“We beg to caution our readers against the arts of all those who profess to supply the public with superior Spectacles; we have been for many years connected with the business, and we can assure the public that the Spectacle glasses sold by the advertising eye quacks are precisely the same as those provided by any respectable optician, the only difference being in the price. The charlatan varies his charge according to the gullibility of his dupes; sometimes he puts up with double the proper and regular price, but more frequently he exacts three or four times more than a regular and honest optician charges. We recollect a once famous optical quack, in London, who made a large fortune by cheating the public. He advertised _his_ superior glasses, which he assured the public were all ground to the true parabolic curve by his own hand, and for each of these glasses he charged four shillings, whilst the working optician who lived a few doors from him, and who furnished him with all his glasses, could only get nine pence for the very article for which the puffing eye doctor charged four shillings. As we knew both the parties we pledge ourselves to the fact, and, in conclusion, we advise the public to have nothing to do with quacks, whether they be scientific quacks, who are plentiful enough, or other quacks, who swindle people out of their health and cash at the same time.” CHAPTER VIII. “Who will, for him, may boast of sense, His better guard is impudence.” In the early part of the present year I addressed letters to several gentlemen who figure in the list of patrons to the advertising Spectacle quacks, and enclosed a copy of the advertisements in which their names had appeared as giving unqualified approval to the trickster’s _invention_. From the specimens I have given of such advertisements it is unnecessary to give a verbatim copy again here; and as the truths which this correspondence elicits apply to one and all of the puffing tribe, I have omitted the names of the individuals particularly alluded to, my object being to expose a _system_ of villainy, and not to denounce _one_ or _two_ rapacious creatures, while the rest of the clique escape detection. Therefore, although many of the remarks in these pages may seem to have only a local or particular reference, they are applicable to the whole tribe of _locusts_, and describe the species too definitely to admit of mistake. The characters sketched are not caricatures, but, unfortunately for the eyes of her majesty’s lieges, really exist _in propriâ personâ_. Feeling assured that the Duke of Wellington would rejoice to see an exposure of such tricksters, I forwarded to him a copy of Spectacle Secrets, and the following acknowledgment was promptly returned:— _Walmer Castle_, _Nov. 11, 1838_.