Stowe brings to mind an unscrupulous and yet ingenious
trick just about this time played by a young man attached to one of the
New York publishing houses. One evening at dinner this chap happened to
be in a bookish company when the talk turned to the enthusiasm of the
Southern negro for an illustrated Bible. The young publishing clerk
listened intently, and next day he went to a Bible publishing house in
New York which issued a Bible gorgeous with pictures and entered into an
arrangement with the proprietors whereby he should have the Southern
territory. He resigned his position, and within a week he was in the
South. He made arrangements with an artist friend to make a change in
each copy of the Bible which he contracted for. The angels pictured
therein were white in color. He had these made black, so he could show
that there were black angels as well as white ones. The Bibles cost him
just eighty cents apiece. He went about the South and offered the Bibles
to the astonished and open-mouthed negroes for eight dollars each, two
dollars and a half down and the rest in monthly payments. His sales were
enormous. Then he went his rounds all over again and offered to close
out the remaining five dollars and a half due him by a final payment of
two dollars and a half each. In nearly every case the bait was
swallowed, and on each Bible he thus cleared four dollars and twenty
cents net!
Running the elevator in the building where a prominent publishing firm
had its office was a negro of more than ordinary intelligence.
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