Another class of deceptive advertisements are those offering remunerative employment to all persons without hinderance to present business, &c. We write of the class, and do not affirm that there are no exceptions. Generally the sum stated to be very easily earned is a tempting one to the class of people for whom it is intended. They send half-a-dozen or a dozen stamps, as requested, receive a reply, and then forward six or ten or sometimes twenty shillings in the nature of security, obtaining in return some articles of insignificant value for sale on commission. We have been informed that on one occasion the articles so sent were a few pencil-cases and trifles of like nature, by selling which, our informant stated, a very persevering man might realise one-fifth the income mentioned in the advertisement.
It is not often that the person defrauded finds himself amusingly hoaxed in addition; in this position, however, was the person who, reading an advertisement of a certain means of earning thirty shillings a day, which any one sending three stamps would be put in possession of, remitted them, and obtained the advice: 'Sell a ton of sugar a day at five per cent.'
We have seen that quacks, sham-usurers, &c. owing to the nature of their transactions, are generally safe from legal proceedings by any of their victims, who naturally are averse to appear before their friends and the public in such matters.
Some will suggest that the laws should be so amended as to punish severely persons guilty of the varieties of imposition we mention. We have no objection to such a remedy being sought for; but the best of all preservatives against flagrant attempts at imposition, is the exercise of a little shrewd common-sense, and, in time of need, an application to a legitimate quarter.
[A JOURNEY IN TURKESTAN.]
A good deal has been heard lately about Turkey and Turkestan. Leaving Turkey in the meanwhile to the newspapers, which have sad work in dealing with it, we wish to say a few words about Turkestan, a country that was taken possession of by Russia a few years ago. In the first place, where is Turkestan? It is a tract of country in Asia, lying on the east of the Caspian Sea, and having Persia and Afghanistan on the south. On the north, is that inland sheet of water known as the Sea of Aral, into which runs the river Oxus or Amu Daria. Near the left bank of this river, which drains Turkestan, is situated Khiva, the capital of the country. We should have heard little of this obscure Asiatic region but for the possibility of the Russians some day pushing their conquests onward through Afghanistan to India. On that we offer no opinion. The character of Turkestan has been materially cleared up by the work of Mr Eugene Schuyler, concerning whose travels we propose to say something.
Mr Schuyler started on his long journey in March 1873, travelling for some way in company with Mr M'Gahan, correspondent of the New York Herald, who a few months later, by reason of his interesting account of his desert ride to Khiva, awoke to find himself famous. Travelling on the smooth snow-roads with their tarantasses well packed with provisions, and strapped on to sledges, they struck across the Volga, through Orenburg to Uralsk, the capital of the Cossack settlement. Two or three native servants and an interpreter were added to the little party, which at first advanced by means of sledges, these being replaced by the luxurious tarantass—a carriage so built that the occupant can lie at length—when they suddenly passed from bitter winter into an oriental midsummer.
As the travellers steadily pursue their long way, the reader finds himself looking at an endless variety of dissolving views, all changing and shifting with the picturesque rapidity of kaleidoscope patterns. He sees in succession glimpses of the Aral Sea, great barren stretches of desert steppe, at first white with snow, and further on black, and then red, and afterwards more desolate than ever—the only human beings on it being wandering families of Kirghiz, going with their cattle, flocks, and kibitkas (tents), to seek pasturage south of Orenburg. The Kirghiz are a race of Turkish origin, speaking one of the purest Tartar dialects. They solicited Russian protection in the time of Peter the Great. They are Mohammedans, and possess as usual many wives, from whom they exact one very curious mark of respect. The women are not allowed to mention the name of any of their male relatives in conversation; and in illustration of the occasional inconvenience attendant on this custom, our author relates the following amusing anecdote: 'A Kirghiz woman wanted to say that a wolf had stolen a sheep and taken it to the reedy shore of the lake. Unfortunately, the men of the family bore names corresponding to most of these words, and she was obliged to gasp out "that in the rustling beyond the wet a growler gnaws one of our woollies."' This story shews that the Kirghiz are named after natural objects and animals, in the same way as in European nations.
Following the travellers along the river Syr Darya, and past the groves of dark-green trees marking the site of Turkestan, we see them at Tashkent, a flourishing quiet little town, where there is quite a colony of Russian officials and their families. Here is the palace of the governor-general, which stands in an immense garden, beautifully laid out; in summer every one migrates to the gardens outside the town, where they live in Kirghiz kibitkas, which are very spacious and comfortable. The native part of the town is interesting from the variety and unevenness of the buildings.