Note 215 — Chapter X · Farther Observations at Great Salt Lake City.

Bogus, according to Mr. Bartlett, who quotes the “Boston Courier” of June 12, 1857, is a Western corruption of Borghese, “a very corrupt individual, who, twenty years ago or more, did a tremendous business in the way of supplying the great West and portions of the Southwest with counterfeit bills and drafts on fictitious banks.” The word is now applied in the sense of sham, forged, counterfeit, and so on; there are bogus laws and bogus members; in fact, bogus enters every where.