[Ads-l] "hauling the wool over their eyes," -- 5-year antedating

[George Thompson]

            It appeared that thieves . . . have a set of technicalities by
which they can carry on their dialogues in the most public assemblages with
comparative security, such as "sand lay," "coal lay," "hauling the wool
over their eyes," &c. which mean that one should divert the attention of
the store-keeper or clerk, by the purchase of sand or coal, whilst the
other pillages the drawer, and afterwards "pulling the wool over his eyes,"
by returning and enquiring the time, or on some other petty excuse which
may tend to lull suspicion.
            NY Times, September 5, 1834, p. 2, cols. 3-4


OED:
Phrases and proverbial sayings.  (a) against the wool: contrary to the
direction in which wool naturally lies, the wrong way.  (b) to draw (pull,
†spread) the wool over (a person's) eyes: to make blind to facts, to
hoodwink, to deceive. Originally U.S.   ***
(b)
1839    Jamestown (N.Y.) Jrnl. 24 Apr. 1/6   That lawyer has been trying to
spread the wool over your eyes.
1842    Spirit of Times (Philadelphia) 29 Sept.   Look sharp, or they'll
pull wool over your eyes.
1855    F. M. Whitcher Widow Bedott Papers (1883) xv. 55   He ain't so big
a fool as to have the wool drawd over his eyes in that way.
*a*1859   in J. R. Bartlett Dict. Americanisms (ed. 2) 517   They think
they find a prize, If they can only pull their wool o'er other people's
eyes.
1884    W. D. Howells Rise Silas Lapham vii   I don't propose he shall pull
the wool over my eyes.


GAT

-- 
George A. Thompson
Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern
Univ. Pr., 1998.

But when aroused at the Trump of Doom / Ye shall start, bold kings, from
your lowly tomb. . .
L. H. Sigourney, "Burial of Mazeen", Poems.  Boston, 1827, p. 112

The Trump of Doom -- also known as The Dunghill Toadstool.  (Here's a
picture of his great-grandfather.)
http://www.parliament.uk/worksofart/artwork/james-gillray/an-excrescence---a-fungus-alias-a-toadstool-upon-a-dunghill/3851

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org