hen flung out
among the crowd what a fisherman would call ground bait, in the shape of
a handful of "currency."

Everybody scrambled for the money. This liberal trader now drove slowly
a little way along, and the crowd pressed after him.

He now began, without any further promises, to sell a lot of bogus
lockets at five dollars each, and in a few minutes had disposed of about
forty. Having, therefore, about two hundred dollars in his pocket, and
trade slackening, he coolly observes, with a terseness and clearness of
oratory that would not discredit General Sherman:

"Gentlemen--I have sold you those goods at my price. I am a licensed
peddler. If I give you your money back you will think me a lunatic. I
wish you all success in your ordinary vocations! Good morning!"

And sure enough, he drove off. That same cunning chap has actually made
a small fortune in this way. He really is licensed as a peddler, and
though arrested more than once, has consequently not been found legally
punishable.

I will specify only one more of my collection, of yet another kind. This
is a printed circular appealing to a class of fools, if possible, even
shallower, sillier, and more credulous than any I have named yet. It is
headed "The Gypsies' Seven Secret Charms." These charms consist of a
kind of hellbroth or decoction. You are to wet the hands and the
forehead with them, and this is to render you able to tell what any
person is thinking of; upon taking any one by the hand, you will be able
to entirely control the mind and will of such person (it is unnecessary
to specify the purpose intended to be believed possible). These charms
are also to enable you to buy lucky lottery-tickets, discover things
lost or hid, dream correctly of the future, increase the intellectual
faculties, secure the affections of the other sex, etc. These precious
conceits are set forth in a ridiculous hodge-podge of statements. The
"charms," it says, were used by the "Anted_e_luvians;" were the secret
of the Egyptian enchanters and of Moses, too; of the Pythoness and the
heathen conjurors and humbugs generally; and (which will be news to the
geographers of to-day) "are used by the Psyli (the swindler mis-spells
again) of South America to charm Beasts, Birds, and Serpents." The way
to control the mind, he says, was discovered by a French traveler named
Tunear. This Frenchman is perhaps a relative of the equally celebrated
Russian traveller, Toofaroff.

But here