Year: 1875




A story with q warnipg and Neral.


The town of Horseheads, in New
York State, has suddenly become famous
as the scene of the elopement of young
lady with a travelling book agent. Such
an event is believed to be entirely with
out precedent, and it necessarily con-
fers as wide notoriety upon..the town in
which it occurred as the most elaborate
earthquake could have conferred had it
swallowed the greater part of the peo-
pie of Horseheads, having, Of course,
previously well shaken them.


1t would be fruitless to inquire in the
columns of newspaper why the human
mind is 80 constituted as to uniformly
desire to kill book agent. Such an
inquiry belongs to the province OF
psychology-though in no existing text
book has il been fully and properly dis.
cussed. The fact that men, without
exception, thirst for the blood of book
agents is perfectly well established, and
we may therefore reason from it, with
out troubling ourselves to discover
whether this impulse is congenital, or
is developed by the conditions of civil
lized life. The meekest man, when
summoned to his parlor TO meet a deter
mined-looking stranger, who instantly
urges him to subscribe for Smiths
"Pictorial History of Art Among the
Esquimaux," involuntarily asks himself
whether the satisfaction of Draining the
man with his own specimen volume
would not be cheaply purchased at the
cost of the gallows; and the most gentle
of housewives, as she violently slams the
door in the face of the agent of Browns
Humorous Travels in the Holy-Land, :"
mentally resolves to ask her brother,
the lawyer, whether boiling water is a
deadly weapon in the eye of the law.


How was it possible that, in spite of
this unanimous sentiment in regard to
book agents, one of that fraternity should
have succeeded in inducing young
lady to elope with him2 OF course, the
pair fed secretly in order to escape the
Indignation and Mortified gaze of the
public of Households. But by what
magic arts did the book agent SO COM
pletely conquer the natural instinct-in
regard to boiling water-of the partner
of his flight A.? It is idle to suppose that
he concealed his true character. No book
agent can do that. Even il he had
stunned all allusion to subscription
books until the very moment when the
fair one told him she was his, he would
inevitably have replied "Then let me
put you down for five copies of Browns
Travels, with gilt edgesand illuminated
covers" No |! he must have carried on
his wooing avowedly under the banner
of the "Great Oshkosh Publishing Com
pany," and with his carpet-bag of speci-
men volumes always at his side. When
he urged the sincerity of his passion, he
must have read to her the convincing
statement that "smart agents can make
fifty dollars a day with our new sub
scription books" and told her that if
she would get her parents, brothers and
sisters, and acquaintances to subscribe
for volume each, the money would be
strictly appropriated to house-furnish-
ing, with the exception of liberal COM
mission to be paid to her as pin money.
Undoubtedly he presented her with ele-
CANT copies of all the works published
by his firm, and when he clasped her to
hi, bosom did not fail to assure her that
his heart beat for her alone, although
the fact was not perceptible to her in
consequence of his carrying his sub-
scription lists in his breast pocket. The
girl may have been young, and unac-
customed to admiration. When her
lover asserted that he would prefer ten
per cent. commission with her as his
bride, to twenty per cent. and the e1-
elusive right to the best territory in the
country without her, she may have vel
coined it as the language of passion and
romance. At any rate, she listened to
his pleading, and is now that hitherto
unknown phenomenon, book agents
bride.


We need not doubt the reality OF the
affection existing between this unique
pair. The book agent hath eyes and
ears like other men, not to speak OF q
superhuity of cheek and tongue. May
he not also have affections and senti-
ments of tender and romantic charac-
ter? Doubtless, he will bind his wife,
SO to speak, in red silk andplenty OF gilt
jewelry. It is quite possible that, un-
der the influence of domestic happiness,
his fercer nature may be tanned. He
may ce ase to waylay funeral coaches in
order to urge the occupants to subscribe
for Robinson's "Comfort OF the Afaict-
ed" in gilt cloth, and may spare the
solitary widow whom he would once
have compelled to subscribe for ten
copies of "Mormon Iniquities." Per
haps the marriage of this book agent
may be the beginning of the end of the
system which he has hitherto represent.
ed, and the time may be near at hand
when book agents, tanned and softened
by marriage, will abandon their cruel
vocation, and the memory of it will re-
main, as does the memory of the buc'
cancers, only in blood-curdling stories,
bearing such titles as Red Beard, the
Book Agent of the West" or " The
Lives, Exploits, and Dying Confessions
of the Book Agents of the New Eng
land States. "-Ne,D York Times,


How TO Prevent Divorce.