Fraudulence

Fraudulence

See also Forgery, Hoax.

Cagliostro

lecherous peasant posing as count. [Ital. Hist.: Espy, 335]

Confidence Man, the

an imposter who gulls passengers on a Mississippi steamboat. [Am. Lit.: Melville The Confidence Man in Magill III, 221]

Duke and the King, the

a pair of charlatans exposed by Huckleberry Finn. [Am. Lit.: Mark Twain Huckleberry Finn]

Gantry, Elmer

personifies hypocrisy and corruption in America’s religious practices. [Am. Lit.: Elmer Gantry]

Inspector General, The

pretending to be a government inspector, Khlestakov takes bribes and woos the mayor’s wife and daughter. [Russ. Lit.: The Inspector General]

Krull, Felix

lives a double life, passing himself off under various identities. [Ger. Lit.: Mann The Confessions of Felix Krull in Magill III, 218]

Medium, The

Menotti opera about a fraudulent medium haunted by her own hoax. [Am. Opera: Benét, 653]

Mississippi Bubble, the

land speculation scam; ultimately back-fired on creators. [Am. Hist.: Jameson, 326]

Pathelin, Master

small-town lawyer cheats his draper, who cheats a shepherd, who hires Pathelin and then cheats him out of his fee. [Fr. Drama: Haydn & Fuller, 466]

Peters, Jeff

made a career out of schemes for bamboozling the public. [Am. Lit.: O. Henry “The Gentle Grafter”]

Sabbatai Zevi

false messiah, head of Kabbalic movement in mid-1600s. [Jew. Hist.: Wigoder, 544]

Schicchi, Gianni

effects a fraudulent will on the pretence that he is the testator. [Ital. Hist. and Opera: Gianni Schicchi in Collier’s]

Sludge, Mr.

medium pretends to greater powers and deceives many people. [Br. Lit.: Browning Dramatis Personae in Magill IV, 250]

Tchitchikov

attempts to make a fortune by buying up land-lords’ titles to dead serfs in order to mortgage them for capital. [Russ. Lit.: Gogol Dead Souls]

Tichborne

case false claimant to the Tichborne baronetcy sentenced to fourteen years’ imprisonment. [Br. Hist.: Brewer Dictionary, 898]

wooden nickel

cheap counterfeits circulating in 1850s America. [Am. Hist.: Brewer Dictionary, 1164]

wooden nutmeg

sold by dishonest Connecticut peddlers as real thing. [Am. Hist.: Brewer Dictionary, 1164]