Page:The London Guide and Stranger's Safeguard.djvu/238

222 house he bolted with the bag, which became good prize. This was made a criminal charge of, but would not stand good; nor would the lesser one, of "obtaining goods under false pretences;" for he took the precaution of obtaining an account of the books, in which he was made debtor for every article, and he afterwards served his time out in the Fleet.

in the newspapers, of the most captivating kind, are meant to entrap the unwary by their apparently ingenuous offers. At times they offer loans of money, or want to borrow at extravagant interest; oftener they have a trade or well accustomed shop to dispose of, or an invention for which a patent has been obtained;—all these may be known by the eagerness they evince to get hold of the deposit, which is usually demanded; their hurried manner, pompous pretensions, and volubility, declare at once their views. Some years ago, one of them (named a few pages higher up) opened an office for forming matrimonial alliances; a bugbear that soon became exposed by the baseness of its conductor, whose views were directed towards the pockets of his dupes so flagrantly, as to approach the character of crime to that robbery,—only with more finesse.