One of the most convenient modes of offering property for sale is correctly indicated by the name "Auction," which means an arrangement for increasing the price by exciting competition amongst purchasers. In the Dutch Auction of the "Cheap Jack," the usual mode of proceeding is reversed, the property being offered at a higher price than that which the seller is willing to accept, and gradually lowered till a purchaser is found. "Cheap John" auctions are extensively in vogue in the larger cities of this country, in which "cappers" and other shady characters are employed to bid upon articles and entrap unwary persons into extravagant purchases. These institutions have become public nuisances, and many of them are little better than "fences" for stolen goods. Thus far not much has been accomplished in the way of their suppression. In legitimate auctions "Conditions of Sale" are usually published, which constitute the terms on which the seller offers his property, and form an integral part of the contract between seller and purchaser.

The contract is completed by the offer or bid on the part of the purchaser, and the acceptance by the seller or his representative, which is formally declared by the fall of the auctioneer's or salesman's hammer, and in former times by the running of a sandglass, the burning of an inch of candle (hence the term "sale by the candle"), or any other means which may have been specified in the conditions of sale. Mere advertisement does not make a contract. These conditions or articles ought further to narrate honestly and fully the character of the object or the nature of the right to be transferred, to regulate the manner of bidding, prescribe the order in which offerers are to be preferred, and to name a person who shall be empowered to determine disputes between bidders, and in cases of doubt to declare which is the purchaser.