CHAPTER V.

“Nothing extenuate or set down aught in malice.”—Shakspeare.

Someinstances 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 thepreservers, and finally purchased two pairs of hand-folding spectacles, for whichhe 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 forsucharticles is 10s.per pair.

In the same town the samedistinguishedindividual 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 toobligehim 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 tome; 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 saidyougave, 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 impostorstwo guineas, and a pair of tortoiseshell (whichdidsuit 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 washleathershe wiped the glasses, and, replacing them, bade adieu to thetestimonialedoptician.

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 unconsciousof 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 hisprofession, 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 manygraphicillustrations 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.”

[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.”

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