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COMMISSIONS IN THE PIANO TRADE.

country, was brought here by a piano maker who guaranteed forty thousand dollars for a six months' tour; and another foreign pianist, now here, has a similar guarantee of twenty thousand. It is safe to say that half the noted foreign pianists are imported by the piano makers, and that half the rest are engaged and subsidized by the makers soon after they get here. Then, most of the concert tours are backed by the piano men; and I know several instances in which they have been directly organized by them. They may lose money on the tour itself, but they make money out of the extra sales of pianos. Then they are obliged to pay commissions to music stores and to music teachers who recommend their wares and effect sales, and frequently to persons totally unconnected with musical matters, such as upholsterers, carpenters, and friends of the families where pianos are bought. I know an instance wherein a man who was paying attention to a young lady received two hundred and fifty dollars from a piano dealer for turning the attention of his loved one from the instrument of Stiggins to that of Wiggins. He accompanied her to the store, where she made her purchase; her papa sent his check next morning, and in the afternoon her dear Charles Augustus called for and obtained his commission. And he is not the only society man, by a long way, who makes something out of the piano dealers.

The daughter of a wealthy citizen not long ago wanted a piano, and the wealthy citizen told her to select one. The house was undergoing some repairs and alterations, and the carpenters and upholsterers were at work there. Maria was taking music lessons, and appealed to her teacher for advice; the latter recommended a Muggins, and in the course of a week or so the piano was bought and sent home. The teacher was suddenly called out of town, and did not visit Muggins until ten or twelve days after the purchase. When he asked for his commission, Muggins told him it was already paid.

"To whom?" was the question, with emphasis of astonish

ment.

"To Reps & Co., upholsterers."

TRICK OF REPS AND COMPANY.

"What right had they to it?"

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"They came here next day after the piano was sent home, and said they were upholstering the house, and were consulted about a piano. They recommended mine as specially adapted to the house, and said it was bought through their influence. I paid them the commission. Since then the carpenters have been here, and now you make the third applicant. I am sorry it has happened so, but take a check for fifty dollars, and whenever you influence another sale, let me know at once."

The music teacher was badly sold, as it afterwards turned out that Reps & Co. did not know a word about the piano till they saw it in the house. Had he been as sharp as some others of his profession, he would have notified each of the piano makers, as soon as Maria broached the subject, that he was trying to sell his piano, and then, no matter whose make she selected, he would have obtained his honestly earned commission.

THE WIELICZKA SALT MINES.

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THE GREAT WIELICZKA SALT MINES, THE LARGEST IN THE
HISTORY. EXTENT AND PRODUCT. — DESCENT INTO
OF THEM. WHAT IS TO BE SEEN.MINERS AT WORK
WONDERFUL CHAMBERS. GLOOM CONVERTED INTO

WORLD. THEIR

AND EXPLORATION

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QUETS IN THE BOWELS OF THE EARTH. THE INFERNAL LAKE. - HUMAN
DEMONS. -AWFUL APPARITIONS. -EXTRAORDINARY NARRATIVES.

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THE Wieliczka salt mines in Galicia, Austrian Poland, are probably the largest and most productive on the globe. They are generally called the Cracow mines, though they are ten miles from the ancient capital of Poland - perhaps because Wieliczka (pronounced Vyalitchka) is so much harder for the tongue to master. They are connected with the mines of Bohemia, this town is some eighteen miles east of Wieliczka, -and extend over a space two miles long, and nearly one mile broad, with a depth varying from six hundred to eleven hundred feet. The time of their discovery is unknown; but it is held that salt was obtained from them in small quantities as early as the eighth century. That they were worked in the beginning of the twelfth century, when they belonged to Poland, there can be no manner of doubt. Less than two hundred years later, they had grown so productive, that Cassimir the Great established rules respecting them. In 1656 they were ceded to Austria, and twenty-seven years after recovered by John Sobieski. Austria again obtained posses sion of them at the first dismemberment of Poland, and has held them from 1772 to the present time, except for the six years preceding 1815. They have been a great source of wealth to the empire, and from them the Polish monarchs have drawn their principal revenues. So important were they considered, that, at each royal election, the Polish nobles stipu

ENTERING A SALT MINE.

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lated that the salt of Wieliczka should be furnished to them at cost. The mines have never yielded so abundantly as at present; the annual product being, I have understood, about six hundred thousand tons, which, at ten dollars a ton - the usual market rate creates a revenue of some six million dollars. As many as fourteen or fifteen hundred men, and as many as six or seven hundred horses, are generally employed in extracting the salt, which is found in lenticular masses inclined at a high angle. The salt varies very much in purity. Some of it, called green salt, has six or seven per cent. of clay; another kind (spiza) is mixed with sand, and the third and best sort (szybik) lies at the lower levels in unadulterated and beautifully transparent crystals. The Bohemian mines employ six or seven hundred workmen, and yield from two hundred to two hundred and fifty thousand tons of salt yearly. The figures I give, I obtained on the spot, and they may therefore be regarded as accurate.

A few years ago I made a special journey from Vienna,. in order to go through the Wieliczka mines, in which I had felt a great interest ever since the geography of my boyish days had introduced me to their acquaintance. I had no trouble in procuring a ticket of admission at the Chateau of Wieliczka; and, well supplied with kreuzers for the workmen,. I changed my clothes, and announced myself ready for the descent. There are ten or twelve shafts, but I asked to enter by the one the miners generally used. This is rather primitive,. -material improvements having been made in some of the others, or rather the means of descent are primitive. I was assigned to the charge of two miners, who were as stout, and hardy, and grim-looking as if they had toiled in the bowels of the earthas no doubt they had nearly all their lives. They were provided with torches, and they handed me one, at the same time showing me a place in the cap I had put on into which I could thrust the torch for convienence in carrying it. At the top of the shaft was a kind of windlass for letting us down, the construction of which I did not examine. A long vertical iron bar was in the centre of the shaft, and about this:

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DESCENDING IN DARKNESS.

bar was a steel ring, to which iron baskets or chairs we fastened by chains.

In these we took our seats, our legs hanging down, whi we held to the chains above. At a given signal, the ste ring slipped along the bar, and we went smoothly and steadil down. The sensation very closely resembled that of descen ing a well. The darkness of the pit, which the feeble ligh of our torches made still darker, and the flickering shadow lent a certain gloomy picturesqueness to our perpendicula journey.

I might describe the anxiety and apprehension which I fel lest the chains should break, or I should be thrown out of my narrow seat into the great blackness below; but, as I did no have any such feeling, and as I question seriously if men of nerve or experience have it either, I will not try to render myself the hero of an imaginary situation.

I had supposed we should go to the lowest depths of the mines, but we stopped when we had descended four or five hundred feet, and got out. I learned then that the mines were full of wooden bridges and staircases by which the dif ferent levels were reached, and that by these communication was kept up with distant quarters. Some of the other shafts, as I was informed, are much deeper, requiring to be on a level with the galleries where the excavations are working. I had been taken down that particular one in order that I might see the entire arrangement and construction of the mines.

My guides were Poles; but I soon found that they spoke German, of which I had sufficient knowledge to ask ordinary questions, and understand the answers thereto. We set out on the second part of our journey, one of my conductors in front, and one behind; each of us carrying a torch in the left hand, at a forward point of elevation, so as to furnish as much light as possible. We threaded several passages which seemed to be veined with quartz, but which, on examination, I discovered to be the green salt. We went over bridges, down staircases, to the right and to the left, passing

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