THE DECEIVERS

Mr. Larsen has written a great deal for young people which may explain his frequent asides to the reader here-- whoever he may be. His deceivers, taken from the files of the past, indulged in swindles, impostures, mild frauds of all kinds-- cold cream to gold. Among them Count Cagliostro whom Carlyle called the quack of quacks; Mary Wilcox who claimed to be the Princess of Caraboo and spoke Javasu; the famous Captain of Kopenick, the shoe machine operator who took and took over a whole town in his regimental uniform from a second hand store; Nova Scotian Esther Cox whose episodes presumably were phenomena of ""the power""; Alves Reis or The Man Who Stole Portugal (a biography to appear on the Scribner list); etc. etc. These lives in brief are interesting enough but are not presented with the guile they no doubt were capable of. Peripheral.