Sleek and Unctuous Church Member.
Personally he is sleek and unctuous, is always found among the godly, takes more interest in foreign missions than the every-day affairs of life, and fully expects to occupy a seat in the parquet of the New Jerusalem.
The money wrung by the basest of false pretenses from his poor unfortunate blind victims, does not disturb his slumbers. If he has any conscience at all he fortifies himself with the thought that "Jesus will bear it all," and lets it go at that.
Blind people, or those with failing eyesight, beware.
A close second to the above-named grafter, and in the same nefarious business, is Dr. M——.
This man's advertisements read very much like those of others in the same line of work. He also cures without the knife, but uses the scissors. His treatment is the same—boric acid and water.
This can do no possible good except in slight inflammations. It cannot cure cataract. It may be set down as a truth (ask any honest physician) that cataract is incurable except by surgical operations. Yet these men continue to advertise its cure, claiming to have a specific remedy that will absorb it. Dr. M—— is wealthy, all made out of the blind. While other men are giving of their wealth to ease the lives of these poor unfortunates, they are being systematically robbed in the most heartless and shame-faced manner.
Priceless is sight. A man or woman threatened with loss of it will give up their last dollar for a prospective cure. In this way these so-called "eye doctors" fatten on the credulity of their victims, doing them absolutely no good and quite often a serious injury.
Dr. M—— is also a devout church member. He can be seen hanging over the pew of a fashionable West Side church every Sunday. There he is hailed as a good brother by his fellow members, many of whom are as great, if not as successful, a grafter as he is. They use the cloak of religion in which to serve the devil.