One circumstance occurred on the road, worthy of notice, and I believe this is the only instance where Jo ever exhibited true yankee wit. On our journey to Pennsylvania, we could not make the exact change at the toll gate near Ithaca. Joseph told the gate tender, that he would "hand" him the toll on his return, as he was coming back in a few days. On our return, Joseph tendered to him 25 cents, the toll being 12 1/2. He did not recognize Smith, so he accordingly gave him back the 12 1/2 cents. After we had passed the gate, I asked him if he did not agree to pay double gatage on our return? No, said he, I agreed to"hand" it to him, and I did, but he handed it back again.
This of course is the same person who argued he was innocent of having defrauded Josiah Stowell on the grounds that Mr. Stowell believed in the defendant’s ability to locate buried treasure with a peep stone…
And Truman Madsen didn't include that anecdote in his famous lectures. Funny, that.
"The Church is authoritarian, tribal, provincial, and founded on a loosely biblical racist frontier sex cult."--Juggler Vain "The LDS church is the Amway of religions. Even with all the soap they sell, they still manage to come away smelling dirty."--Some Schmo
This kind of incident shows that Joseph Smith was willing to lie regarding petty issues (saving a bit) as well as much larger issues (like lying about how many wives he had, or denying that he had any plural wives at all when he had more than 20 such wives).
Think about the stories that the Church would have been able to tell regarding his "scrupulous honesty" had Joseph Smith reminded the toll taker of who he was on the return trip and paid what he owed, rather than effectively cheating the toll road operators out of their toll.
David Hume: "---Mistakes in philosophy are merely ridiculous, those in religion are dangerous."
DrW: "Mistakes in science are learning opportunities and are eventually corrected."