Henry Baird Favill, AB, MD, LL.D., 1860-1916, a ... - University Library

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HENRY BAIRD FAVILL
Upon equal terms, but by reason of the rapidity of the transactions
and various features inherent in the auction business,
opportunity for careful examination and mature judgment
are lacking, and in a transaction where definite knowledge
and deliberate plans are on one side, and hasty impressions
and competitive bidding on the other, every possible means
whereby the parties to the transaction can be put upon an
equal footing as to foundations for judgment, must be
reasonable to demand. Moreover, public sales are dependent
upon buyers and buyers are not indefinitely gullible.
In the long run the public sale will be a permanent institution
just in proportion to the safety which buyers may feel
in regard to the fundamental honesty of the sale.
Although this argument appears to be for the benefit of
the buyer, a moment's reflection shows that ultimately it
the salvation of the seller.
A man who conducts a farm, sells his produce to his herd
for the purpose of selling his increase at their full value,
needs a reliable,
economical, stable market.
It is a prevailing opinion that the public sale at stated
intervals will furnish that market, but I go back to my
original proposition, that the essence of that market is its
character; that the strength of it, is confidence; that the test
of it. is experience.
There are other factors with regard to the public sale
of great importance, though perhaps less essential.
First of these, I would enumerate mercantile squareness.
Shall a man be permitted to bid against his own cattle even
indirectly? By-bidding is generally condemned as a dishonest
practice. Where it is secretly done it is distinctly
fraudulent. Has it been eliminated from our public sales?
Every one who is familiar with it knows that not only has
it not been eliminated, but that variations of by-bidding,
in the way of elaborate schemes for increasing values, have
happened to a scandalous extent. Can the business end of
the public sale survive this crookedness?
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