The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1849-04-03 00:00:00

lace in

.
as great numbers as in more unsophistocated localities, were
daily victimized. Even in London, however, at that time,
the evil was not much more rife than it is in some other
large towns, and perhaps in Liverpool at the present mo-
ment ; and in default of the presence of a local Sir Peter

to undertake the work, we feel it incumbent upon us to
put our fellow-townsmen upon their guard,
to its existence, and the modes and macs
it is carried on.
`• What," it w

reith respect
ry by which

ked by some of our readers, " is
We reply, by introducing such rea:
The locality
_is generally an un-

11 be as

a canting auction
ders to the scene itself

occupied shop, in some busy street, which an auctioneer,
apparently dropped from the clouds, has taken, ," for a li-
mited period," as the play bills have it, for the charitable
purpose of disposing of astounding bargains—Brummagem
wares, glass, cutlery, jewellery, cloths, &c., all at prices
less by one-half than what a respectable burglar would
have stolen them for. As you pass by the door in the day-
light you are always politely requested to walk in, ladies
and gentlemen, the sale's just a-going to begin ;" and
should you, foolishly, accede to the invitation, and put
your foot inside of the Cheap-John establishment, you
generally find that your own individual presence was all
that was wanted to form a company of eager purchasers.
It may, perhaps, be a source of wonder to you where the
somewhat seedy-looking personages, in whose company
pay for the lots knocked down to them. Be easy on that
score, however. Depend upon it they are as much part
and parcel of the strange auctioneer as his boots, or his
hammer. They could afford to buy his whole stock and
be none the poorer. In a word, they are sham men ; and
if you are tempted to become a bidder, you are sure to be
made a buyer, and the only fool in company. At night,
however, when the glare of gas-light is thrown upon the
wares displayed, it is lamentable to see that foolery is in
the ascendant; and that the places in question are fre-
quently crowded with real buyers of imaginary bargains,
which turn out in the morning to be trash, which no re-
spectable tradesman would offer to his customers, and,
sold at about double the real value.
The worst sales of this class are those in which the stock
consists of jewellery, in which brooches, rings, &c„ of the
market price of from sixpence to a shilling, are put up as
made'of the genuine metal, and dazzling the eyes of the
ignorant with the splendour of their gilt wash and coloured
glass, for stones, are frequently palmed upon the unwary.
We have heard of some doings, recently, in our town, in
this line, which have been managed with a degree of tact
sufficient to throw even moderately wary people off their
guard. The only sure protection is for the public to bear
in mind that if a lot is knocked down to a bona fide bid-
der—to any, in fact, but the hired " sweeteners"—the
buyer is victimized. Probably, the articles next in order,
in which the buyer gets sheer trash for his money, are
those of woollen cloth and hardwares. The former is rot-
ten rubbish ; the latter equally worthless.
It is really time that a stop was put to these disgraceful
practices. In the first place it is not just to the honest
shopkeepers in the town that mere hawkers—the same
class of men who in olden times victimized country bump-
kins at our fairs—should be tolerated when carrying on
their depredations upon so large a scale, in premises for
which they have not contributed a farthing to the local
rates of the town. It is unjust also to our respectable
auctioneers that strangers—men of whose characters we
know nothing, and the guarantee of whose honesty of
dealing is probably worth nothing, should be permitted,
by the mere force of their having taken out a license, to
gull the people of our own town. Here legislation might
interpose with advantage, and with much reason. What
would we think of a marine store dealg,yeceiving his li-