Page:The London Guide and Stranger's Safeguard.djvu/113

Rh jobber lived in affluence. Such information is seldom untrue; for they are for the most part reduced tradesmen, (who have therefore a long string of acquaintance,) that live by this mode of carrying on trade: neither is the thing in itself disreputable, unless when made so by the introduction of arts and wiles, and misrepresentations to obtain sale, and cheatery in the weight or measure when sold. It cannot be commendable, either for the jobbers to watch strangers into public houses, there to press upon them by plausible arguments, articles for which they have no immediate necessity; therefore, let me advise the reader, with a

N.B. Not to make purchases in public houses at all, even though he should once have known, under very different circumstances, the poor man who tenders his bargains for sale; for the practice of such an itinerant way of trade, with all its concomitants of persuasion and deception, effectuates an alteration in the character and principles, us well as the manner of life, of the best men in the world; while the balance in point of numbers, is considerably in favour of the totally different sort among us. For instance, what ought we to think of a man, who, after sustaining for years an unimpeachable name, and