Page:Guatimala or the United Provinces of Central America in 1827-8.pdf/94

Rh enter to view the goods, and any one choosing an article at the affixed price is permitted to take it after it has been publicly exposed to the offers of a higher bidder. If after three days any of the articles remain unsold, they are re-ticketed at two-thirds of the former price.

Among the curious collections which are thus exhibited to the public eye, are to be found numbers of wretched pictures, statues of saints, devotional books, relics, and antique domestic articles of solid silver, carrying the spectator back in imagination to the time when the commonest utensils of a tradesman's house were composed of this precious metal. Such was literally the case only thirty years ago; while at the present moment so great is its scarcity, that a bankrupt and tottering government plunged in civil war, is vainly attempting to establish by the most despotic measures, a paper currency.