Friday, January 22, 2010

2 of Spades

Bampfylde Moore Carew

Bampfylde Moore Carew was an English rogue, vagabond and imposter, who claimed to be "King of the Beggars". Carew claimed to be a master of disguise. He masqueraded as a shipwrecked sailor (a popular way to claim alms), a clergyman, a rat-catcher and then as a woman whose daughter had been killed in a fire, (another staple of fraudulent beggars). He escaped being pressed to serve in the Navy by pricking his hands and face, and rubbing in bay salt and gunpowder, so as to simulate smallpox.

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