Where the bids are, from a maximum, downward, the term--_auction_--is still commonly, though improperly employed, and in the very teeth of all etymology. When I was a boy, the poor, in many of our country towns, were disposed of, in this manner. The question was, who would take Daddy Osgood, one of the town's poor, for the smallest weekly sum, to be paid by the town. The old man was started, at four shillings, and bid down to a minimum. There was yet a little work in his old bones; and I well remember one of these auctions, in 1798, in the town of Billerica, at which Dr. William Bowers bid off Daddy Osgood, for two and sixpence. The Dutch have a method of selling fresh fish, which is somewhat analogous to this, and very simple and ingenious. An account of it may be found, in Dodsley's Annual Register, for 1760, vol. iii. page 170. The salesman is called the Affslager. The fish are brought in, in the morning, and placed on the ground, near the fish stalls of the retailers. At ten, precisely, the Affslager rings his bell, which may be heard, for half a mile. Retailers, and individual consumers collect, and the Affslager--the auctioneer--puts up a lot, at a maximum price. No one offers a less sum, but the mynheers stand round, sucking at their pipes, and puffing away, and saying nothing. When the Affslager becomes satisfied, that nobody will buy the lot, at the price named, he gradually lowers it, until one of the mynheers takes his pipe from his mouth and cries "_mine!_" in High Dutch. He is, of course, the purchaser; and the Affslager proceeds to the sale of another lot. It will be seen, from one of the citations from Pepys, that some of _the auctions_ of his time were called _the candles_; precisely as the auctions, at Rome, were called _hastæ_; a spear or _hasta_, instead of a flag, being the customary signal for the sale. The proper word, however, was _auctio_, and the auctioneer was called _auctor_. Notice of the sale was given, by the crier, _a præcone prædicari_, Plaut. Men., v. 9, 94, or, by writing on tables. Such is the import of _tabulum proscripsit_, in Cicero's letter to his brother Quintus, ii. 6. In the year 1824, passing through the streets of Natchez, I saw a slave, walking along, and ringing a bell, as he went; the bell very much resembled our cowbells, in size and form. Upon a signal from a citizen, the slave stopped ringing, and walked over to him, and stood before him, till he had read the advertisement of a sale at auction, placarded on the breast of the slave, who then went forward, ringing his bell, as before. The Romans made their bids, by lifting the finger; and the auctioneer added as many _sesterces_, as he thought amounted to a reasonable bid. Cicero uses this expression in his fine oration against Verres, i 54--_digitum tollit Junius patruus--Junius, his paternal uncle, raised his finger_, that is, he made a bid.