u
will be old quite soon enough! But this fellow is ready for old fools as
well young ones, for he has recipes for curing baldness and removing
wrinkles. And last, but not least, quietly inserted among all these
fooleries and harmless humbugs, are two or three recipes which promise
the safe gratification of the basest vices. Those are what he really
hoped to get money for.

I have carefully refrained from giving any names or information which
would enable anybody to address any of these folks. I do not propose to
cooperate with them, if I know it.

The next is a circular only to be very briefly alluded to: it promises
to furnish, on receipt of the price, and "by mail or express, with
perfect safety, so as to defy detection," any of twenty-two wholly
infamous books, and various other cards and commodities, well suited to
the public of Sodom and Gomorrah, etc. The most honest and decent things
advertised in this unclean list are "advantage-cards" which enable the
player to swindle his adversary by reading off his hand by the backs of
the cards.

The next paper I can copy verbatim, except some names, etc., is a letter
as follows:

"Dear Sir--There is a Package in My care for a Mrs. preston New Griswold
wich thare is 48 cts. fratage. Pleas forward the same. I shall send it
Per Express Your recpt."

It is some little comfort to know that this gentleman, who is so much
opposed to the present prevailing methods of spelling, lost the three
cents which he invested in seeking "fratage." But a good many sensible
people have carelessly sent away the small amounts demanded by letters
like the above, and have wondered why their prepaid parcels never came.

Next, is an account by a half amused and half indignant eye-witness, of
what happened in a well known town in Western New York, on Friday,
January 6, 1865. A personage described as "dressed in Yankee style,"
drove into the principal street of the place with a horse and buggy, and
began to sell what is called in some parts of New England "Attleboro,"
that is, imitation jewelry, but promising to return the customers their
money, if required, and doing so. After a number of transactions of this
kind, he bawls out, like the sorcerer in Aladdin, who went around
crying new lamps for old, "Who will give me four dollars for this
five-dollar greenback?"

He found a customer; sold a one-dollar greenback for ninety cents; then
sold some half-dollar bills for twenty-five cents each; t