A Village idler decided to play a trick and told people he would show a horseless wheel carriage. They came and paid. He showed a wheel-barrow.
If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.
JBR Collection
A waggish idle fellow in a country town, being desirous of playing a trick on the simplicity of his neighbours, and at the same time to put a little money in his pocket at their cost, advertised that he would on a certain day show a wheel carriage that should be so contrived as to go without horses. By silly curiosity the rustics were taken in, and each succeeding group who came out from the show were ashamed to confess to their neighbours that they had seen nothing but a wheel-barrow.
Northcote
[Note: The Northcote fable is the same fable as in the JBR Collection above. Only the illustrations and Application associated with the fable in the Northcote book are displayed here.]
Application
It is mortifying to see by what artful knavery one half of the world impose on the folly of the other, as we may perceive in those splendid advertisements of Quacks in every department, who pretend to possess all knowledge, and to perform miracles; that by their false pretences gain the property, or destroy the health of those simple readers who are deluded by their specious cant, and who find out when it is too late, that the wretch in whom they trusted, knew no more than themselves, and that instead of being endowed with superior knowledge, was only their superior in knavish art; J. N.
