(Venereal Disease) | A warning to "the Youth of this Land"

(Venereal Disease)

An unusually frank account of venereal disease in The Boston Evening-Post. Boston: Printed by T. and J. Fleet, Monday, December 11, 1769

4 pages (375 x 238 mm) on a full sheet of laid paper, woodcut printer's device in masthead, text in three columns; browned, marginal dampstains, one small hole costing several letters, disbound. Framed and double-glazed. 

A warning to "the Youth of this Land" in a surprisingly frank account, for the colonial period, of sexual activity. The third page of this issue reprints a notice from the Essex Gazette of 28 November, describing in minute detail the appearance and clothing of a drifter and grifter calling himself Dr. John Jones. Readers are told in particular to "beware of lying in Bed and sleeping with a certain filthy Vagrant, who, by all accounts, has destroyed the health, if not the reputation, of a number of hopeful young Men, (sometimes since in the County of Hampshire, and more lately in the County of Essex, where he has been strolling about for these 7 or 8 months last past) in communicating to them the venereal disease, which he attempts by unnatural and detestable practices, while they are in deep sleep, so that he may impart the destructive venom before they are enough awake to make proper resistance."

Other news in the issue includes a list of local merchants accused of violating the Non-importation Agreement and a notice that Benjamin Franklin has been appointed as agent for New Jersey to Great Britain.