Ohjcctions to the Auctions 195 



not suffering from the restriction on the number of auctioneers.^^* 

 Nor were good evidences of monopoly the common charges that 

 certain goods could be found only at auctions, that some stores 

 refused to sell certain goods by private treaty but only through 

 auctions where higher prices might be gotten, and that buyers at 

 auction had frequently to buy more than they wanted. ^"^ 



(e) In proportion to the amounts of goods imported and sold, 

 the agents, consignees and auctioneers did not hire as many 

 houses, stores and clerks and did not, therefore, contribute as 

 much to the public coffers as the generality of resident merchants, 

 jobbers and retailers. So they were alleged to hurt the city 

 and escape their due burden of public expenditure. ^^"^ But, on 

 the other hand, the revenue derived by the State of New York 

 from auction taxes constituted one of the principal items in the 

 canal fund— "a revenue which grew out of a business which drew 

 merchants or purchasers from all parts of our widely extended 

 country, which tended directly to enhance the value of houses, 

 stores and lots, multiply the business of the shipper, importer 

 and jobber, and which has filled our city with palaces, and made 

 our merchant princes. "^^' 



(f) Auctions tended to concentrate the whole trade of the 

 country in a few large cities, to the extinction of all other whole- 

 sale markets. The importers of such places as Richmond, Peters- 

 burg, Charleston, Savannah, Augusta, disappeared within a few 

 years. ^^^ Goods bought at auction in seaboard cities were carried 

 by itinerant dealers to interior towns and oft'ered for sale at 

 auction day after day and night after night in some rooms 

 adjoining the local retail stores ; such operations tended to disrupt 

 and destroy the local retail trade. "° Some of these interior 

 auctioneers were resident and maintained purchasing agents at 

 the seaboard city.^^° 



'=='N. Y. Senate Document 44, (1832), Vol. I, p. 8. 



"' "Remarks upon the Auction System," 34. 



136 -[vj^ Y. Assembly Journal, 1829, p. 391. 



"'Hunt's, 10: 157; New York, Senate Journal, 1823, p. 1035. 



"'Niles, (1828) 34: 258. 



^"^ N. Y. Assembly Document 12 (1832) Vol. I, contains memorial from 

 Ogdensburgh. Rochester petitioned the State Legislature in 1831^ but 

 the fact that the total auction taxes paid by that city in 1831 were only 

 $80 is evidence that the evils alleged were exaggerated. N. Y. Assembly 

 Document 151. 



^*' N. Y. Assembly Document (1831) 151. 



