Quacker

1901–1947: Benjamin Albert Botkin, A Treasury of New England Folklore: Stories, Ballads, and Traditions of the Yankee People The decoy was what the townsman who had lent it to him called a "first-class quacker." The decoy quacked and swam about […]

[Y]ou have undertaken to rid all our newspapers and periodicals of untrue, unclean and dishonest advertisements. It seems to me that you have already gained your victory and henceforth have only to guard the fruits of it, for, recently I examined as many newspapers and magazines as I could lay hands on just to see if I could find in them those old, alluring advertisements, ranging from the quack doctor to the quacker promoter and the quackest oracle of fate. There was nothing doing—everything as clean as a hound's tooth and as wholesome as sunshine.