A Deaf trader is accused of fakery- and responds strongly in a letter to defend his (and his family's) business reputation.
In 1915, a man named Hewitt who worked with a blind workshop in Belfast heard a man - possibly a fraudster - was claiming to sell rugs in Tyrone using the name of the Workshop for the Blind, and he urged people not to buy from him.
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| Source: Tyrone Constitution, 30 April 1915 |
But the man WAS actually Deaf - it was Patrick Hoey, a Deaf trader who worked with his family business. He wrote an angry letter in response to Hewitt in the pages of the Tyrone Constitution:
"I absolutely deny that I ever represented myself as in any way connected with the Workshops for the Blind, Belfast. I am deaf and dumb, am a native of Glenties, County Donegal, and my brothers and I have our place of business at Ormeau Road, Belfast, where some of the goods sold by us are manufactured by ourselves. On my handbills there is a statement that I have no connection with any institution. Mr. Hewitt's letter is calculated to seriously injure me and to lead the public to believe that I am an imposter. The goods I sell are perfectly genuine and of excellent quality and good value for the prices charged. I am more anxious to correct the unfair and misleading statements in Mr. Hewitt's letter, because I intend opening a place of business shortly in Fintona."
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| Source: Tyrone Constitution, 7 May 1915 |
