• tallricefarmer
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    6 months ago

    damn the guy lied himself into a pretty deep hole. it is a shame he felt suicide was his only option. sure his reputation was ruined, but he was young. he could have started a new life elsewhere

      • Lumisal@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        Yeah but back then pictures weren’t common and you could just grow a beard, decide your name is now Thames Twice, and move to another town really fast away while still letting your title as chemist, since document verification was really hard to do unless it was for some bigwig (and even then you could sometimes get in). If you really want to sell the act he could learn an exotic foreign language like Swedish and say he studied in Sweden too, but had English parents and that’s why he spoke English so fluently. Most of proving why you are cage by showing you could do the skills you claimed you had.

        That’s why charlatans could live a life of scamming.

          • Lumisal@lemmy.world
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            6 months ago

            BECAUSE pictures weren’t common, it was hard to start a new life. If you were an adult and knew no one in the town you arrived at, no one would trust you, give you a job or rent out a room to you. Cause they’d all assume there was a good reason you ran away from the place where people knew you, and there was no way to verify if you were who you claimed to be.

            Ummm, people moved all the time. There wouldn’t be a reason to assume you were running from something. Have you never read a history book? You could even just be moving to a smaller town in the country side for “fresher air” to help your tuberculosis.

            If you had a profession, you needed a letter of recommendation from your former employer or your guild to vouch for you.

            Depends on the job, how much starting money you had, and where you’re moving too. You could for example say you’re moving to set up a chemist shop, especially in the smaller or more remote towns.