The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1913-07-15
THE HUMAN PROCESSION

The first auction sale in England was held 213 years ago today by Eli sha Yale, who had been governor of Madras, and who adopted that plan TOT selling the East Indian wares he mad brought home, The sale attract ed wide attention, and was so sue cessful that others irnm mediateIy adopt ed the plan. Before the close of the eighteenth century England began to place a tax on auction sales, and at times these duties have ranged as high as five per cent. Tn 1s45 the tax was repealed, but charge imposed on the license to be taken out by all auctfoneers. The abuses at auctions caused by combinations of brokers to bid up the offerings, led to the adop- tion of stringent regulations. In America auctioneers of a certain class have also been guilty of many imposi- tipns on the public. Fake "auction sa1es'' of alleged bankrupt stocks of merchandise, fire saIes,' and similar schemes, have. long been used to inn pose on the credu1ous. At many such sales the auctioneer has confederates in the crowd, who start the bidding and continue it until some legitimate bidder has offered 8 price that affords the promoters a handsome profit. The imposition of heavy fines and prison sentences has discouraged this class of auctioneers in most sections.
 Hoffman Philip, first secretary of the American embassy at ConstantinopleI during Turkeys late unpleasantness with the Balkan states, played the role of hero during those terrible days when cholera threatened the capital of the Porte. MT. Philip was one of a few Am orleans and Eng1ishmen who vol unteered to care for the sick and wounded at the camps outside of Con- stantinopIe. Mai Doughty Wiley, British consul at Adana, and Maj. Clyde s. Ford, afsurgeon of the Unit the noble and self-sacridcfng few who risked their lives in the servicse of the Turks consigned to the "hell heaps" at San Stephano and Hademkuei.
 Hoffman Philip was born in Wash ington forty-one years ago, July 1S, at Cambridge University. He served through the Spanish American war with Col. Roosevelt's Rough Riders" He began his foreign service for the United States government at Tangier, Morocco, where he was consul gener- al and secreary of legation. In 1908 he was appointed minister resident and consul general to Abyssinia, and remained at Menelik's capital for over a year, when he became secretary of the American embassy at Rio de Ja- neiro, afterward going to Constantt- nODl0 to serve in the same capac1Ly.
 Mir Philip and his. few American and English co-workers in the cause of confronted a terrible situa- ton at San Stephano, ten miles from the capital. That wealthy and fash ionab1e suburb was transformed into what the Turks rightly called a 'eheI1 heap.'' A visitor to the cholera camp has thus described 1t:
 seThe so-called camp was by the side of a railroad embankment There were just twenty-two' tents for the accom- | of the thousands of sick and l wounded men dumped off there for .treatment.' The track was higher than the camp, and when a train ar rived from the front the patients had to scramble down the embankment, or, if unable to do so. they were rolled down The bank was a mass of dead and dying, as thick as ants on an ant | hill Those who had cholera and those | who were simply incapacitated were dumped together into the hell heap | No accommodations were made for the treatment of the patients, and no bcdy attempted to alleviate their suf- ferings except Secretary Philip, Maj. Doughty Wiley, Maj. Ford, and two brave women, Miss Schneider, Hun garian, and Miss Alt, a. Swiss. Bread | and water wagons occasionally drove | through the camps, but those unable | to help themselves went hungry or thirsty, unless the foreign volunteers found time to provide for them"