thus become completely mixed up as to whether or not you are still young.
"Young man wanted," you will read, "about sixteen years of age, in an
office." Goodness gracious! It does seem that this is an age of young,
very young, men. What chance does one of your years have now? On the
other hand, you read: "Wanted, young man, about thirty-five." So! Well,
this is an age, too (you reflect) in which people remain young. There
are no old folks any more; they are out of fashion. Witness, "Boy
wanted, strong, about eighteen."
They (want "ads") ought, particularly, to be read at times when you have
a very good job. It is then especially that the reading of them is best
for you. They do (or they ought to) soften your arrogance.
If--like Mr. Rockefeller, jr.--I were a teacher of a Sunday school class
(which, as Mr. Dooley used to say, I am not). I would say: "The best
religious teaching is to be found in the help-wanted advertisements in
the newspapers. We will take up this morning these columns in this
morning's papers."
As a matter of fact, if you are out of a job I should strongly advise
against your reading advertisements for help wanted. In the first place,
nobody ever got a job through one of these advertisements. I know this,
as the phrase is, of my own knowledge. Then, the influence of suggestion
is very powerful in these announcements. If you are without a position,
it is depressingly plain to you that you are totally unqualified to
obtain one again, of any account. If you have a berth paying a living
wage, you perceive that some mysterious good fortune attends you, and you
are made humble by fear for yourself, and compassionate towards others.
For who are you, in heaven's name, and what the devil do you know, that
you should make a living in this world! In this world where there is
wanted: "Highly educated man, having extensive business and social
connection. Must be fluent correspondent in Arabic, Japanese, and
Swedish, and an expert accountant. Knowledge of Russian and the
broadsword essential. Acquaintance with the subject of mining
engineering expected. Experience in the diplomatic service desired.
Gentleman of impressive presence required. Highest credentials demanded.
Salary, to begin, seven dollars." Knowledge, undoubtedly, is power!
Still, one seeking a position through want "ads" need not altogether
despair. A little further down these very catholic columns you will find
that: "Any person of ordinary intelligence, common-school education not
necessary, can make $1000 a week writing for newspapers, by our system,
taught by mail. Only ten minutes a day before going to bed required to
learn."
One thing stands out above all others in advertisements for help wanted.
This is the land of hustle. Tinker, tailor, candlestick-maker; lawyer,
merchant, priest; if you are not a "live-wire" you are not "help
wanted"--"Cook wanted. On dairy farm, twelve miles from town. White,
industrious. Must be a live-wire! One that can get results. No
stick-in-the-muds need apply!"
Uplifters and governments do not deal a more telling blow at the demon
rum than do want "ads." There is no longer any job for the drinker.
"Bartender wanted. In a very low place. Must be strict teetotaler!"
The student of the help-wanted columns will come to regard it as a very
great mystery who floats all our "public-houses."
Persons whose outlook on life is restricted to the dull round of one
occupation and to one class of society will find a decidedly broadening
influence in the perusal of help-wanted "ads," a liberal and a humane
education in the subject of the variety and picaresque quality of
humanity's manifold activities. And such persons will be made aware of
their dark ignorance of many matters. What, for instance (they will say)
is a "bushelman"? A great many bushelmen are continually "wanted." It
might be well to be one so much in constant demand as a bushelman. Has
this welcome character something to do with the delectable grocery trade?
No, my dears (for though I never saw a bushelman, I'd rather see than be
one), he engages in the tailoring business, in the sweatshop way (as well
as I can make out).
There are people wanted in help-wanted "ads" (but not in real life) to do
nothing but travel in pleasant and historic places as companions to
wealthy, "refined" persons in delicate health. There are people wanted
(in want "ads") to share attractive homes in fashionable country places
whose duties will be to smoke excellent cigars and take naps in the
afternoon.
And there are as romantic things to be found among help-wanted "ads" as
there are in the most romantic romances. Now, lest it may be thought
that some of the help-wanted "ads" which I have written right out of my
head to illustrate the type of each are somewhat fanciful, I will copy
out of yesterday's paper an advertisement which "Robinson Crusoe" hasn't
anything on, to put it thusly. Here you are.
"WANTED--A man (or woman) to live alone on an island, eight miles from
shore; food, shelter, clothing furnished; no work, no compensation.
Summer time, Box G, 532 Times, Downtown."
I knew a man once who got several replies to advertisements for help
wanted. He bought ten New York papers one Sunday and a dollar's worth of
two cent stamps. At ten o'clock in the evening he went out and stuffed
the ballot-box, I mean the letter box. He said in his own handwriting
that he was an excellent man to be manager of "the upper floors of an
apartment house"; that he was uncommonly experienced in the
moving-picture business and knew "the screen" from A to izzard; that he
had edited trade journals from the time he could talk; that he had an
admirable figure for a clothing model; that he was very successful in
interviewing bankers and brokers; that he was fond of children; that he
would like to add a side line of metal polisher to his list; and that he
certainly knew more about Bolivera than anybody else in the world, and
would be prepared to head an expedition there by half-past two the
following day.
That man already had a job that he had got from a want "ad." He had been
"copying letters" at home, "light, genteel work for one of artistic
tastes." But he found that one could not make any money out of it.
Because, after one had bought the "outfit" necessary one discovered that
it was humanly impossible to copy the bloomin' letters in the somewhat
eccentric fashion required.
He got several replies, as I said, to his replies to want "ads," this
man. One was a postcard which read: "Call to-morrow morning about work,
Room 954, Horseshoe Building, X. Y. Z. Co." Considering himself a
gentleman, and being touchy about such things, he was annoyed at this
manner of addressing him on a postcard. However he went to the Horseshoe
Building. Room 954 had a great many names on the door, names there
stated to be those of "attorneys," "syndicates," and "corporations,
limited." Among these names was that of the X. Y. Z. Co. Within, one
side of Room 954 was partitioned off into many little alcoves. An
antique, though youthfully dressed, typist, by the railing near the door,
showed our friend to the X. Y. Z. Co., who was seated at a bleak-looking
desk in one of the little alcoves. The alcove contained, besides the
"Co." (a little whiskered man, wearing his hat and overcoat) and the
desk, an empty waste basket, and one unoccupied chair.
It was a "demonstrator" that was wanted, on a commission basis, for a
fluid to cleanse silver. This alcove, it developed, was merely one of
many thousand branch offices of the "Co." scattered across the country.
The "Co's." "factory," he said, was over in New Jersey, a very large
affair.
Mr. Bivens, that is the name of the gentleman of whom I have just been
speaking, was invited, too, this time in a letter politely beginning "My
Dear Sir," to call at the offices of a moving-picture "corporation."
Asking to see "M. T. Cummings," who had signed the letter, he was
presented to an efficient-looking person, evidently an elderly, retired
show-girl, who directly proved him wofully deficient in knowledge of "the
screen."
His next experience was with a portly, prosperous-looking gentleman who
had elaborate offices in a very swell skyscraper. This man wrote an
excellent business-like letter; he unfolded to H. T. (I always
affectionately call Bivens "H. T.") admiration-compelling plans for large
business enterprises, which included a project of taking five hundred
American business men on a trip through Europe after the war at a cost to
each one of only four dollars and a half, the balance of the expenses of
each to be paid for in local business co-operation.
Bivens was taken right into this energetic and enterprising man's
confidence. He did considerable outside work for his employer for ten
days. On the eleventh day, reporting at the office, he found the
promoter's secretary and office boy awaiting him, in company with his
office furniture, outside the locked door.
Bivens next answered an advertisement for a strike-breaker to light
street lamps, and for a person to distribute handbills at a pay of
seventy-five cents a day. But his luck had changed; he never got another
reply to any answer to a help-wanted "ad."
He thinks this is strange, because he believes (and I know this is true)
that he writes a letter which would instantly mark him as a man of high
merit among the multitude.
But I once knew a man who put a help-wanted "ad" in the paper. He ran a
hotel, and he advertised for a clerk. I was stopping at his place at the
time, I and my three brothers. And the five of us, Mr. Snuvel (the hotel
man), I, and my three brothers, used to bring up from the village every
night for a week (the place was in the country) the mail, which consisted
of replies to this help-wanted advertisement. We used large sacks for
this purpose.
XVI
HUMAN MUNICIPAL DOCUMENTS
A literary adventurer not long since found himself, by one of the
exigencies incident to his precarious career, turning over in the process
of cataloguing a kind of literature in which up to that time he had been
very little read, a public collection of published municipal documents.
This gentleman had had a notion for a good many years that municipal
documents were entirely for very serious people engaged in some useful
undertakings. He had never conceived of them as works of humour and
objects of art. But his disinclination to this department of pure
literature was dissolved, as most prejudices may be, by acquaintance with
the subject.
Municipal documents are human documents. They are the autobiographies of
communities. The personalities of Topeka, Kansas, of Limoges, France,
and of Heidelberg, Germany, rise before the impressionable student of
municipal documents like the figures of personal autobiography, like
Benvenuto Cellini, Marie Bashkirtsev, Benjamin Franklin, Miss Mary
Maclane, Mr. George Moore.
A very touching quality in municipal documents is their naivete--that
unavoidable and unconscious self-revelation which is much of the great
charm and value of all autobiographies. By the way, do statisticians
really understand municipal documents, or do they think them valuable
simply because they are full of statements of fact?
Our literary gentleman, at all events, found his task very engaging,
though as a cataloguer he was much perplexed by the extraordinary
informality, in one respect, of formal public papers, a curious
provinciality, as he could but take it to be, of municipalities. A very
common neglect, he found, in such publications is to make any mention
anywhere of the relation to geography of the community chronicling its
history.
He would read, for instance, that the pamphlet in his hand was the
"Auditor's Report of Receipts and Expenditures for the Financial Year
Ending February 10, 1875, for the Town of Andover." Where, he asked,
with absolute certainty, was the town of Andover here referred to? He
examined the printer's imprint, which was explicit--personally: "Printed
by Warren F. Draper, 1875." There was something very friendly about
this. Printers of public documents seem to be an amiable, neighbourly
lot: "Printed at the Enterprise Office," one mentions casually in a
large, warm-hearted fashion. Another imprint reads, "Auburn, Printed by
Charles Ferris, _Daily Advertiser_ Office, 1848," Mr. Ferris, in his
lifetime, was evidently a very pleasant man, but a little careless of
what to him, no doubt, were inessential details. He was thoughtless of
the dark ignorance in places remote from Auburn of the _Daily
Advertiser_. Another prominent Auburnian of the same craft, one W. S.
Morse, it may be learned from some of the products of his press,
flourished in 1886. But, the puzzled cataloguer inquires, was Mr. Morse
successor to Mr. Ferris, or was he official printer to the Government of
Auburn, Maine, far from the scene of Mr. Ferris's public services,
possibly in Auburn, New York? To these picayune points the breezy
gentlemen make no reference.
The worker with public documents turns from the title pages to search the
documents themselves. Are these the "Proceedings of the Board of Chosen
Freeholders" of the City of Albany, Missouri, or of Albany, New
Hampshire? (A cataloguer has a faint impression that there is an Albany,
too, somewhere in the State of New York.) Is this a "Copy of Warrant for
Annual Town Meeting" of Lancaster, Massachusetts, or New Hampshire, or
Pennsylvania? Impossible, he thinks, that there should be no internal
evidence.
He reads on and on. He notes the intimate nature of an Article 19: "To
see if the town will accept a gift from Hannah E. Bigelow, with
conditions." He peruses "Selectman's Accounts" of expenditures, how
there was "Paid on account of Grammar School" such or such an amount; he
learns the cost of "Hay Scales," the expenses of "Fire Dep't, Cemetery,
Street Lamps." He peers behind the official scenes at Decoration Day:
monies paid out of the public treasury for "Brass Band, Address ($20.00),
flowers, flags, tuning piano." He goes over appropriations for "Repairs
at Almshouse." He sits with the "Trustees of Memorial Hall," and informs
himself concerning conditions at the "Lunatic Hospital." He follows with
feeling municipal accessions, "purchase of a Road-scraper, which we find
a very useful machine, and probably money judiciously expended." But
more and more amazed at the circumstance as he continues he is left
totally in the dark as to where he is all the while.
Sometimes the mention, made necessary in connection with plans for some
public improvement, of a well-known river, say, revealed the town's
location. Occasionally the comparative antiquity of the civilisation
supplied inspiration for a good guess as to its situation--that it was
the town of that name in New England rather than the one in Oklahoma.
Multiplied clues of identity, again, built up a case: "Official Ballot"
(ran the title) "for Precinct W. Attleburough, Tuesday. Nov. 3, 1896."
The name "Wm. M. Olin" was given as that of the "Secretary of the
Commonwealth." Of the first page that was all. In heaven's name!
exclaimed the cataloguer, what commonwealth? A study of the list of
candidates on this ballot, giving their places of residence, however,
fortified one's natural supposition--"of Worcester, of Lynn, of
Haverhill, of Amherst, of Pittsfield" (ah!), "of Boston." It is a
reasonable surmise that this Ballot pertains to the commonwealth of
Massachusetts.
It is not here stated that the name of its native State is never
discovered in the whole of any American municipal document. Often, in
some indirect allusion, somewhere in the text it may be found.
Frequently, too, it is true, the State seal is printed upon the title
page or cover of the volume. And in instances the name of the State
stands out clearly enough upon the page of title. But in case after
case, in the occupation giving rise to this paper, the only expedient was
recourse to a file of city directories, collating names of streets in
these with those mentioned in the documents.
Another curious idiosyncrasy of one branch of public document--which
informs the labour of cataloguing them with something of the alluring
fascination of putting together jig-saw picture puzzles ("spoke," in the
words of Artemas Ward, "sarcastic") is the extraordinary variety of names
that can be found by municipalities to entitle the Mayor's annual
eloquence. This versatile character may deliver himself of an Annual
Address, Message, Communication, Statement, or of "Remarks."
A cataloguer was surprised to discover, in "An Act to Incorporate and
Vest Certain Powers in the Freeholders and Inhabitants of the village of
Brooklyn, in the County of Kings," the prophetic enlightenment of the
Inhabitants of that village in the year 1816. The voice of Andrew
Carnegie, Colonel Roosevelt, and Prof. Brander Matthews speaks in the
following passage: "That the section of the town of Brooklyn, commonly
known as 'The Fire District,' and contained within the following bounds,
viz.: Beginning at the public landing south of Pierpont's distillery,
formerly the property of Philip Livingston, deceased, on the East River,
thence running along the public road leading from said landing to its
intersection with Redhook lane, thence along Redhook lane to where it
intersects Jamaica turnpike road, thence a North East course to the head
of the Wallabaght mill-pond, thence thro the centre of said mill pond to
the East river, and thence down the East river to the place of beginning,
shall continue to be known and distinguished by the Name of the Village
of Brooklyn." "Thro" certainly is phonetic spelling.
It was the sterling character of these villagers that then laid the
foundation for the better half of a mighty city to come. The "act"
concludes: "And then and there proceed to elect Five discreet
freeholders, resident within said village, to be trustees thereof." So
witness is borne to this vernacular quality of discretion in the twilight
of Brooklyn history.
The aesthetic consideration of municipal documents has not received much
attention. The format of a municipal document, however, is in itself a
delightful essay in unconscious self-characterisation. Those of the
United States express a plain democratic people. They have, in fact, all
the commonness of the job printer. "Printed at the _Journal_ Office,"
is, indeed, their physical character.
The municipal documents of Great Britain are usually bound, in good
English book-cloth, that peculiar fabric to which the connoisseur of
books is so sensitive, and which, for some inexplicable reason, it is,
apparently, impossible to manufacture in this country; or in neat boards,
with cloth backs. Or if in paper it is of an interesting colour and
texture. A noble heraldic device, the coat of arms of the city or
borough, is stamped in gold above, or below, the title. This is repeated
upon the title-page, the typography of which is not without distinction.
The paper has more refinement than that used in such American
publications. The effect, in fine, is of something aristocratic. The
"Mayoral Minutes" of Kensington is rather a handsome quarto volume.
An added touch of distinction is given these British volumes by the
presentation card, tipped in after the front cover. A really exquisite
little thing is this one: it bears, placed with great nicety, its coat of
arms above, delicately reduced in size; across the middle, in beautiful
sensitive type, it reads: "With the City Accountant's Compliments"; in
the lower left corner, in two lines, "Guildhall, Gloucester."
The municipal documents of Germany are very German. Verwaltungsbericht
is one of those extraordinary words which are so long that when you look
at one end of the word you cannot see the other end. These volumes
sometimes might possibly be mistaken, by a foreigner, for "gift books."
Often they are bound, in pronounced German taste, in several strong
colours in a striking combination. Buttressing the decorative German
letters, on cover and title page, appears some one of various
conventionalisations of the German eagle, made very black, and wearing a
crown and carrying a sceptre. In "Verwaltungsbericht des Magistrats der
Koniglichen Haupt- und Residenzstadt Hanover, 1906-7," the frontispiece,
the armorial bearings, "Wappen der Koniglichen" and so forth is a
powerfully coloured lithograph, a very ornate affair, of lions (of
egg-yolk yellow), armour, and leaves and castles. These German
publications are filled with excellent photographs of public places and
buildings, and extensive unfolding coloured maps and diagrams. A
gentleman with a taste for art viewed with much admiration a handsome
plate of "des Dresdener Wassenwerks." They contain, too, these volumes,
multitudes of pictures of distinguished citizens, often photogravures
from official paintings; these gentlemen sometimes appear decorated with
massive orders, or again decorated simply with very German expressions of
countenance. The "Chronik der Haupt- und Reisdenzstadt Stuttgart, 1902,"
somewhat suggests bound volumes of "Jugend," with its heavy pen and ink
head and tail pieces, of women marketing, of a bride and groom kneeling
at the altar, and one, an excellent little drawing of a horse mounting
with a heavily laden wagon a rise of ground, the driver beside him, and a
street lamp behind protruding from below (remember this is a municipal
document).
A quaint little duodecimo is the "Jaarbockie voor de Stad Delft," with
little headpieces pictorially representing the seasons and a curiously
wood-cut astrologer introducing "den Almanak." A rather square-toed kind
of a little volume, neatly bound in grey boards, and very nicely printed,
having altogether an effect of housewifely cleanliness, is the "Verslag
van den Toestand der Gemeente Haarlem over het jaar 1894. Door
Burgemeester en Wethouders Uitgebracht aan den Gemeenteraad; imprint
Gedrukt bij Gebr Nobels, te Haarlem."
The language of Great Britain's municipal documents is lofty: "The Royal
Burrough of Kensington, Minute of His Worship the Mayor (Sir H. Seymour
King, K.C.I.E., M.P.) for the year ending November, 1901." (Here is
imprinted the design of a quartered shield containing a crown, a Papal
hat, and two crosses, and, beneath, the motto: "Quid Nobis Ardui.")
"Printed" (continues the reading) "by order of the Council, 30th,
October, 1901. Jas. Truscott and Son, Printer, Suffolk Lane, E.C." And
in the following there is something of the rumble of the history of
England:
"Addresses
Presented from the
Court of Common Council
to the
King.
On his Majesty's Accession to the Throne,
And on various other Occasions, and his Answers,
Resolutions of the Court,
Granting the Freedom of the City to several
Noble Personages; with their Answers,
Instructions at different Times to the
Representatives of the City in Parliament.
Petitions to Parliament for different Purposes,
Resolutions of the Court,
On the Memorial of the Livery, to request
the Lord Mayor to call a Common Hall;
For returning Thanks to Lord Chatham,
And his Answer;
For erecting a Statue in Guildhall,
to
William Beckford, Esq.; late Lord Mayor,
Agreed to between the 23d October, 1760, and the
13th. October, 1770
Printed by Henry Fenwick, Printer to the Honorable
City of London."
Henry Fenwick, Esq., takes himself with dignity.
But to turn from the pomp of state, to peep for a moment at the intimate
life of the people of England a couple of centuries ago, few things could
be better than "The Constable's Accounts of the Manor of Manchester,"
from which a few items of "Disbursements" are cited;