- cally their own prices for a series of lectures, yet not one American born man in the list received over $30 for a lecture, and but few were paid so much.
 It is not surprising that Thomas Francis Meagher should have been paid better, and drew larger houses than any of the native notables did. He was one of the famous Irish leaders implicated in the troubles about 1s4S was convicted of treason and banish for life to Van Dieman's Land, but es- CdpGu anu lCdShCu NGW OI n HI AoOS' The Irish feeling was very enthusias- tic in this country about that time, and as Meagher possessed wonderful ora torical powers, the lecture bureaus paid him large prices for those days, and the people patronized him more largely than they did home talent. Yet even his remuneration would be con- sidered a trihe in these days. It Is we'll to remember, also, that those old lecturers paid their own travelling ex- penses, and after paying railroad fares it is probable that all that some of them got was the notoriety and adver- tising derived from their appearances on the platform. One of the present day celebrities would want advertising very badly before he would travel hundreds of miles to deliver a lecture for twenty or thirty dollars. He would probably decide that the advertising rates were too high.
 And while we are on the subject it is not out of place to mention that there is as much contrast in the pay of
 
 that of lecturers. When we read that Edgar Allan Poe, the most, consumate literary genius the country has pro- duccd. literally suffered for the nec- essaries of life while he was trying to find a purchaser or publisher for his poems and stories, and when we read of writers like Milton and Thack- cray and Dickens and others In Eng land who barely made q living. and of some of the early writers of America who fared no better; when we compare them with George Ade. who is millionaire, and with a number of other modern second or third rate writers who have become rich, we can but wonder at the change of literary taste. or something else that causes such contrast between the past and the present. A century ago, or less, he was a fortunate author who could live on his earnings, but now men amass fortunes by writing what is lit tie better than slush. The contrast is as great as 1t is inexplicable