24 FEBRUARY 1872, Page 3

The latest swindle discovered is a curiously clever and heartless

one. Some one has got up a story that the 1864 pennies are too good, gold having entered into them by mistake, and that the Post Office will give sixpence each for them. The story being swallowed, the confederates offer their victims—generally news- boys and children—to sell them the pennies for fivepence, leaving them a penny profit. The poor lads, who have evidently not profited, like Sam Weller, by the early education of the streets, hurry to the Post Office, to find that all pennies are alike. After all, though, scores of educated people believe in Queen Anne's farthings and the value of a million effaced stamps.