COUNTERFEITS! Would not this be quite as IMPORTANT INFORMATION as the
other? Are not the public as much concerned in having the genuine
article for their brain, as in having the unadulterated article for
their hair? Yet, how would Reprint like to see such a _Rowland_ for his
Oliver?
Strange that the same leaf that thus brands a counterfeit,--which
Reprint repudiates, hinting that respectable perfumers "sell only the
genuine article,"--should within one two-hundredth part of an inch,
contain the exposure of his own counterfeit, by his own pen, ink, and
types: and that with the announcement of a "Travelling Agent, recently
appointed to procure Subscribers in the Western States, Iowa and
Wisconsin, _who will prove his identity by a certificate from the Mayor
of Cincinnati_!" Now, it strikes me, would not a certificate from his
lordship, proving _the identity of the Magazine_, be much more to the
purpose? It is called _Blackwood's_ Magazine; and if so, the Travelling
Agent would be better certified by a commission from Mr Blackwood to be
selling his property, and that would be more to the purpose still! But
think, dear Godfrey, where this certified bagman goes! Iowa and
Wisconsin are a thousand miles inland, where even so lately as when this
reprint was begun, the Indian trail was the only post-road, and the
aborigines almost the only inhabitants, and where, even at this day, the
reader of Maga, holding the cream of civilisation and refinement in one
hand, must keep the other in close contact with his rifle, and the rifle
well loaded and cocked; for should his magazine interest him more than
his safety, he might expect at any moment the pressing salutations of a
cougar, or the warm embrace of a grisly bear. Or think, I pray you, of a
circumstance still less improbable, which will illustrate what it is to
be a bagman in Iowa. Where this "Travelling Agent" goes, he often
carries his merchandise through an Indian village, and often, I'll
venture to say, has Buchanan been seen in his hand, as centre to a
circle of fierce-visaged Red-skins, with tomahawks in their girdles, and
any thing but brotherly love in their gestures. Ah, then, the
contrabandist is afraid. Among savages he first learns to wish himself
engaged in any thing but an anti-copyright expedition; and produces in
vain the proof of his identity, signed by the Mayor of Cincinnati.
I observe that there are similar agencies in the Southern and
South-western States;
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