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CHAPTER XII.

IT

SWINDLES AND HOAXES.

T is of course only natural that as soon as advertising became general, that portion of the community which regards the other portion as its oyster, was not slow to discover the advantages which were soon to accrue in the way of increased facilities for publishing new dodges, or of giving extended scope to those which were old, but had so far attained only limited circulation. This has been so conclusively shown by specimens already given, and references made, that there is no necessity to discuss the question anew, and therefore we will at once plunge into the thick of those advertisements which have special qualifications for treatment different from that given to the milder classes of rogues and scoundrels. The first transaction which calls for attention is in connection with Queen Anne's farthings. No popular delusion has perhaps made more dupes than that relating to these coins. Innumerable people believe that there never were but three farthings of this description, two of which have found their way in due course to the British Museum, the third only being still abroad; and it is also believed that the Museum authorities would give a very large sum for the possession of the missing token. Now there are no less than six distinct varieties of Anne's farthings known to exist, and specimens of them are not at all rare. Some of them may be procured at the coin-dealers, for ten or twelve shillings; but there is one variety, struck in 1713, which is extremely rare, and would bring from £5 to £10.

There is also a small brass medal or counter of Queen Anne, about the size of a farthing, of which there are hundreds. A publican once procured one of these, and placed it in his window, ticketed as "the real farthing of Queen Anne." Credulous persons came from far and near to view this wonderful curiosity, and the owner turned his deception to good account.

Sometime about the first quarter of this century, a man in Ireland received twelve months' imprisonment for secreting a Queen Anne's farthing. He was shopman to a confectioner in Dublin, and having taken the farthing over the counter, he substituted a common one for it. Unfortunately for him, he told his master how he had obtained it, and offered it to him for sale. The master demanded the treasure as his property, the shopman refused to give it up, was brought into the Recorder's Court, and there received the above sentence. When rogues fall out, honest men know what they have lost. It is wrong to assume that because thieves quarrel, their natural enemies "get their own." At all events, experience has never taught us so, and the proverb, as generally read, is wrong.

Numerous are the instances of people having travelled from distant counties to London, in order to dispose in the best market of the supposed valuable farthing. The custodian of the medals in the British Museum used to be besieged by applicants from all parts of the country, offering Queen Anne's farthings and imitations of them for sale, and of course the dealers in coin even now receive a liberal share of the same annoyance. Whence the treacherous fable originally sprung has never been satisfactorily explained. It is certain that Anne's farthings never were very common, though of one variety, coined in 1714, not less than from 300 to 500 must have been put in circulation. But the others were mere patterns, and were never struck for currency: all of them were coins of great beauty, and for this reason, as well as on account of their being the only copper

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coins struck in the reign of Queen Anne, it is probable that they were soon hoarded and preserved as curiosities, thereby acquiring an imaginary value, which grew rapidly as soon as some sharp fellow saw how useful the figment might be made. But the immediate cause of the popular fallacy concerning the scarcity and great value may be found in the fact, that at the end of the last century a lady of Yorkshire having lost one of these coins, offered a large reward for it. Probably it was valuable to her as a souvenir of some departed friend; but the advertisement, and the comparative scarcity of these farthings, gradually led to the report that there was only one such token in circulation, and that the unique coin was of course of almost priceless value. Long before this, however, advertisements in reference to Anne's farthings had found their way into the papers. ́ So far as we can discover, the first of these appeared in the General Advertiser of April 19, 1745, and ran as follows :—

WHEREAS about seven years ago an Advertisement was published

in some of the Daily Papers offering a Reward for a Queen Anne's Farthing struct in the year 1714.

This is to inform the CURIOUS

That a Farthing of Queen Anne of that year of a very beautiful dye may be seen at the Bar of the Pensylvania Coffeehouse in Birchin Lane. The impression is no ways defaced but as entire as from the Mint.

This, probably, just at the time when a furor was in existence with regard to the farthings, must have given a fillip to the business at the Pennsylvania Coffee-house; and must have done a great deal to spread the belief that a Queen Anne's coin was much more desirable than the wonderful lamp of Eastern story, or the more modern but quite as powerful four-leaved shamrock. That in 1802 the fiction was still lively is shown by an advertisement which appeared in the February of that year. This was disguised so as to appear like an ordinary paragraph :—

The Queen Anne's farthing, advertised to be disposed of in Pall

Mall, proves to be an original. There were only two coined in that Queen's reign, and not three as has been erroneously stated. That which was sold by the sergeant from Chatham for £400, was purchased by a noble viscount, curious in his selection of coins, &c. Seven Hundred guineas was the price asked for the one advertised last week. Five hundred was offered for it and refused. The owner lives at Lynn, in Norfolk. The offer was made by the son of a baronet, who wants to complete his collection.

Attention and credulity were so excited by the above paragraph, and many others of the same tendency, that no one thought of doubting that a Queen Anne's farthing was worth more than a Jew's eye; nor was it till some time after that the whole was discovered to be a fabrication, intended either to impose upon the credulity of the public, or, what is more likely, to enhance the value of such a coin to the holder, who was quietly waiting to realise. Whether he did.

so or not does not appear, but it is more than likely that he did not allow his opportunity to slip, but hooked one of those unconsciously greedy people who are always falling victims to their own selfishness as much as to the sharpers, and who, as soon as they are deluded, look for sympathy and redress to those very laws they were prepared to outrage when anything was apparently to be got by so doing. The belief that Queen Anne's farthings are very valuable still obtains among the vulgar, notwithstanding the many times its absurdity has been exposed; and there is no particular reason for imagining that it will become at all exploded until some fresher but quite as illogical a fiction is ready to supply its place.

One of the most notorious swindlers of the early part of the present century was Joseph Ady, who used to profess that he knew "something to your advantage." As he did not deal in advertisements, perhaps he has no right here; but as about 1830 he was constantly being referred to in newspaper paragraphs, and was a feature of the time among sharpers, he is entitled to passing notice, if only as a newspaper celebrity. At the period we mention, "Ady was a

decent-looking elderly man, a Quaker, with the external respectability attached to the condition of a housekeeper, and to all appearance considered himself as pursuing a perfectly legitimate course of life. His métier consisted in this. He was accustomed to examine, so far as the means were afforded him, lists of unclaimed dividends, estates or bequests waiting for the proper owners, and unclaimed property generally. Noting the names, he sent letters to individuals bearing the same appellatives, stating that, on their remitting to him his fee of a guinea, they would be informed of something to their advantage.' When any one complied, he duly sent a second letter, acquainting him that in such a list was a sum or an estate due to a person of his name, and on which he might have claims worthy of being investigated. It was undeniable that the informa-. tion might prove to the advantage of Ady's correspondent. Between this might be and the unconditional promise of something to the advantage of the correspondent, lay the debatable ground on which it might be argued that Ady was practising a dishonest business. It was rather too narrow a margin for legal purposes; and so Joseph went on from year to year reaping the guineas of the unwary-seldom three months out of a police court and its reportstill his name became a byword; and still, out of the multitudes whom he addressed, finding a sufficient number of persons ignorant of his craft, and ready to be imposed upon—and these, still more strange to say, often belonging to the well-educated part of society." In all the police cases we have come across, in which Ady was concerned, he seems to have considerably "sat upon" the magistrates, the "great unpaid" of the City being quite unable to hold their own with him, notwithstanding the disadvantage at which Joseph was placed.

The claims for precedence of the two most important

* Book of Days.

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