North Adams, August 23d.--The county commissioners held a court; in the
bar-room yesterday afternoon, for the purpose of letting out the making
of the new road over the mountain. The commissioners sat together in
attitudes of some dignity, with one leg laid across another; and the
people, to the number of twenty or thirty, sat round about with their
hats on, in their shirt-sleeves, with but little, yet with some
formality. Several had come from a distance to bid for the job. They
sat with whips in their hands. The first bid was three dollars,--then
there was a long silence,--then a bid of two dollars eighty-five cents,
and finally it was knocked down at two eighteen, per rod. A disposition
to bid was evidenced in one man by his joking on the bid of another.
After supper, as the sun was setting, a man passed by the door with a
hand-organ, connected with which was a row of figures, such as dancers,
pirouetting and turning, a lady playing on a piano, soldiers, a negro
wench dancing, and opening and shutting a huge red mouth,--all these
keeping time to the lively or slow tunes of the organ.
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