Democratic Sentinel, Volume 19, Number 20, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 May 1895 — Lives Like a Tramp. [ARTICLE]

Lives Like a Tramp.

A Philadelphia auctioneer says: “You would scarcely believe It, but there are. men who will go without the necessities of life to gratify their craze for collecting rare books. I have in mind the case of a man who lives in a back street away uptown somewhere in miserable circumstances, but who has a really fine library of rare books. When I have had sales on I have known him to come in looking like a tramp, -with the toes out of his boots, soiled linen and a general air of semi-respectable vagrancy. And yet he would think nothing of paying S6O for some book that he wanted. His daughter came to me one day with tears in her eyes and begged me not to sell her father any more books, as the family was in absolute want and needed the money for household purposes. I looked into the case and found that the old man’s passion for collecting had transformed ttim into a perfect miser. He would hoard his money at the expense of his family’s comfort, and when he got enough together would go off and buy some rare book.”