of forfeits as being generally acknowl-
edged by all the fraternity to have been
in use for centuries. The old man well
remembered large wooden bowls for
lathering; which bowls were placed
under the chin, a convenient niche
having been cut in the side in which
the chin dropped and kept the bowl
suspended during the lathering opera-
tion. He used to relate that some of
the customers paid by the quarter, and
for these an especial bowl was set apart,
to be used only at the time when their
shaving money was due ; and inside
this particular bowl, inscribed in per-
fectly unmistakable characters, were
the words, " Sir, your quarter's up ! "
Pushing- Business.
A GENEROUS-HEARTED bllt tllOrOUgll-
ly driving business man was coming
out of a hair-dresser's rooms, when he
paused in the shop and looked around :
" Oh, you sell brushes, and things of
this kind ? " " Yes, sir." " Well, I sup-
pose you sell to about every one that
comes ? " " No, indeed, sir." " But I
should. At all events you try, I sup-
pose, to sell to every one that comes ? "
" Well, no, we do not, sir ; one doesn't
always think of it." " But you ought
you have your family to provide for,
and you should have tact and push ; if I
were in your place, I would sell something
to every one that comes, and you ought to
try." " Very well, sir, suppose we begin
with you," making a show of displaying
some wares. "Yes, to be sure, why
not? let us see." To work he sets,
and by way of encouraging the hair-
OCCUPATIONS AUXILIARY TO COMMERCE.
731
dresser in the proposed plan of doing
business, he bought brushes, combs,
etc., to the amount of nearly ten dollars.
Moses as an Engraver.
FROM the book of Exodus, it appears
that when Moses had liberated the Jews
from Egyptian bondage, he was com-
manded to make a plate of pure gold,
and grave upon it, like the engravings
of a signet, " holiness to the Lord."
He was also commanded to " take two
onyx stones, and grave on them the
names of the children of Israel, accord-
ing to their birth, with the work of an
engraver on stone, like the engravings
of a signet." Both of these passages
distinctly imply the practice of gem
and seal engraving, and also of engrav-
ing on metal plates. , "
Wit of a Gravestone Maker.
A GOOD story is told of the facetious
Dr. Thornton, of Derry, K H., who
undertook to quiz a neighbor of his
an old Scotch gravestone maker. The
doctor, one day, in passing the resi-
dence of the Scotchman, who was busi-
ly at work, drew up and accosted him
as follows : " Mr. W., don't you believe
it to be your duty,, as a rational man
and a Christian, to pray for your daily
bread ? " " Ay," quoth Old Mortality,
"I have thought it to be my duty,
but I dinna noo min muckle about it."
"I suppose, then," said the doctor,
" that you pray that people may die,
in order for you to enjoy the profit of
furnishing their gravestones ? " " No,
fath," replied the old man ; " there's
no need o'that, while one Matthew
Thornton continues to practise physic ;
he kills off folks faster than I can make
stones for them."
The Learned Blacksmith..
ELIHU BUEBITT is known the world
over as " the learned blacksmith." Mr.
Burritt mentions that, being one of a
large family, and his parents poor, he
apprenticed himsell, when very young,
to a blacksmith, but that he had always
had such a taste for reading, that he
carried it with him to his trade. He
commenced the study of Latin when
his indentures were not half expired,
and completed reading Virgil in the
evenings of one winter. He next stud-
ied Greek, and carried the Greek gram-
mar about him in his hat, studying it
for a few moments while heating some
large iron. In the evenings he sat
down to Homer's Iliad, and read twenty
books of it during the second winter.
He next turned to the modern tongues,
and went to New Haven, where he re-
cited to native teachers in French,
Spanish, German and Italian, and at
the end of two years he returned to his
forge, taking with him such books as
he could procure. He next commenced
Hebrew, and mastered it with ease,
reading two chapters in the Bible before
breakfast, this, with an hour at noon,
being all the time he could spare from
work. Being unable to procure such
works as he desired, he determined to
hire himself to some ship bound to
Europe, thinking that he could there
meet with books at the different ports
he touched at. He | travelled more than
one hundred miles on foot, to Boston,
with this view, but was not able to find
what he sought ; and at this period he
heard of the American Antiquarian
Society at Worcester. Thither he bent
his steps, and arrived in the city in the
most utter indigence. Here he found a
collection of ancient, modern, and
oriental books, such as he never im-
agined to be collected in one place. He
was there allowed to read whatever
books he liked, and reaped great benefit
from the privilege. He used to spend
three hours daily in the hall, and he
made such use of his opportunities,
as to be able to read upward of
fifty languages, with greater or less
facility.
732
COMMERCIAL AND BUSINESS ANECDOTES.
Incorrect Editions of the Bible.
THE number of typographical inac-
curacies which abound in the bibles
printed by the king's printers is re-
markable. Dr. Lee states, "I do not
know any book in which it is so diffi-
cult to find a very correct edition as
the English bible." What is in Eng-
land called the Standard Bible, is that
printed at Oxford, in 1769, which was
superintended by Dr. Blayney ; yet it
has been ascertained that there are at
least one hundred and sixteen errors
in it.
These errors were discovered in print-
ing an edition in London, in 1806,
which has been considered as very cor-
rect ; yet Dr. Lee says that that edition
contains a greater number of mistakes.
Mr. T. Curtis corroborates Dr. Lee's tes-
timony. He states his general impres-
sion to be, that the text of the common
English bible is incorrect, and he gives
a great variety of instances.
Dr. A. Clarke, in his preface to the
bible, states that he has corrected many
thousand errors in the Italics, which,
in general, are said to be in a very in-
correct state. Between the Oxford
edition of 1830 and the Cambridge
edition, there are eight hundred varia-
tions in the Psalms alone. Dr. Home
says : " Booksellers' edition, 1806. In
the course of printing, by Woodfall,
this edition from the Cambridge copy,
a great number of very gross errors
were discovered in the latter, and the
errors of the common Oxford edition
were not so few as twelve hundred."
Mr. Offor, a retired bookseller, and
who made a collection of upward of
four hundred bibles of different edi-
tions, states that he was not aware of
any edition he had examined which
was without errors ; but Pasham's
bible, in 1776, and another printed at
Edinburgh, in 1811, were the most ac-
curate and the most beautiful he had
found.
Printed Books; or, the Devil and Dr.
Faustus.
THE first printed book on record is
the Book of Psalms, by one Faust, of
Mentz, and his son-in-law, Schseffer. It
appeared in 1457, more than four hun-
dred years ago. Several works were
printed many years before, by Guttem-
berg; but as the inventors wished to
keep the secret to themselves, they
sold their first printed works as manu-
scripts.
This gave rise to an adventure that
brought calamity on Faust. Having
in 1450, begun an edition of the bible,
and finished it in 1460, he carried sev-
eral printed copies of it to Paris, and
offered them for sale as manuscripts.
This made him at once an object of
suspicion. It was in those days when
Satan was thought to be ready at every
man's elbow, to offer his magic if called
upon, and as the French could not con-
ceive how so many books should per-
fectly agree in every letter and point,
they ascribed it to infernal agency, and
poor Faust had the misfortune to be
thrown into prison. Here it was, that,
in order to prove he had no aid from
the devil, he was obliged to reveal the
secret, and show to the proper officers
how the work was .done.
Perhaps it was upon this adventure
that somebody built up the story of the
league of the devil and Dr. Faustus, as
well as wrote those ludicrous dialogues,
which, in some of the puppet-shows,
Faust, under the name of Dr. Faustus,
is made to hold with the devil.
Paying a Newspaper Bill.
A LONG- WINDED subscriber to a news-
paper there are many such after re-
peated dunnings, at last promised that
the bill should be paid by a certain
day, if he were then alive. The day
passed over, and no money reached the
office.
In the next number, therefore, of
OCCUPATIONS AUXILIARY TO COMMERCE.
'33
the newspaper, the publisher inserted
among the deaths a notice of his sub-
scriber's departure from this life. Pret-
ty soon after this announcement, the
subject of it appeared to the publisher
not with the pale and ghastly coun-
tenance ascribed to apparitions, nor,
like them, did he wait to be spoken to,
but broke silence with" What, sir, did
you mean by publishing my death ? "
" Why, sir, I mean what I mean when
I publish the death of any other per-
son, viz., to let the world know that
you are dead." " Well, but I am not
dead." "Not dead; then it is your
own fault ; for you told me you would
positively pay your bill by such a day ?
if you lived to that time. The day
passed, the bill is not paid, and you
positively must be dead for I will not
believe that you would forfeit your
word." " Oh, ho ! I see that you have
got round me, Mr. Publisher ; but say
no more about it here's the money.
And hearkee, my wag, you'll contra-
dict my death next week ? " " Oh,
certainly, sir, just to please you ;
though, upon my word, I can't help
thinking you were dead at the time
specified, and that you have really
come back to pay this bill, on account
of your friendship to me."
Trading in News.
THE desire of the English for news
from the capital, on the part of the
wealthier country residents, and prob-
ably the false information, as well as
the impertinence, of the news writers,
led, anciently, to the common establish-
ment of a very curious trade that of a
news correspondent, who, for a sub-
scription of three or four pounds per
annum, wrote a letter of news every
post day to his subscriber in the coun-
try This profession probably existed
in the reign of James I. ; for in Ben
Jonson's play, the Staple of News,
written in the first year of Charles I.,
we have a very curious and amusing
description of an office of news manu-
facturers :
" This is the outer room where my clerks sit,
And keep their sides, the register i' the
midst :
The examiner, he sits private there within ;
And here I have my several rolls and files
Of news by the alphabet, and all put up
Under their heads."
The news thus communicated ap-
pears to have fallen into as much dis-
repute as the public news. In the ad-
vertisement announcing the first num-
ber of the Evening Post] September 6th,
1709, it is said : " There must be three
or four pounds per annum paid by
those gentlemen who are out of town,
for wTitten news, which is so far gene-
rally from having any probability of
matter of fact in it, that it is frequently
stuffed up with We hear, &c., or, An
eminent Jew merchant has received a let-
ter, &c. ; being nothing more than
downright fiction." The same adver-
tisement, speaking of the published pa-
pers, says : " We read more of our own
affairs in the Dutch papers, than in
any of our own." The trade of a news-
paper correspondent seems to have sug-
gested a sort of union of written news
and published news; for toward the
end of the seventeenth century, we
have news letters printed in type to
imitave waiting. The most famous
of these was that commenced by Icha-
bod Dawks in 1696, the first num-
ber of which was thus announced:
" This letter will be done upon good
writing paper, and blank space left,
that any gentleman may write his own
private business. It does undoubtedly
exceed the best of the written news, con-
tains double the quantity, is read with
abundantly more ease and pleasure, and
will be useful to improve the younger
sort in writing a curious hand."
Tailor Turned Prophet.
A TAILOR in Dublin, near the resi-
dence of Dean Swift, took into the
734
COMMERCIAL AXD BUSINESS ANECDOTES.
" ninth part " of his head, that he was
specially and divinely inspired to inter-
pret the prophecies, and more especially
the Book of Revelation. Quitting the
shop-board, he turned out a preacher, ]
or rather a prophet, until his customers j
had left his shop, and his family were
likely to famish. His monomania was
well known to the dean, who benevo-
lently watched for an opportunity to
turn the current of his thoughts.
One night the tailor, as he fancied,
got an especial revelation to go and
convert Dean Swift, and next morning
took up his line of march to the dean-
ery. The dean, whose study was fur-
nished with a glass door, saw the tailor
approach, and instantly surmised the
nature of his errand. Throwing him-
self into an attitude of solemnity and
thoughtfulness, with the Bible opened
before him, and his eyes fixed on the
tenth chapter of Revelation, he awaited
his approach. The door opened, and
the tailor announced in an unearthly
voice, " Dean Swift, I am sent by the
Almighty to announce to you "
" Come in, my friend," said the
dean ; "I am in great trouble, and no
doubt the Lord has sent you to help
me out of my difficulty."
The unexpected welcome inspired the
tailor, and strengthened his assurance
in his own prophetic character, and
disposed him to listen to the disclosure.
" My friend," said the dean, " I have
just been reading the tenth chapter of
Revelation, and am greatly distressed
at a difficulty I have met with, and you
are the very man sent to help me out.
Here is an account of an angel that
came down from heaven, who was so
large that he placed one foot on the
earth and lifted up his hands to heaven.
Now, my knowledge of mathematics,"
continued the dean, "has enabled me
to calculate exactly the size and form
of the angel ; but I am in great diffi-
culty, for I wished to ascertain how
much cloth it will take to make a pair
of breeches ; and, as that is exactly in
your line of business, I have no doubt
the Lord has sent you to show me."
This exposition came like an electric
shock to the poor tailor. He rushed
from the house, hastened to his shop,
and a sudden revulsion of thought and
feeling came over him. Making breech-
es was exactly in his line of business.
He returned to his occupation, thor-
oughly cured of prophetical revelation
by the wit of the dean.
"A Tailor for Many Years."
IT was a good trait in the character
of that quaint old Quaker, Isaac T.
Hopper, that he was not ashamed of
the shop. It is related of him by his
biographer, that one day, while he was
visiting a wealthy family in Dublin,
during his sojourn abroad, a note was
handed to him, inviting him to dine
the next day. When he read it aloud,
his host remarked : " Those people are
very respectable ; but they are not of
the first circle. They belong to our
church, but not exactly to our ' set.'
Their father was a mechanic." " Well,
Fm a mechanic myself," said Isaac;
" perhaps if thou hadst known that
fact, thou wouldst not have invited
me ! " " Is it possible," responded his
host, " that a man of your information
and appearance can be a mechanic ? "
" I followed the business of a tailor for
many years," rejoined his guest ; " look
at my hands. Dost thou not see the
mark of the shears ? Some of the may-
ors of Philadelphia have been tailors.
When I lived there, I often walked the
street with the chief justice. It nev-
er occurred to me that it was any hon-
or, and I don't think it did to him."
"Spanish."
A BRICKMAKER, being hired by a
brewer to make some brick for him at
his country house, wrote to the brewer
that he could not go forward unless he
had two or three loads of " Spanish ; "
OCCUPATIONS AUXILIARY TO COMMERCE.
735
that otherwise his brick would cost
him six or seven thousand chaldrons of
coal extra, and the bricks would not be
so good nor so hard, by a great deal
when they were burnt. The brewer
hereupon sends down two cartloads,
with about twelve hogsheads or casks
of molasses, which startled the brick-
maker almost out of his senses. The
case was this: The brewers formerly
mixed molasses with the ale to sweeten
it, and abate the quantity of malt, mo-
lasses being at that time much cheaper,
and this they called " Spanish," not
willing their customers should know it.
Again, the brickmakers all about Lon-
don, mix sea-coal ashes with their clay,
and by that shift, manage to save eight
chaldrons of coal out of eleven, to the
burning of one hundred thousand
bricks, in proportion to what other
people burn with them ; and these
ashes they call " Spanish ; " but neither
the brewer on the one hand, nor the
brickmaker on the other, understood
anything else of the term than as it
related to his own separate business.
Country Bankers.
QUITE a ludicrous case is told of a
young woman of shabby genteel ap-
pearance, who was taken before a Lon-
don magistrate for vagrancy. The
constable reported that he detected her
in the act of begging. The magistrate,
in the usual authoritative tone of ad-
dressing beggars, said, " Now, young
woman, you cannot be allowed to go
about begging. I think you are an
impostor. What is your name ? Where
did you come from? What is your
father?"
These three interrogatories were all
put at once, but, of course, required
separate replies. The young woman,
not having been used to appear before
a magistrate, began to cry. She was
told that that sort of whimpering
would not do there, but the questions
must be answered. The girl hesitated
for some time, but, on being threatened
with the treadmill, she replied, " My
name is Smith ; I came from Lincoln-
shire, and my father is a banker."
On hearing this, the tone and tenor
of the worthy magistrate's address un-
derwent a change. " What ! " he said,
" my good young woman, your father a
country banJcer, and allow his daughter
to be begging in the streets of Lon-
don ! I consider he disgraces himself
by such conduct. But surely, my good
youifg creature, you must have done
something to offend your father."
" No, sir ; my father said he could not
afford to keep me, so I was obliged to
leave home."
" Not afford to keep you, and yet a
country banker. How can that be ? I
must inquire into this ; I shall write to
the clergyman of your town, whom I
happen to know, and ascertain the
truth of your story, and, if possible,
prevail on your father to take you
home again."
In the mean time, the now kind and
attentive magistrate ordered that the
young woman should be taken good
care of, and every requisite afforded
her until he received a reply to his
letter.
A few days brought the clergyman's
answer, who stated that the young
woman was not a daughter of the
highly respectable banker of that name,
but was the daughter of a mud banker
in the fens, and that her father had
been compelled to refuse to support her.
The writer also added, that it was pos-
sible the mistake into which the wor-
thy magistrate had fallen arose from
the circumstance that in his part of the
country all the laborers engaged in drain-
ing are called bankers hence the term
" country banker."
Hutton's Success as a Bookseller.
THE well-known bookseller William
Eutton, struggled in early life with in-
736
COMMERCIAL AND BUSINESS ANECDOTES.
numerable difficulties. His own ac-
count of his first adventure as a book-
seller is a good specimen of that spirit
of indomitable perseverance which is
ever the forerunner of success. He de-
termined to set up that character in the
town of Southwell, about fourteen miles
from Nottingham. Here he according-
ly opened a shop, with, as he expresses
it, about twenty shillings' worth of
trash for all his stock.
" I was," says he, " my own joiner,
put up my shelves and ftmriture* and
in one day became the most eminent
bookseller in the place." Being em-
ployed, however, during the other days
of the week, in working at Nottingham
as a bookbinder, he could only give
his attendance at Southwell on Satur-
days, that being, besides, quite enough
for the literary wants of the place.
" Throughout a very rainy summer,"
says he, " I set out at five every Satur-
day morning, carried a burden of from
three pounds' weight to thirty, opened
shop at ten, starved in it all day upon
bread, cheese, and a pint of ale, took
from one to six shillings, shut up at
four, and, by trudging through the
solitary night and the deep roads five
hours more, I arrived at Nottingham at
nine, where I always found a mess of
milk porridge by the fire, prepared by
my valuable sister."
This humble attempt, however, was
the beginning of his great prosperity.
Next year he was offered about two
hundred pounds' weight of old books,
on his note of hand, for twenty-seven
shillings, by a clergyman, to whom he
was known; and upon this he imme-
diately determined to break up his es-
tablishment at Southwell, and to trans-
fer himself to Birmingham. He did so,
and succeeded so well, that by never
suffering his expenses to exceed five
shillings a week, he found that by the
end of the first year he had saved about
twenty pounds. This, of course, ena-
bled him to extend his business, which
he soon made a very valuable one, and
by which he in time acquired an ample
fortune.
Bookmaking a Trade.
LA BRUYERE, many years ago, ob-
served, that " 'tis as much a trade to
make a book as a clock ; c'est un me-
tier que de faire un livre, comme de
faire une pendule." But since his day
many and vast improvements have been
made. Solomon said, that " of making
books there is no end ; " and Seneca
complained, that " as the Romans had
more than enough of other things, so
they had also of books and bookmak-
ing." But Solomon and Seneca lived in
an age when books were considered as
a luxury, and not a necessary of life.
The case is now altered ; and though,
perhaps, as a wit once observed, no
man gets a bellyful of knowledge,
every one has at least a mouthful.
Lee, the Learned Carpenter in
England.
SAMUEL LEE, professor of Hebrew at
the University of Cambridge, England,
was seventeen years of age before he
conceived the idea of learning a for-
eign language. Out of the scanty pit-
tance of his weekly earnings as a car-
penter, he purchased, at a bookstore, a
volume, which, when read, was ex-
changed for another ; and soon, by de-
grees, he advanced in knowledge. He
had not even the privilege of balancing
between reading and relaxation ; he
was obliged to pass from bodily fatigue
to mental exertion. During six years
previous to his twenty-fifth year, he
omitted none of the hours usually ap-
propriated to manual labor, and he re-
tired to rest regularly at ten o'clock in
the evening. And yet at the age of
thirty-one years he had actually taught
seventeen languages.
OCCUPATIONS AUXILIARY TO COMMERCE.
737
Apt Speech, by a Carpenter.
AT the time when Sir Richard Steele
was preparing his great room in York
Buildings for public orations, he hap-
pened to be pretty much behindhand
'in his payments to the workmen ; and
coming one day among them to see
what progress they made, he requested
the carpenter to get upon the rostrum
and make a speech, that he might judge
how it could be heard. The fellow
mounted, and stretching his poll, told
Sir Richard that he knew not what to
say, for he was no orator.
" Oh," cries the knight, " no matter
for that ; speak anything that comes
uppermost."
" Why, then, Sir Richard," says the
carpenter-orator, "here have we been
working for your honor these six
months, and cannot get one penny of
money. Pray, sir, when do you design
to pay us ? "
" Very well, very well," said Sir
Richard, " pray come down. I have
heard quite enough. I cannot but own
you speak very distinctly, though I
don't much admire your subject."
Sticking to the Contract.
A SEA captain, in the vicinity of Bos-
ton, was about to start on a long voy-
age, and entered into a contract with
a builder to erect him a commodious
house during his absence. Everything
was to be done according to the con-
tract no more, no less which the
captain caused to be drawn up with
great care. A large sum was to be for-