We are in the final days of the online portion of the Adopt-a-Book fundraiser before the night-of event on May 5. To encourage participation in the event, we’ve added a few more items to our online catalog. They highlight some vice up for adoption, as well as items in French, German, and Latin (oh my)!
From Norwich and Durham, Connecticut, these five indictments (see below) feature drinking, cursing, night walking, and playing cards from 1742-1781.
And someone should tell these petty criminals that it is a slippery slope down the road of fighting and night walking which could quickly lead to violence of all sorts. After all, the brother of Samuel Colt (of firearms fame), John Caldwell Colt, was an accountant
and author of a popular bookkeeping text—that is, before he became a murderer. Another item up for adoption is the Life & Confessions of John Caldwell Colt, which tells of the gruesome tale of a murder-suicide (with a hatchet and stabbing but not the famed Colt).
Perhaps you’re well-behaved and prefer using several languages instead of several weapons? Also up for adoption is a German-language monthly Der Erz-Druide from Quincy, Illinois. Speaking of (and in?) German, we also have a lithograph by Currier & Ives up for adoption: Beauty of the Rhine – Die Schönheit von dem Rhein is set with a bilingual title, and was likely intended to appeal to German-American customers. Interested in 
something else bilingual? We also have La Critique published in the Port of Spain, Trinidad; it is printed in English and French. If Latin is your game (ludicrum?) we also have a broadside up for adoption that lists the twenty-four 1799 graduates of Rhode Island College, later Brown University.
Show us your interest in America’s deep, colorful, and polyglot past! Come over to the Adopt-a-Book catalog and check out these items and more. Also, entrance to the night-of event is free if you pre-adopt from the catalog!
