Page:The London Guide and Stranger's Safeguard.djvu/196

180. We now know persons who have emerged out of those professions, and become regular; but can the lion change its skin or the leopard its spots?

Nostrum-mongers abound, who prepare some panacea, that will cure various and discordant disorders; thus playing with the lives perhaps, certainly with the health and happiness of those who hearken to their advice.

Hand-bills and advertisements are the chiefest means of obtaining notice, the details of which are too disgusting to be copied into these pages. Whoever have been unfortunate enough to contract a certain loathsome disease, should be upon their guard against pretended doctors, whose chief object is to keep them in hand a long time, in order to make more charges: the fellows who sell ready-made medicines (called patent) are arrant cheats, inasmuch as the same preparation* cannot effect a cure in two stages of the same disorder. The publican's paper (as it is called) is almost daily crowded with these filthy invitations, and bombastic pretentions. Ladies, persons of delicacy, the totally uninformed on libidinous subjects, have that undescirable [sic] propensity thus continually pressed upon their notice, by being put immediately into their hands. This part of