and pull teeth, knows something of medicines, is a rough barber, a bad but conceited cook, a good sawyer, can lay bricks, has worked in the corn fields, and can scratch a little on the fiddle.
He can do many other things; and what he cannot do, he pretends to have a knowledge of. His trades and qualities are thus detailed, because his vanity will undoubtedly lead to a display of them. His master-vice, or rather, the parent of all his vices, is a fondness for strong drink, though sometimes he will abstain for months. His clothes cannot be described, but he carried away few or none, and ’tis expected will appear shabbily. He is an artful fellow, and if taken up will tell a most plausible story, and possibly show a forged pass.
In 1806 the Connecticut Courant contained the following, which gives an unpleasant idea of what many wives might say in reply to the warning advertisements of desperate husbands if they only thought it worth while, or rather if they thought of it at all:—
East Windsor, U.S.
THOMAS Hutchins has advertised, that I have absented myself from his bed and board, and forbid all persons trusting me on his account, and cautioned all persons against making me any payment on his account. I now advertise the public, that the same Thomas Hutchins came as a fortune-teller into this town about a year ago, with a recommendation, which, with some artful falsehoods, induced me to marry him. Of the four wives he had before me, the last he quarrelled away; how the other three came by their deaths, he can best inform the public: but I caution all widows or maidens against marrying him, be their desire for matrimony ever so strong. Should he make his advances under a