THE AUCTIONEER.

WHAT shall we say of Mr. Going, Going, Gone? This we may surely say-while he ever keeps going, may he never be gone! We could in no way dispense with his services. Without him how could we dispose of our goods and chattels when emergency or convenience requires, realizing, it is true, but half price, but more than we could obtain by any other known process! The auctioneer is the personification of cheapness. Like the physician and the lawyer, he lives by the misfortunes of his neighbors. He knocks, like death, "with equal foot," at the gates of the rich and the doors of the poor, and knocks off both one and the other without compunction or remorse, as the physician, hardened by his profession, lops off a limb, or cuts into the diseased body of his hapless victim. We cannot call the auctioneer a necessary evil; on the contrary, like the physician, he is a necessary good. He administers to our necessities, if we would sell, and enables us to buy cheap, if we would buy.

The mode of selling at auction differs in different

countries. In some, the highest price is named first and so downwards until a buyer is found; while in another a candle is lighted, and bidders are limited to the time during which "the lamp holds out to burn." With us the lowest price is first named, and so on until the highest bidder becomes the successful purchaser. While the sale is going on the auctioneer becomes to us a most important and interesting personage. How intently do both buyer and seller hang upon his words, "Going, going at forty-five, who says fifty? It must go, gentlemen, at the low price of forty-five dollars, if you say no more! Who says fifty?" The owner is anxious, and the buyers become nervous. All parties watch the auctioneer, to see if the awful hammer is really coming down. It falls, at last, and Mr. Blank is the fortunate man. The owner has made a sacrifice, but has realized more than he otherwise could have done, while Mr. Blank has drawn no great prize, because he has very likely bought something he had no need of or taste for, merely because it was selling at such a great bargain.

In old times, goods were sold at "public vendue," (pronounced vandu). Then, as now, men and women made oftentimes dear purchases by being tempted to buy a thousand things they had no occasion for. The auctioneer, however, is not to blame for this. He does his duty faithfully to both parties. He

dwells a reasonable time, and then knocks down the article to the highest bidder. In this knocking process he sometimes hits the seller a hard blow, and sometimes a severe knock on the head of the buyer; but that is not his concern, which is only to knock down the goods offered for sale. His ivory hammer descends, like the rain, upon the evil and the just; it is no respecter of persons, but falls, dealing impartial justice to all who are within its sound. From its decision there can be no appeal. The fatal word of one syllable is spoken; there is no longer time for repentance; the lamp has gone out and can never be relighted.

The hammer of the auctioneer tells many a sad story of ruined fortunes, blasted hopes, and of death that scatters the much loved and hard-earned property to the four winds. Each tap of the ivory ball consigns some cherished memento, to which affection has clung for many long years, into the hands of a stranger, to whom it comes divested of its charm and the hold it had upon the human heart, a mere object of curiosity, perhaps, or it may be to gratify a passion for display. The venerable mansion that has witnessed the loves and the hopes, the joys and the sorrows of more than one generation, passes under the hands of the auctioneer to entire strangers, to whom no room or chamber or fire-place is crowded with associations of happy childhood, youth, manhood, old age, sickness,

birth, marriage, and death. The new owner sees only timber, bricks and mortar, and forthwith commences the work of repair. The auctioneer's books tell a sad story of ruinous speculation, bankruptcy in trade, unfortunate investments, ships cast away, fraud, misfortune and death. Here you may read in figures the history of human life, and moralize on its changes from wealth to poverty, from happiness to misery, from life and health to the loss of both one and the other.

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How little of all this do we realize, when, tempted by curiosity, we look in upon an auction sale. The wit of the auctioneer and the jokes of the company enliven and amuse us while some precious heir-loom is struck off for some trifling sum. Could we know its history, we should be disposed to weep rather than laugh. It may be some portrait is offered for sale, destined after a short time to adorn the lumber room or garret of its new owner. It is the counterfeit presentment of one on whom once centered all the hopes and affections of relations and friends; of some fair being, perhaps, who once united in herself all the beauty, grace and loveliness of her sex, the idol of fond parents, the joy and delight of her husband, the devoted mother, or the much-loved sister. Of all this we know nothing and think nothing. How much is bid-once, twice, three times going, going and gone. Yes, she has long been gone, and the places

that have known her can know her no more forever; but in some heart, now also at rest, her memory once survived, a bright oasis in the dreary desert of life.

Our auctioneers have always been a most respectable and respected class of the community-upright and intelligent, they have been most useful agents in administering to the necessities of commerce and of domestic life, so full of vicissitude and change. The great change comes at last, sending our worldly and perishable goods to the public vendue, while it consigns our bodies to the dust, and our spirits to the keeping of Him who gave them.