GIRL SELLS HER INTELLECT.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 89, 23 July 1910, Page 10

GIRL SELLS HER INTELLECT.

An ingenious advertisement and a smart office boy have brought fortune to Elizabeth Magie, a Chicago typist. Two years ago, poor and despondent,, she handed in at the office of a daily paper the following remarkable advertisement: —

"For sale, to the highest bidder, young woman, American slave, intelligent, refined, honest, just, poetical, philosophical, broad-minded, and big-soul-ed, and woman above all things. "Brunette, large grey-green eyes, full, passionate lips, splendid teeth; not beautiful, but attractive, and full of character and strength. Height, sft 3in, well-proportioned, graceful, supple. Had a 10,000-dollar education, but can only earn 10 dollars a week.

"Age—well, she is not \jery old, but was not born yesterday. perament, warm, generous-hearted, kind, gentle, affectionate, bubbling over ..with merriment, and withal dignified, sedate, studious, and sometimes bowed down with grief at the miseries of humanity. Can appreciate a good story and tell a better; is not a bit prudish, yet is deeply religious, though not pjaus; has a vivid imagination and unusual psychic powers. '•Cannot sew a bit, but can plan a dashing costsme. Cannot tell plank steak from a porterhouse, but can arrange » swell dinner. Doesn't go to church, but obeys the laws of God. Cannot cook, but can create. ' "Longs for silk underwear,, but has to put" up with cotton, while shallowpated ladies air themselves and their lapdogs in 5000-dollar automobiles. She is a cracker-jack typewriter, but type-writ-ing is hell. "Has Axminster taste, but ragged carpet opportunities. "Her brain is burning with projects to benefit mankind, but her body is bound, with galling iron chains, to the rack of mechanical toil.

''This young woman, therefore, in of fering herself for sale, is doing nothing but what hundreds of women are doing every day. Tn this ease, however, the slave has given more than ordinnry thought and consideration to her condition and the cause of it, and instead of offering herself for sale privately, she does so openly and publicly, in the hopeof bringing a larger price than might be obtained at a private sale." The office boy who took the advertisement in had a keen instinct for news, and drew the editor's attention to it. The editor sent his most reliable reporter to interview Miss Magie, and the next morning her remarkable appeal was featured in the news columns, i It was quoted all over the world, and the girl was besieged with interviewers. She explained that she was only anxious to sell her intellect to the employer who valued it most highly. Within a weekj she was deluged with offers from editors, merchants and theatrical managers, and from that day to this she has been one of the busiest people in the States. Her services have been in constant demand on lecture, concert, theatre, and college platform. She is the author of a book entitled "The Slave Triumphant," ( which is a wittily-written narrative of

her own career, and in odd moments her active brain and ingenious fingers are associated in the manufacture of children's toys. She is earning a handsome income/and is one of the happiest and brightest spirits out West. She is still unmarried, but publication of- the fact that she ii now living in luxury will, possibly, bring her plenty of offers of marriage.