UNKNOWN

Waikato Times, Volume X, Issue 714, 13 January 1877, Page 5 (Supplement)

UNKNOWN

/ My parents died, alas ! when I was a ! ittle, sinless ohild. My Unole Ithuriel ook me to his heart and reared mo as his >wn. He was my 'only relative m the wide world; but he was good and rich md generous. He reared me m the lap jfiftixury. I knew no want that money tjonld satisfy. In the fullness of time I - waihgraduated, and went with two of my servants — my chamberlain and my valet — -to travel m foreign tfountrics. During '" four years I flitted; won careless wing /amid the beauteous gardens of the distant ''strand, if you will permit this form of speech m one whose tongue was ever to poesy ; and, indeed, Iso speak with confidence as one unto his kind, for I perceive by your eyes that you, too, sir, are gifted with the divine inflation. In those far lands I reveled m the ambrosial that fructifies the soul, the mind, the '""T&lirfc. But of all things, that which, appealed to my inborn esthetic taste was thftprevailing custom among the rich of making collections of elegant and costly rarities, dainty objects de virtu, and m an evil hour I tried to uplift my Uncle Ithuriel to a plane of sympathy with this exquisite employment. • I wrote and told him of one gentleman's vast collection of shells' ; another's noble collection of meershaum pipes ; another's elevating and refining collection of undecipherable autographs ; another's priceless collection of old china ; another's enchanting collection of postage stamps-r- --' and so forth and so on. Soon my letter yielded fruit. My uncle began to look about for something to make a collection of. You may know, perhaps, how deeply a taste like tms dilates. His soon became a raging fever, though I knew it not. He began to negleot his great pork business ; presently he wholly retired, and turned an elegant leisure into a rabid search for curious things. His wealth was vast, and he spared it not. First he tried cow-bells. He made a collection which filled five large salons, and comprehended all the different sorts of cow-bolls that had ever been contrived, save one. That one, — an antique^ and the only specimen extant—was possessed by another collector, My uncle offered enormous sums font, but the gentleman would not sell. Doubtless you know what necessarily resulted. A true collector attaches no valuo to a collection that is not complete. His great heart breaks, he sells his hoard, he turns his mind 'to some field that seems unoccupied. ' Thus did my uncle. He next tried brickbats. After piling up a vast and intensely interesting collection the former difficulty, supervened ; his great heart broke'again ; he sold out his soul's idol to the retired brewer who possessed tho missiaip: brick. Then he tried, flint hatchers and other implements of primeval man, put by and by discovered that the factory where they were made was supplying other collectors as well as himself. • He tried Aztec inscriptions and'stuffed whales— another failure after incredible labor and expense. When his collection seemed at last perfect, a stuffed ' whale arrived from Greenland and an Aztec inscrption from the cundurango regions of Central America that made all former .specimens insignificant. My uncle hastened to secure these noble gems. He got the stuffed whaltybut another collector got the inscription^ A real cundurango, as possibly you know, is a Los session of such supremo value that, {when once a collector gets it, he woujdl father part with his "family than with it. 80 my uncle sold out, and saw his darlings go forth nevermore to return, and his coal-black hair turned white as snow In a single night. ' Now he waited, thought. He knew another disappointment might kill him. He iWas resolved that he would choose things next time that nd other man was collecting. He carefully made up is mind, and once more entered the field — this tijne to make a collection of echoes.' 'Ofjfh&tP' said I. 'Eolioes, sir. His fiast purchase was an ectlo m Georgia that repeated four times ! his next was a six-repeater m Mary* ind; his next was a thirteen-j-epeati-r m Maine ; hia next was a nine- . repea^r m Kansas; his next was a twelve&epeater m Tennessee, which he got chjiap, so to speak, because it was out of repair, a portion of the crag which reflected it having tumbled down. He believed he could repair it at a cost of a few thousand dollars, and by increasing the elevation with masonry, treble the repeating capacity ; but the architect who undertook the job had never built an echo before, and so he utterly spoiled this one. Before he meddled with it, it used to talk back like a mother-in-law, but now it is only fit for the deaf and dumb asylum. Well, next he bought a lot of cheap little double-barreled echoes scattered around over various states and territories ; he get them at twenty per centum off by taking the whole lot. Next he bought a perfect Gatling gun of an echo m Oregon, and it cost a fortune, I can tell you. You may know, sir, tbat m the echo market the scale of prices is cumulative, like the carat scale m diamonds ; m fact the same phraseology is used. A single-carat echo is worth but I $10 over and above the value of the land \* it is on ; a two-carat or double-barreled I echo is worth $30; a five-carat is worth J $950; a ten-carat is worth $13,000. My J uncle's Oregon eoho, which he called the a Great Pit echo, was a twenty-two carat f, gem, and cost $216,000— they threw the j] land m, for it was 4/30 miles from a r settlement. i ; ' ' Well, m the meantime my path was a ' path of roses. I was the accepted suitor of tbe only and lovely daughter of an English earl, and was beloved to distraction. In that dear presence I swam m seas of bliss. ? The family were content, for it was known that I was sole heir to an uncle held to be. worth $5, 000, 000. However* none of us knew that my uncle had becrime a collector, at least m anything mete than a small way, for esthetic amusement. 'Now igathered tho clouds above my unconscious head. That divine echo, since kntiwn throughout the world as the Great ]£<*_.-i-noor, or Mountain of Repetitions, was discovered. It was a 65 carat ge: %. You could utter a word, and it would talk back at you for 15 minutes, when the day way otherwise quiet. But, behold, another discovery was made at the same time ; another echo-collector was m the field. The two rushed to make the purchase. The property consisted of a couple of small hills with a shallow swale between out yonder among the back settlements of New York State. Both men arrived on .he ground at the same time, and neither knew the other was there, The echo was -.i'ot all ovnred by one man ; a person by the Tame of Williamson Bolivar Jarvis owned lhe east hill, and a person by the name of ftarbison J. Bledso owned the west hill, the jwale between was the dividing line. So whilemy uncle was buying Jarvis's hill for •• 3, 285, 000, the other party was buying ledso's hill for a shade over $3,000,000. 'New do you perceive the natural re-

echoes on earth, forever and ever incomplete, since - it possessed but the one-half of the king echo of the universe. Neither man was content with this divided/ownership, yet- neither would sell to the other. There were jawings, bickerings, heartburnings. And, at last, that ofher collector, with a malignity which only a collector can ever feel toward a man and a brother, proceeded to cut down his hill ; You see, as long as he could not have the echo, he was resolved that nobody should bave it. Ho would remove his hill, andthen there would be nothing tp reflect my uncleV echo. My uncle remonstrated with him, but the man said, ' I own one end of this echo. I choose to kill my end ; you must take care of your own end •yourself.' ' Well, my uncle got an injunction put on him. The other man appealed, and fought it m a higher court. Tbey carried it up clear to the Supreme Court of the United States. It made no end of trouble there. Two of the judges believed that an echo was personal property, because it was impalpable to sight and touch, and yet was purchasable, salable and consequently taxable ; two others believed that an echo was real estate, because it was manifestly attached to the land and was not removable from place to place; other of the judges contended that an echo was not property at all. *It was finally decided that the echo was property ; that the hills were property ; that the two men were separate and independent owners of the two hills, but tenants m common m the echo ; therefore defendant was at full liberty to cut down the hill, since it belonged solely to him, but must give bonds m $3,000,000 as indemnity for damages which might result to my uncle's half of the echo. This .decision also debarred my uncle from using defendant's hill to reflect his part of the echo without defendant's consent ; he must use only his own hill ; if his part of the echo would not go under these, circumstances it was sad, of course, but the court could find no remedy. The court also debarred defendant from using my uncle's hill to reflect his end of the echo without consent. You see the grand result ! Neither man would give consent, and so that astonishing and most noble echo had to cease from its great powers, and since that day that magnificent property is tied up and unsalable. • A week before my wedding-day, while I was still swimming m bliss and the nobility were gathering from far and near to honor our espousals, came news of my uncle's death, and also a copy of his will, making me his sole heir. He was gone ; alas ! my doar benefactor was no more. The thought surcharges my heart even at this remote day. I handed the will to the Earl ; I could not read it for the blinding tears. The Earl read it ; then he sternly said : * Sir, do you call this wealth ? — but doubtless you do m your inflated country. Sir, you are left sole heir to a vast collection of echoes— if a thing can be called a collection that is scattered far and wide over the huge length and breadth of the American continent. Sir, this is not all ; you are head and ears m debt, there is not an echo m the lot but has a mortgage on it. Sir, I am not a hard man, but I must look to my child's interest. If you had but one echo which you could call your own ; if you had but one echo which was free from incumbrance, so that you could retire to it with my child, and by .humble, painstaking- industry, cultivate and improve it, and thus wrest' from it a maintenance, I would not say nay ; but I cannot marry my child to a beggar. Leave his side, my darling. Go, sir ; take your mortgage riddens echoes and quit my sight forever.' ' My noble Celestine clung to me m tears with loving arms, and swore she would willingly, nay, gladly, marry me, though I hfld not an echo m the world. But it could not be. We were torn asunder, she to pine and die within the twelvemonth I to toil life's long journey sad and lone, praying daily, hourly, for that release which shall join us .together again m that dear realm where the wicked cease from troubling and the weary are at rest. Now, sir, if you will be so kind as to look at these maps and plans m my portfolio, I think I can sell you an echo for less money than any man m the trade. Now this one, which cost my uncle $10 thirty years ago, and is one of the sweetest things m Texas I will let you kave it for '' 'Let me interrupt you,' I said. 'My friend, I have not had a moment's respite from canvassers this day. I have bought a sewing-machine which I did not want j I have bought a map which is mistaken m all its details ; I have beught a clock which will not go ; I have bought a moth- poison which the moths prefer to any other beverage ; I have bought no end of useless inventions, and now I have had enough of. this foolishness. I would not have one of your eohoes even if you were to give it to me. I would not let it stay on the place. I always hate a man that tries to sell me echoes. You see this gun. Now take your collection and move on ; let us not have bloodshed.' But he only smiled a sad, sweet smile, and got out some more diagrams. You know the result perfectly well, because you know 'that when you have once openedlyour door to a canvasser the trouble is done, and you have got to suffer defeat. I compromised with this man at the end of an intolerable hour. I bought two double-barreled echoes m good, condition, and he. threw m another which, he baid was not saleable because it only spoke German. He said she was a perfect poly-glot once, but somehow her palpte got down.'