I randomly came across this little advert in the archives of The Record, the local newspaper of South Melbourne in Australia.
It was so odd and reminiscent of today’s Viagra spam emails that I thought I’d share it.
The Record
South Melbourne, Australia
Friday, 12 September 1884
To all who are suffering from the errors and indiscretion of youth, nervous weakness, early decay, loss of manhood etc I will send a recipe that will cure you, FREE OF CHARGE.
This great remedy was discovered by a missionary in South America.
Send a self addressed envelope and six pence to prepay postage to the Rev. Joesph T Inman, Station D, New York City. USA.
I guess this is the Victorian ancestor of all those scam emails we get today.
Someone, somewhere must’ve fallen for it.
Turns out the ‘Rev Joseph T Inman’ was a legendary 19th-century fraudster. It seems he was involved in occult fraud and operated under a series of weird and wonderful aliases.
One of his stranger aliases was ‘Madame E. F. Thornton, the great English Astrologist, Clairvoyant and Psychometrician’, who advertised a fantastically named fictional contraption called a Psychomotrope.
Raymond, Mississippi. Friday, 19 April 1867.
The US Postal Service eventually opened an investigation into him and uncovered a network of fake newspaper ads designed to defraud the gullible.
It seems Inman picked up the cash mailed in by the unsuspecting and, as one theory goes, his real business was the re-sale of respondents’ names, addresses and personal information, presumably to other fraudsters.
Sound familiar ?
So yeah... 