Immagini della pagina
PDF
ePub

nearly all the grand successes in trade have been based upon a solid foundation: the thing sold was really good: the fraud, if there was any, lay in some artful contrivance to create and continue a sort of fictitious demand for a particular commodity until the real demand arrived.

In a populous town in an English eastern county, a few years since, arrived a Dr. Thompson, who hired a house situate in the midst of other houses occupied by surgeons, apothecaries, and chemists-a sort of Quartier Médecin-and furnished that house very tastefully. He regularly attended church, all public festivals, and lent a useful hand in various ways, and on various occasions, in an unostentatious manner. He was a perfect master of the small courtesies of life, was amiable, and, in short, a nice little bachelor, who rapidly made acquaintances, and appeared rich. But he was not rich. He borrowed a handsome sum through an insurance office; obtained long credits; set up what they call a "gig" in those parts — -a tall twowheeler—in which, with a livery servant, he drove about from early morn tillafter dewy eve. Sometimes he was quite "fagged," when he would beg Mr. Duke -a good-natured member of the cloth-to visit his (two!) patients. No doctor of them all made more calls, consulted his tablets oftener, smiled more complacently upon everybody, patted more children's heads, uttered less scandal of his professional brethren, or engaged in such multifarious occupations as Dr. Thompson. Eighteen months after he had taken up his residence in Old Cathedraltown, an unintroduced man, he was wanted at the local "Polytechnic" to superintend electrical experiments; at the "Brotherly Society" to read an essay on the "Sublime and the Ridiculous;" at the Board of Guardians; at the Vestry; at the Town-Council. "Dr. Thompson is wanted immediately!" would shout the stentorian town-crier, in the midst of a tragedian's soliloquy at the theatre. Dr. Thompson was sometimes "wanted out of court" whilst the judge was summing up a very important case, and the crowded audience were listening to him with breathless attention. The vivâ voce demands for Dr. Thompson waxed fast and furious, but the actual necessity for Dr. Thompson's ministrations each time he was so vociferously demanded from those places where men most do congregate this deponent sayeth not-nor did Dr. Thompson. But this much can be told. The "profession" soon acknowledged Dr. Thompson to be a skilful, estimable man, and to have, by some mysterious (!) agency, acquired an admirable practice in one-tenth of the orthodox time allowed for accomplishing that feat in Old Cathedraltown.

and

Another eccentric mode for getting on in the world was that of a lawyer's clerk, who wore his hat on the back of his head (accidentally, of course), who walked about the seaport town in which he lived, with his trowsers tucked into the back part of his boots, his neckcloth all awry, and sometimes his right glove on his left hand; who listened with a gaping, half-vacant stare to everybody's tale, but told nobody what he thought of it. Against the utterance of anything that would "make another as wise as himself" (his favourite phrase) he sealed his lips. Being, however, already set down for a fool, or next door to one, whatever he did say was accounted as of little worth; until, one day, in an unguarded moment, he disputed, with an articled pupil, some technical points of law, and proved his own knowledge to be the more accurate of the two. The articled pupil was not a little astounded to find that Blackstone, chapter and verse, and the complicated statute of uses, were as familiar to "Numskull" (his elegant sobriquet), as the colour of parchment or

ink. On another occasion, some valuable evidence was wanted from an obtuse old peasant whom nobody could turn. Numskull kept the old man's company in the tap-room he frequented night after night, wormed himself into his graces, joked with him, smoked with him, and entertained the old man with beer and anecdote until every thought of his was at the service of the cunning dog, whose lucky day had come; for he at last possessed himself of the precious testimony to a fact that settled a great suit, and put into the hands of a client of Numskull's employer an immense estate. Men now gave the "odd fish" of a clerk credit for being a great deal wiser than he really was. Mr. Hicks held a theory that, to cultivate your memory and to pass yourself off as a know-nothing, until the opportunity arrives to serve your own turn, by disclosing your intelligence, is the primest wisdom. There are certainly many instances in history illustrative of this predilection of the successful for inscrutability. Hicks commenced life as an errand-boy, was subsequently a law-copyist, and ultimately town-clerk of his native town. Now, all this came about, undoubtedly, by a certain amount of natural ability in Hicks, hard study, and a species of strategy which threw off their guard those sentinels who would keep back all adventurers in the path of progress.

"Wanted, an usher in a first-class boarding-school, who is master of the English language, is a good arithmetician, and can take charge of the junior French class." Address, and terms, &c., &c.,-of no consequence to us. A young man obtained the place who settled himself speedily in the favour of his comrades. He was known as an "early bird;" as one who husbanded his moments, but was still “ "jolly." "Oh, I say, let us come in, old fellow," said the third usher, knocking at the bedroom door of the second usher-the subject of our story-one morning before breakfast; "I want to speak with you peremptorily. Just as I expected," said the visitor; "what a fool I was, to be sure! Well, you deserve the post, and I am glad you got it." Reader, let us explain. The young gentleman who has just spoken was the third usher. He had been offered the second post, but refused it on the ground of not knowing French, or certainly very little of it. But he who obtained the post knew less: he knew nothing at all of it at the time he clinched his engagement with the principal of the establishment; but he begged a week's grace before taking up his abode at the academy; and, when he entered upon his duties, he took the junior French class, put it back several lessons-in short, to the lessons he had mastered in his week's grace-and then, while others slept, he, wide awake to his own advancement, built upon the foundation he had laid in that week's holiday; and, in hastily admitting his friend to his sanctum, discovered to him the exercises that had helped him, for the time, to perpetrate a very harmless fraud.

A more unscrupulous person than any of the above was one who might have been named Swinn Dlerr, though his name was really far more English than that. However, that nickname will serve our present purpose very well. Swinn was a very dashing fellow. He had a balance at his bankers, and was in the "public line." Messrs. Malt and Hopps accompanied Swinn to their lawyers one day, for the purpose of joining in an agreement which specified that Mr. S. D. was to hire of Messrs. M. and H. three public-houses, then untenanted; to take them on an improving lease; to re-decorate them; and, when they were re-opened, to sell in them no other beer, &c., than that supplied by Messrs. Malt and Hopps. The opening day was not specified, and it subsequently seemed to M. and H. to be that

to-morrow which never comes. S. D. gave it out that he had a purse of his own, and that he would not be hurried for mortal. He was not going to spoil his ship for a ha'p'orth of tar; and more than once he told Messrs. M. and H. that "patience was a jewel"—which original remark caused the jolly brewers to quote from their copy-books that "delays are dangerous," and that "procrastination is the thief of time"-as well as of profits, thought the brewers; for this very peculiar delay caused some scores of barrels of beer to remain on hand that should have been poured down the throats of the thirsty public. After a series of complications, excuses, threats, and counter-threats, Swinn Dlerr told the lessors of the three beer-houses that money was really no object to him; that a change had come over him; that he had in fact turned teetotaller, and intended keeping the said houses shut during the term of the lease. Most certainly he had, in this proceeding, violated the manners and customs of the trade, but he did not break his contract. All the beer he sold was to be that supplied to him by Messrs. Malt and Hopps, &c., &c. Just so. But he did not intend to sell any beer. He had in view quite other ends; so, to make things pleasant, he accepted a very handsome sum from Messrs. Malt and Hopps to rescind the lease. When the story got wind, it turned out that the respectable firm of Malt and Hopps were not the first gentlemen in the brewery trade whom this accomplished scamp had thus victimized.

Another of the genus "public," who did sell the drink which cheers, and which -under certain circumstances-inebriates, had a knack of brewing unexceptionable elder wine, and palming it off upon free-living customers, when "half seas over," as port. For this same fraud he had to meet the magistrates, and to answer a complaint that had been lodged against him for its repeated commission, certainly for its commission once. He told the bench that it was no fault of his.

"The fact is, your honour," said he, "Mr. Bibber, who brings this charge against me, had had his three bottles of my best port, laid down when Queen Adelaide was born-which you know, your worship, is a tidy time ago. Well, your worship, after he had had those three beautiful bottles, he shouts, at the top of his voice, a little the worse for what he had had-"'Ere, landlor', youshur, bring me shum older 'an this-shum older, I say ;' and then, your worship, he hiccupped again and again; and my missus thinking older and elder meant the same thing, took Mr. Bibber a bottle of her elder wine, which is as good as claret, your worship, for sobering one; and I suppose he came to himself a bit, and complained in consequence; and then, in a fit of indignation

[ocr errors]

"Ah! I see," said his worship. "Well, well, that's enough; you are discharged."

Mr. Bibber, who was in court, said the sentence "banged his grandmother;" for, if Chequers hadn't committed a fraud, he didn't know who ever did.

Misconception is more prevalent than actual stupidity. The difference between the actual result of any course of action and the one conceived is often very considerably widened by a dash of fraud intervening. At regular intervals of time appears a Government return of the circulation of newspapers from the Stamp Office point of view-that is to say, the return of the number of stamps sold to each newspaper is published to the world at large; and this return might be of some use if the proprietors of the papers, one and all, abstained from the trick of purchasing, at times, double and treble the number of stamps they actually require, in order to swell the figures in the "return."

"Do not count your chickens before they are hatched." Poultry-fancying is becoming more and more a fashion; and enterprising breeders advertise black Spanish eggs, at so much per dozen, "sent carriage free to all parts of the kingdom." You apply for eggs, and eggs arrive, most expeditiously. The process of incubation is attempted, but all is labour in vain. You call a jury of your household; the eggs are examined, and pronounced sound and free from puncture. They were "warranted;" and customers of the egg merchant, residing in his immediate neighbourhood, have reared brood after brood most successfully, from eggs they purchased from him. What can be the cause of failure, then, in this particular case? Listen! We will tell you. That prompt and punctual poulterer who sent your eggs "per special train" had a most natural aversioncommercially speaking-to his choice fowls becoming common, so he favoured a few living "testimonials," as he called those neighbours of his who possessed offshoots of his stock; but he invariably sent all orders to a distance by special train, because that, of all other trains, from its rapid motion, would the most thoroughly addle the eggs.

We have no taste for cocks and hens, but we flatter ourselves we understand something of gardening. The following incidents, however, amongst others of a similar kind, have taught us that that amusement is not free from its pains and penalties. Last year we bought of an itinerant florist a half-dozen dwarf fuchsias, at "a very low figure." They drooped prematurely; the reason being, they had no roots. Once bitten, twice shy. In the next bargain we stipulated that our plants should have good roots. "Turn them out, and show us the roots, or we will not have them," we said most emphatically. The exhibition of plenty of fine roots, plenty of shards, indicative of good drainage, and a nice, soft, loamy-looking soil, satisfied our curiosity. But, strange to tell, those plants hung their heads, and the more we watered them the more they wouldn't grow. The fact is, that beautiful network of roots that pleased us so had no connexion whatever with the stems of the plants.

Do not be tempted, as a rule, to buy cheap toys in the streets; they are mostly rubbish. Be especially on your guard against a product of industrial art called "india-rubber squeaking dolls," which are not india-rubber at all, but a mixture of glue and lampblack. Out of this villanous compound, however, is manufactured a very tolerable resemblance of a juvenile nigger, which, when taken between the finger and thumb of the vendor, and pinched in the abdomen, appears to utter a cry of anguish. Should you persist in investing a penny or twopence on behalf of your dear boy at home, rolling on the hearth-rug, roguish and ruddy, take at least the advice of a friend, and choose your weather for the purchase; for, should it be warm and damp, you will not-if you have any distance to travel preserve the integrity of the nigger either in your pocket or your hat. Choose a fine dry day, then bear off triumphantly your pennyworth of india-rubber to the bosom of your family; take it between the finger and thumb, in orthodox fashion, and pinch away, and you may wish the " coppers spent within your purse," for no murmur will escape the toy, though you pinch until black is blue. You will guess, at last, that the interesting squeak which pulled you up and interested you emanated from the throat of the baby-maker.

The adepts at ingenious trickery in the streets of London are very numerous. Here are a couple of them. One man sells you a tin box of jet blacking for a

penny. To recommend the article, he takes the foot of an old boot, rubs the blacking on it with his finger, and says, "There, gentlemen, you see, no blackingbrush is needed, nor polish-brush either, for you may polish the boot, if you like, with the tail of your coat." The possibility of this operation he proves before your face by applying his own coat-tails to the purpose. But, when he takes an ordinary polisher, which he calls a "burnisher," and makes a few passes over the old boot, the effect is very brilliant. You spend a penny with the blacking merchant. It may not occur to you at the time that that boot, which, in its brilliancy, would have delighted the eyes of Beau Brummel, has had so many coatings of blacking that it has, literally, become enamelled, and will shine almost at the sight of anything that will produce friction upon its surface. The other trickster asks you no more than a penny for a pill-box full of "magic razor-paste." The vendor says, the paste will sharpen a razor so that it "will cut a fagot, or split a 'air." And, assuredly, he performs both feats. On a strop, coated with the paste he sells you, he rubs the blade with which he chops up a piece of wood— sending the chips about him in a shower, as if from a turner's lathe and then, after a pass or two more on the magic strop, he adroitly plucks a hair from some shock-headed, gaping urchin, and dexterously cuts it in two. But, astonished reader, any common razor, of only ordinary sharpness, will perform this hairsplitting feat or rather hair-docking-if the hair chosen be a strong one, and it be held firmly between the fingers, and cut off very near the part where it is grasped.

Turn we now from the simple to the important-to an anecdote of a great landscape painter now deceased. At the height of his popularity, this painter had his studio in Berkeley-square, which was daily thronged with visitors, who left him little time for aught else than entertaining them. This he regretted. One way of escape presented itself, and that he embraced. Leaving his glorious paintings hanging on their accustomed walls in charge of a courteous housekeeper, he made a pilgrimage to Chelsea in search of seclusion. At the close of a day's hard seeking, his toil was rewarded, and the following colloquy ensued:-Said the painter to a respectable widow, who had a second-floor to let, unfurnished, and overlooking the river, "These rooms will suit me exactly: what is the rent? I will take them, and send my furniture to-morrow." Said the widow, "Excuse me, sir, but can't you give me a reference ?"-Painter: "No; but I will pay you halfa-year's rent in advance. Will that do?"-Widow: "Thank you, sir, yes; but what is your name ?"-Painter: "What is your name?"-Widow: “Brown, sir."-Painter: "Ah! that will do. Call me Mr. Brown, if you please." His request was complied with, and, in his heart of hearts, the clever, eccentric artist felt that he had, at last, done brown the aristocratic mob, and purchased peace. No postman's knocks, no inquiries were there for Mr. Brown whilst the bonâ fide tenant of the humble dwelling wore her weeds. For three years the great painter obtained seclusion, under false pretences; but those who guessed his whereabouts respected the privacy of their friend as much as they did the ruse of Mr. Brown.

C. B.

« IndietroContinua »