CLEVER IMPOSTURE.

Samoa Times and South Sea Gazette, Issue 52, 28 September 1878, Page 2

CLEVER IMPOSTURE.

Tin- fondon correspondent of the Xfclliniirn.. Ap.n» ~,..;,., „f .!

bourne Argus says :•—The wits ol those who live upon their wits in those days tiro certainly kept in n very commendable stafe of sharpness. Opportunities nra " improved " with n promptitude which, if tUcy wnn> but of n moral instead of :i pecuniary kind, would )«> worthy of (ho jiighost eulogy, and which, short and Hooting as they may be, suffer nothing to escape tlipiu. A strike among workpeople is not supposod to bo odvantageoui save to ono or two official agents. It is ditli- ■ tilt, one would think, to got much out of a "picket," or to derive an income from the very lack of means of one's follow* -matures. An astute gentleman al Bolton, however, of no profession whatever ("unless that of plating a tin pine outside public-house* can booalledone), has found the present " depression of trade " a considerable source of emolument. Having

procured a joiner's hag and a few old tools,he went from town to town to all appearance ia search of employment Ai every stution he was met fhio royalty' by obsequious strangers—the pickets' wishing to know his business and to see he did nut interfere with the rights of labour. "We are all on strike here." they cried, " and you must not array your skill and talents against the rights of labour. If necessity compels you ." " It does, my dear friends," he put in. " Thou there ia half-a-soveroign and your return fare." He was also "treated' very handsomely. The next day ho visited some other town with the like it>suits. Altogether, he confessed to his private friends that playing at carpentering and joining was a much better business than playing his tlnpipe outside the public-houses. At last they caught him indulging in " a little music in the evening" of this description; and his face was almost like that of Marsyas—tiiey very marly skinned him alive. But before that denouuient took place he had skinned the joiners handsomely, and made a pretty penny. Even this feat of imposture, however, sinks into insignificance beside that of tho wretch who, pretending to be a doctor, the other day obtained access to the sick room of a dying child, tended him, or, rather, feined to do so, for hours, in consultation with two genuine medicos, read prayers by his bedside, and then descending into tho dining-room, and taking advantage of the careless wrought in the establishment by death, took a good square meal, and do amped with alf the portable property he could lay his hands upon. His opportunity was this, that, passing by tho house and seeing one of the servants rushing out for medical aid, ho quietly said, " 1 am a doctor," just as ho '. ould hav,; said, "I am aelergymon " (he carried a prayer-book in his pocket), I) i a 'iioro spiritual line of business presented itself. In comparison with this sympathetic and religious doctor (who, by-the-bye, was carotid to impress upon his two medical confreres that he was adverse to the administrali m of stimulants in these cases), all other swindlers must hide their diminished heads ; otherwise, to stand in a church porch with a plate of your own, and offer it to the good folks coming out, bowing low at each contribution, and afterwards pocketing the sum total, used to be thought rather a clover trick in the pseudo-devotional line.