(no subject)

[moultery]

The Dead Letter Office sale catalogue of December 1865 provided a handy snapshot of what some citizens would be getting for Christmas at the unwitting expense of others: alongside many pairs of socks, gaiters and gloves were quackeries named Cheeseman's Pills, Rand's Specific Pills, Dr Clarke's Female Pills, Dr Harvey's Female Pills, and Culverwell's Regenerator (not forgetting unguents for the hair and the cure-all Tennessee Swamp Shrub). Other items: ‘Syringe, Complete’, ‘False Bosoms’, ‘Soldier's Writing Desk’, ‘President Lincoln's Funeral Car’ (engraving of), ‘French Preventative’, ‘Hands for Watches’, ‘Copying Machine’, ‘Catechism of Steam Engine’, an item merely listed ‘Housewife’ and an item listed ‘Rejected Wife’. The most common items were watches and finger rings. The most intriguing was lot 42: ‘Destroyed’.

— from To The Letter by Simon Garfield