“Nothing extenuate or set down aught in malice.”—SHAKSPEARE.
Some instances which have come under my own cognizance will illustrate
the way in which gross imposition is practised, and the public morals
materially injured, by weakening confidence in those who are, from
their education and rank, looked to as guides and preceptors, and
causing the mind to turn with indignation from the needy, but debased
and grovelling creatures, who resort to any means, however infamous, to
effect their selfish purposes.
A military gentleman, of Stonehouse, was waited upon by a renowned
optical quack, who, the moment he entered the parlour, exclaimed,
“Goot Got, Sar! vy, you are a’goin plind; the sight is leaving your
left eye! If you don’t immejartly take to my improved classes I vill
not answer for the konserkences; kataract will grow on it in a month!”
The gentleman, taken by surprise, tried on some of the _preservers_,
and finally purchased two pairs of hand-folding spectacles, for which
he paid four pounds. Some time after, they were more particularly
inspected, and proved to be common glass, instead of pebbles, as was
represented, and of much stronger focus than the eyes required. The
full London retail charge for _such_ articles is 10_s._ per pair.
In the same town the same _distinguished_ individual forced his way
into the study of a reverend gentleman, and alarmed him by a similar
prognostication. A pair of the “clarified crystals, ground by a
peculiar process,” were purchased, price fifteen shillings. Afterwards,
upon finding that one eye was irritated, and derived no assistance
from the spectacles, the gentleman called upon the optician who had
always previously supplied him, and was convinced of the trick which
had been put upon him. They were common machine-worked glasses, each
of a different focus, and neither of them suitable to his sight. Their
proper price, sold in their proper place (viz., by hawkers, in the
streets,) is one shilling per pair!
A gentleman of Norwich, struck with the advantages promised by some
extraordinary spectacles, paid two guineas for a pair of blue steel,
with blue glasses, which were warranted pebbles,[10] and had the
additional vexation to be severely censured by several friends, who
complained that the fellow had fixed them with similar trash by
representing that he (the gentleman) had said, “After you leave mine,
do you go down past the Norfolk Hotel, and say I bid you to call on Mr.
and Mrs. ——, to sell them spectacles such as I have bought.” This, of
course, was a manœuvre of the cheat himself.
A gentleman, of Tavistock, purchased a pair of silver spectacles,
declared to be very fine pebbles, price thirty-five shillings; they
were merely glass; and as he required a glass in an old pair of
spectacles, the pompous hawker offered to _oblige_ him by putting one
of his “clarified lenses” to match the focus: for this he charged five
shillings and sixpence. It was two inches different in focal length
to the original glass! which would have been properly matched, by any
resident optician, for one shilling!
One of the hawking tribe called at the residence of Major C——, near
Hereford, and represented that M——, Esq., had ordered, on the previous
day, two pairs of spectacles, and desired him to call upon his friend,
the major, to suit him also. In this case the attack was parried; and,
spite of the hawker’s vehement declaration, that the eyes were in a
terrible state, he was dismissed, “to call again to-morrow.” Thus the
major preserved his eyes, and saved his money. In the evening he saw
his friend, and inquired if he had sent a fellow to his house with
spectacles? “No,” was the reply, “but you sent him to _me_; for he came
this afternoon, saying you had bought two pairs, and wished me to have
some of the same kind; therefore, I bought two pairs, and paid him the
price he said _you_ gave, viz., three pounds, ten shillings, though at
first he wanted four guineas!”
A naval captain, residing at Monmouth, showed me a pair of silver
spectacles with six-inch focus glasses, very jagged and splintered at
the edges, worth at most twelve shillings, for which he had given one
of the tribe of impostors two guineas, and a pair of tortoiseshell
(which _did_ suit his sight) into the bargain.[11]
A lady at Belfast was attracted by the showy advertisement of an
itinerant optician, and called upon him, “between the hours of ten and
six,” for the purpose of purchasing a pair of spectacles. The first
thing he did, after staring at her, and impudently declaring that her
eyes were being ruined, was to snatch her spectacles from her face,
and put a pair of his own in their place. “There, Matam! they are the
spattacles for your eyes, those you have peen vearing vill pring on
kataract.” “I see pretty well in these,” said the lady, “but my own
suit about as well, I think.” “Oh dear no, it’s quite a mistake, your
own are retched; put them on—isn’t there a differench now, Matam?”
“Yes, there is,” said the lady, (who had too much penetration for the
pedlar) “they require cleaning after having been held in your hot hand
all this time;” and taking up a washleather she wiped the glasses,
and, replacing them, bade adieu to the _testimonialed_ optician.
A lady, who was visiting for a few weeks at Margate, was startled one
morning, by a big, blustering, shewily-dressed man, who, after knocking
at the street door, pushed past the servant, and rapping loudly at the
parlour door opened it without waiting for any reply. “Goot morning,
Matam, I am the optician to the royal family; your friend, Lady W——,
terives so much goot from my pellucit lenses, she peggd me to call and
suit you.” Before all this had been uttered he had taken a package from
a confederate, dressed as a livery servant, who accompanied him, and
covered the table with his stock. “Your eyes are in a most alarming
state Matam, this pair of cold spattacles will suit you.” “Really,”
said the lady; “how came Lady W—— to suppose I wanted spectacles? I
have never worn any at any time in my life.” “No, that’s the vary
reason your sight is leaving you; your eyes are vary pad.” “What is the
price of this pair?” inquired the lady. “Three guineas” was the answer.
The price was paid; and after punishing her eyes for a few days, the
lady met with a scientific friend who convinced her that they were
totally unfit and improper for her, her eyes being in excellent order,
and not requiring spectacles at all!
A gentleman, visiting at Canterbury, in 1834, was induced through the
representations of the same notorious cheat to purchase a pair of
spectacles, which were warranted to dissipate the cataract forming
in his eye; the price paid was five pounds. As he was lamenting the
terrible state in which he was informed his eyes certainly were
(although, strange to say, he was quite unconscious of it) another
pair was placed upon his nose, which, he was told he ought to wear as a
change, in case the eyes were pained by the efforts of the first pair
to dissipate the cataract. Another five pound note was handed over to
the hawker, who began to grow quite pathetic; and artfully alluding
to the services of the gentleman during the war, and expatiating upon
a few circumstances with which he had made himself acquainted in a
chat with one of the gossips at the public house where he lodged, he
pretended to lament the necessity for the gentleman staying within
doors. “What, may I not take a walk or ride as usual? I can’t endure
being cooped up within doors.” “There’s danger in your going out,”
said the pedlar, “except your eyes are guarded with green Refractive
Preservers.” “Oh, bless me,” said the gentleman, “that’s very serious;
then you really think I ought to have another pair for walking and
riding, eh?” “Oh certainly, by all means; nothing else can save your
eyes, unless you confine yourself within doors.” “What’s the price of
such a pair of preservers?” “Six guineas, Sir; but as you have bought
the others you shall have them for five pounds.” “Why, dear me, I shall
be ruined in buying spectacles, and yet I never felt that I wanted them
before.” “That’s just the vay, ven the eyes are a’going blind it comes
on all at once, my tear Sir.”
By this transaction the pedlar actually pocketed three five pound
notes. In less than a week afterwards the first two pair were sent
to me to have the yellow coloured glasses exchanged for white lenses
of four degrees less magnifying power; the price at which the whole
three pairs could have been purchased elsewhere would be forty-five
shillings.
It will scarcely be credited that the individuals who thus practise on
the public are grossly ignorant; and were it not that the anxiety of
the purchasers to possess something extraordinary renders them liable
to imposition and allays suspicion, such shallow pretensions never
would pass undetected.
One of the tribe, who, until lately, practised the art and mystery
of his forefathers as a dealer in old clothes, suddenly changed his
_profession_, and, calculating the chances to be two to one in his
favour, ventured, neck or nothing, to blazon himself forth as an
experienced, scientific, and practical optician. A book, bearing his
name as its author, and sundry special appointments, obtained by
dint of the most brazen assurance and persevering importunity, were
ostentatiously paraded before the wondering eyes of her majesty’s
liege subjects. The public are stultified, and the eminent individual
himself, is almost astonished that the scheme should take, and like the
“Fly preserved in amber, wonders how the d—— he came there.”
There are artists in his locality who can give many _graphic_
illustrations of the disregard to truth, violation of friendship, and
cunning perversion of facts, of which this individual has been guilty,
and yet no one has a greater array of eminent names and testimonials to
show—many signatures of really clever men having been obtained by some
means or other. Surely there is much piquancy and truth in the Spanish
proverb: “those who know most are oftenest cheated.”
FOOTNOTES:
[10] Pebbles, it is scarcely necessary to say, are colourless.
[11] This gentleman stormed most lustily when made aware of the trick
which had been practised upon him, and threatened legal exposure to the
“professional optician.” But this course is seldom resorted to, the
dupes recollecting that, while they publish the swindler’s villainy,
they give us but an indifferent idea of their own discernment, beside
the uncertainty and incongruity ever attendant upon Law, thus quaintly
sketched by Bentham;—“If a man give you a black eye, you make him pay
for it, but if he put your eye out, you get nothing; and whatever is
taken from him goes nominally to the queen—really to John Stokes or
Jack Nokes who have no concern at all in the matter. If a man kill your
pig, you get the value of it, but if he kill your wife or your child,
you get nothing—if any thing is got out of him it goes to a stranger,
as before. A man sets your house on fire, if by misfortune, you receive
amends, if through malice, you receive nothing.”