and taken so badly with the use of bad chemicals that
they are fast fading away. Out of this motley group the family will
be pretty sure to select one or two pictures which they will deem it
worth their while to have copied and enlarged.

When the agent has collected a sufficient number of pictures in this
way, he sends them by express to the home office, where the work is
done. Some years ago I chanced to know a gentleman who was in this
business; in fact, he claimed to have originated it, and, as he was
a shrewd, smart Yankee, born and brought up in the State of New
Hampshire, I never had the temerity to question his statement. He had
a good-sized brick building in a pleasant little New England city, and
employed a countless number of agents, who travelled in all parts of
the country, and, if I remember right, he had nearly a score of
ladies, whose business it was to color the pictures and to touch some
of them up into something resembling life, after they had been copied
and enlarged. I use these statements with due deliberation, and say
that the effort was made to give them the appearance of something
resembling life, for often they looked like mere blurs. Here and
there a nose would be gone, or an eye would be missing, the lower part
of the face would be entirely absent, but would be counterbalanced,
or, rather, overbalanced, by a heavy head of straight, black hair.
These, of course, were very bad specimens, but they came to the office
in the regular course of business, and had, to use the Yankee
expression of the proprietor, to be "fixed up." These worst specimens
were given to a middle-aged single lady, who really had a genius for
making something out of nothing,--at least in the matter of pictures.
It should be mentioned, however, that the worst of them were generally
accompanied with some written description of the subject. But we may
well believe that such crude data were of but little service to the
artist. The salaries of these colorists were from $13 to $25 per week.
The lady I have just mentioned received the latter sum, and often made
a few more dollars weekly by doing extra work. At present, she and
another lady from the same establishment, conduct an art school in a
city near New York, and are very prosperous.

There are now opportunities for doing this same kind of work, but
there is not so much of it to do,--thousands of "active" agents having
very thoroughly worked in the best districts of the coun