Part 69

Many a nice young man about town is clothed free of expense by fashionable tailors who have an eye to business, and know it is to their advantage to keep the much viewed swells in fine garments. Grocers, butchers, bakers, and all men of their ilk, pay commissions to house servants much oftener than their employers imagine. The custom has become very general in New York in the past few years, and in some households the wages of the servants are the smallest part of their incomes. On New Year’s day the grocers send presents to the servants, generally a bottle of whiskey or gin to each cook or kitchen maid, and the result is, that, in a good many houses, the servants below stairs, on the first day of January, are quite as drunk as the majority of the visitors and entertainers in the parlors above. At the railway and steamboat landings, the hackmen frequently pay commissions to the policemen who allow them good places in the line, and do not press them to move on. Policemen, by the way, make a great many commissions—when their consciences are flexible—from gin-shops, gambling-houses, and other establishments which may as well be nameless, and in the same way hotel clerks and hackmen are enabled to add materially to their regular incomes. The hotel clerks come in for commissions on the tailors, and the same is the case with others who come in contact with strangers. For example, there is a tailor in New York who is understood to have friendly relations with one of the consulates,—I don’t mean with the consul, but with some of the subordinates. When a foreign traveller drops into this consulate, and says, “I want some clothes, you know, and I want to know, you know, where I can find a good tailor, you know,” some one is moved to say, “My dear fellow, you know, go to ——‘s; here’s his card; awful nice tailor, you know; will just suit you, my boy.” The traveller goes, and remarks to the tailor that they told him at the consulate that this was the place. Is it anybody’s business if somebody gets the handsome thing done for him?

[Sidenote: INTRODUCTION TO GAMBLERS.]

There is one trick in the business which has been adopted by many people, but the point of it is rarely seen by the victim. It is that of giving a letter of introduction by way of holding a tighter grip on the party to be skinned, and also of avoiding a dispute as to the validity of the claim for a commission. Jones, from the country, is stopping at the Bangup Hotel, and asks the clerk to direct him to a good, respectable gambling-house, or something of the sort, as he is a stranger in town, and doesn’t know the ropes. Clerk tells him, for instance, that Heenan’s or Morrissey’s is just what he wants, and draws from his pocket a card, on which is printed the name of the clerk of the Bangup. Then he writes on the back thereof, “This is my particular friend, Mr. Jones: treat him kindly; show him every attention, and charge it to me.” “Be sure and hand him this card,” the clerk enjoins; “otherwise he won’t know you, and won’t show you any more attention than anybody else.” Jones delivers the card, is treated politely, and often leaves a hundred dollars or so in the house, and is satisfied. So also is the clerk when he receives his share of the proceeds.

A few years ago there were two hotels, one in New York, and the other in a western city, which were run in a sort of half-way partnership. Suppose you were a patron of the New York concern, and were about going to the other city: mine host of Manhattan would say, “Let me give you a letter to my cousin,” and forthwith he wrote a warm letter, in which you were represented as a particular friend,—you will always find a “particular” in the letter,—one of the best of men, a gentleman in the true sense of that word, and one whose acquaintance would be an honor of which the President of the United States and the Emperor of Russia might be proud. You would be deserving the highest respect, and should receive the very best the house could afford.

[Sidenote: A MODEL LETTER OF INTRODUCTION.]

You took the letter,—I have seen several of them,—and went to the house named in it. I never knew anybody who received any special courtesy in consequence, but he generally found his bill from twenty to fifty per cent. higher than it would have been had he brought no introduction. The two hotels played that game a long time before travellers found them out, and it was astonishing how long it took to discover the trick. A friend of mine once arrived here from the hotel at the other end of the line. I met him at the dock, and urged him to go to the house where I lived. “No,” said he, “I have a letter from —— to his cousin here, and I am going to that hotel. Just look at that letter.” I read the document, which was one of the most fulsome things you ever saw, and would clearly entitle my friend to canonization. He went to the hotel, was politely received, crammed into a room under the eaves, and about as large as a cigar-box; could not get moved lower down, though they promised every hour that they would transfer him on the next; and after staying there four days, left in disgust, with the additional affront of a bill, in which there were all real and several erroneous extras at the highest possible or impossible rates. The real wording of that letter should have been,—

“This is one of our patrons; stick him in anywhere, and charge him all you can.”

[Sidenote: COMMISSIONS IN THE PIANO TRADE.]

I presume the business that pays more commissions than any other is that of making and selling pianos. In the first place each large establishment usually keeps a man to write its advertisements and look after its business relations with the press and advertising mediums generally. One manufacturer, a shrewd foreigner, is understood to employ one of the musical critics, who not only prepares pamphlets and advertisements, but devotes his criticisms as far as possible to the interest of his master. Then, most of the distinguished pianists who come here are each paid by some one of the manufacturers to toot for his piano. If you look at the programmes of these piano concerts and recitals, you will generally see a line announcing “The Muggins piano is exclusively used at this concert, and recommended by Herr Ivorypounder.” One pianist, now in this 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 astonishment.

“To Reps & Co., upholsterers.”

[Sidenote: TRICK OF REPS AND COMPANY.]

“What right had they to it?”

“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.

LXVI.

THE WIELICZKA SALT MINES.

THE GREAT WIELICZKA SALT MINES, THE LARGEST IN THE WORLD.—THEIR HISTORY.—EXTENT AND PRODUCT.—DESCENT INTO AND EXPLORATION OF THEM.—WHAT IS TO BE SEEN.—MINERS AT WORK BLINDFOLDED.—WONDERFUL CHAMBERS.—GLOOM CONVERTED INTO SPLENDOR.—BANQUETS IN THE BOWELS OF THE EARTH.—THE INFERNAL LAKE.—HUMAN DEMONS.—AWFUL APPARITIONS.—EXTRAORDINARY NARRATIVES.

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 Casimir 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 possession 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 stipulated 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.

[Sidenote: ENTERING A SALT MINE.]

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 Château 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 earth—as 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 convenience 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 bar was a steel ring, to which iron baskets or chairs were fastened by chains.

[Sidenote: DESCENDING IN DARKNESS.]

In these we took our seats, our legs hanging down, while we held to the chains above. At a given signal, the steel ring slipped along the bar, and we went smoothly and steadily down. The sensation very closely resembled that of descending a well. The darkness of the pit, which the feeble light of our torches made still darker, and the flickering shadows lent a certain gloomy picturesqueness to our perpendicular journey.

I might describe the anxiety and apprehension which I felt lest the chains should break, or I should be thrown out of my narrow seat into the great blackness below; but, as I did not 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 different 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.

[Sidenote: A TORTUOUS ROUTE.]

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 various chambers and avenues, until my head became completely turned, and I could not have retraced my way to save my soul. I observed, however, that our general course was downward; and finally we arrived at a large chamber, represented to be seven hundred feet below the surface. This chamber had been abandoned because all the salt in the stratum had been obtained; but it had been arranged like a chapel, containing an altar, several crosses, and some images of saints, all made of rock salt. When the light of the torches was reflected on these natural objects, the effect was superb. The crystals glittered like diamonds, and only a little imagination was needed to transform the rude vault into an apartment of Aladdin’s palace.

After I had sufficiently admired the chapel, we resumed our excursion over more bridges, down more steps, and through more passages, until we came to what the guides termed a river. It was not a very remarkable stream, reminding me, in its smallness, of the renowned Rubicon, or the Manzenares, when the latter does not happen to be altogether dry. Such as it was, however, we stepped into a rude little boat and crossed over, where we were soon on another bridge, and crawled down another staircase of the most rickety and tumble-down description.

I was surprised that we had met so few workmen, and mentioned my surprise to the stalwart fellows with me. They informed me that the part of the mine through which we had passed had been worked out, and that the miners had gone farther down, following the strata containing the salt. In half an hour or less, we encountered a number of miners hewing out a new passage. They were naked above the waist, and some of them wore the garb of southern savages, the high temperature rendering clothing uncomfortable, if not superfluous. They used picks and crowbars, and, in the beginning of their excavations, would lie down on their backs, and strike out the salt with their implements, covering their eyes with pieces of leather, to prevent injury from the falling fragments. It is not often that men can work well with their eyes blinded, but there they succeeded better without seeing than with seeing. As they increased the cavity to sufficient height, they stood up and labored in the regular way.

There was now no lack of miners, who were visible on every hand, delving hard, steadily, and silently. Their toil is excessively monotonous and severe. As most of them have done nothing else, and as they are densely ignorant, they are not tortured by brighter memories, nor haunted by pictures of the possible. Their earnings are miserably small—not more, I believe, on an average, than thirty to forty cents a day, and working about twelve hours out of the twenty-four. Out of these wages they usually have families to support; for it is as true in Austria as in every other land, that extreme poverty incites to marriage and prolific paternity.

[Sidenote: CROSSING UNDERGROUND RIVERS.]

The one so-called river which we had crossed was an introduction to a number of others, all of them small, and more like pools than streams. The two workmen generally pushed a little boat over with poles, though they sometimes used oars very much in the same fashion as the Lethe and the Styx in the Mammoth Cave are crossed. These pools or rivers are formed by percolations of water through the strata, and in them the miners have not unfrequently been drowned.

Our onward progress soon brought us to a large open space—it must have been a hundred feet high, and nearly two hundred in length and breadth—called the Chamber of Letow; and about half a mile farther is another of still greater dimensions, known as the Chamber of Michelawic. These chambers, which were excavations, were decked out in all the splendor of rock salt. There were chairs, candlesticks, chandeliers, statues, thrones, columns, and altars composed of the chief staple; and when lamps were lighted in the natural hall, the rays of light were reflected from thousands of points, and the whole interior shone in sparkling splendor. It recalled to my mind the Crystal Saloon, as it is styled, in the New Palace at Potsdam, when it is illuminated on some special occasion.

[Sidenote: A WONDERFUL SCENE.]

I had brought with me from Cracow some small fireworks, such as red lights, serpents, and Catharine wheels, for the purpose of burning them in the mines; and this was evidently one of the places for their use. I handed some of them to the guides, and in a few seconds the cavern, more than eight hundred feet under ground, was ablaze with different colors, and showers of radiance. To produce a greater effect, all the lights were extinguished, and then another pyrotechnic exhibition began. The result was marvellous. One would have imagined that the moon, and stars, and sun, had all burst through the earth, that divided us from the upper air, and were gleaming and flashing under our very eyes. The rock salt was as so many prisms, revealing all the lines of the rainbow, and coruscating like a vault studded with jewels.

Such glorious radiance I had never witnessed under ground, nor had I deemed such radiance possible there. The extraordinary contrast between the pitchy darkness and the magnificence of the illumination can hardly be expressed in words. It was as a sudden plunge from a Memphian night into a tropical noon, and the first effect was almost blinding. I have witnessed, in my time, numberless exhibitions of fireworks on a grand scale, but none of them furnished so splendid a spectacle as the few pieces burned in the depths of Wieliczka. So much for accessories. Rock salt has its æsthetic as well as material uses; and, confronted with common lamps and common fireworks, it assumes the beauties of Dreamland and the shining glories which theological rhapsodists have associated with the Celestial Kingdom.

The Chamber of Michelawic is consecrated, I was told, to St. Anthony, and I think the saint would show his much boasted power,—not to speak of his kindness,—if he would relieve the poor devils who so implicitly believe in him from their need of wasting toil in those dreary caverns. On the 3d of every July, grand mass is celebrated in the chamber,—then regarded as a chapel,—and is followed by a banquet, in which the principal officials of Cracow and the directors of the mines participate. At that date the workmen are given a partial holiday, and receive trifling sums of money, that are quite enough to render them happy, and to make them wish that every day of the year were the 3d of July.

[Sidenote: VISIT OF THE IMPERIAL FAMILY.]

Now and then some of the members of the imperial family of Austria make a visit to the mines, the superintendent being notified beforehand of the important event. Great preparations are then made. The main passages and different chambers of Wieliczka are brilliantly illuminated; the miners are relieved from work; festivals are held in the villages, and presents are given to the people in the name of the House of Hapsburg. One of these royal visits had been made a few weeks before mine, and many of the peasants were still speaking of it in terms approaching ecstasy. How merely relative is everything we give the name of pleasure to! The poor Poles and Austrians, relieved from twelve hours of their customary labor, and given a few unexpected kreuzers, are made happier than many men would be in the midst of material blessings, and surrounded by the answered wishes of their hearts.