man of intelligence and
reading. He attracts your attention by his "fair pretences." Arriving at
your journey's end, you miss your watch and your pocket-book. Your
fellow passenger proves to be the thief. Everybody calls him a
"pickpocket," and not withstanding his "fair pretences," not a person in
the community calls him a "humbug."

Two actors appear as stars at two rival theatres. They are equally
talented, equally pleasing. One advertises himself simply as a
tragedian, under his proper name--the other boasts that he is a prince,
and wears decorations presented by all the potentates of the world,
including the "King of the Cannibal Islands." He is correctly set down
as a "humbug," while this term is never applied to the other actor. But
if the man who boasts of having received a foreign title is a miserable
actor, and he gets up gift-enterprises and bogus entertainments, or
pretends to devote the proceeds of his tragic efforts to some charitable
object, without, in fact, doing so--he is then a humbug in Dr. Webster's
sense of that word, for he is an "impostor under fair pretences."

Two physicians reside in one of our fashionable avenues. They were both
educated in the best medical colleges; each has passed an examination,
received his diploma, and been dubbed an M. D. They are equally skilled
in the healing art. One rides quietly about the city in his gig or
brougham, visiting his patients without noise or clamor--the other
sallies out in his coach and four, preceded by a band of music, and his
carriage and horses are covered with handbills and placards, announcing
his "wonderful cures." This man is properly called a quack and a humbug.
Why? Not because he cheats or imposes upon the public, for he does not,
but because, as generally understood, "humbug" consists in putting on
glittering appearances--outside show--novel expedients, by which to
suddenly arrest public attention, and attract the public eye and ear.

Clergymen, lawyers, or physicians, who should resort to such methods of
attracting the public, would not, for obvious reasons, be apt to
succeed. Bankers, insurance-agents, and others, who aspire to become
the custodians of the money of their fellow-men, would require a
different species of advertising from this; but there are various trades
and occupations which need only notoriety to insure success, always
provided that when customers are once attracted, they never fail to get
their money's worth. An ho