The Evansville daily journal. [volume] (Evansville, Ia. [i.e. Ind.]) 1848-1862, 1861-03-06
A GIgantIc swIndIe in PrOgress-Thc


credulous both rich and poor, known as the
b" Dollar Jewelry Trade" has begun to M |
fold itself in this city, and thousands OF
agents will soon be dispatched to all quar-
tiers of the Union, the Canadas, Mexico,
South America and the West Indies, with
the design of reaping a plentiful harvest
while the enterprise lasts, and before
the game shall be blown" The honor OF
the conception of this swindle belongs to a
well-known firm in the gift-5ook business.
Perceiving tagging in their business, and
feeling the want of some brilliant scheme to
revivify their trade and keep the flow of
money steady to their eoffers-after a great
deal of labor, one of the firm conceived the
present adroit plan. The costliest part of
the apparatus used in the manufacture of
this gift stuff is undoubtedly the mOulds
and forms in which the jewelry, the brace
let's, chains, rings, lockets, &C., are shaped
and cut And were they obliged to have
these moulds and forms made expressly tor
them, changed too with each new fashion
originated in Ornamental jewelry, their profits
would be lessened nearly one-half from the
figure they now amount to. But this they
do not do. They avail themselves of what
in the business is known as the AttLebOro
Dodge This is the old plan adopted years
iewelry, who bought from the leading and
really honest houses in the trade the mOulds
with which they had made the positive and
substantial gold jewelry, of course of the
latest pattern too in these moulds then
they cast their own cheap composition met
ais and out of them turned most deceptive
imitation of the true article. 1t is in such
moulds, then, purchased even third-hand
from these last manufacturers, that
our "Dollar Jewelry" men make up
these articles which for the last
six weeks have been seen and wondered
over by the public, exhibited in certain shop
windows in our principal thoroughfaIes.-
Every species of jewelry ornament is made
up the same sets of earrings and breast
pins, bracelets, watch-chains, rings, seals,
neutrality-suspicious. set with those French
| glass baubles, tinted to represent pearls !;
some with polished white and colored bone,
cut and fashioned in imitation of coral
some with plaster mouldings and called
canoes; some with daubngs on shaded
| clay, to initiate mosaics all of them set in,
attached to, or surrounded by the so-called
GOLD and each piece displayed in the win
dows and spread out on cards in glass cases
| inside the store, and labeled prominently,
with placard on which, in staring letters,
is painted, " Any article Of jeaceIry IN this
store for ONLY ONE DOLLAR" Reader, let US
tell you that in seven-eights of this stuff
there is not one grain Of gold and even in
that single proportion the quantity of gold
in each piece does not amount to the value
| of t,OO and a half cents
| A very brilliant idea, indeed then, was it
! to manufacture a lot of this trumpery, the
most xpensive-looking piece of which does
not cost, for the metal, moulding, putting
| together, and making up, thirty-eight centsl
and which is sold at the ruinous price of
"one dollar" sacrificed of course merely to
get the cash wherewith to meet their notes,
save themselves from the obligation to sus-
pend or fail, and preserve their honor as
| merchants ! About ten weeks ago the first
sh op for the sale of this trash was opened in
Philadelphia, and about the same time
another was started in Boston. 1t is not
quite two months since the {" original one
was started 10 Broadway in this city. And
now they swarm in every prominent prom
enade and business street of each of these
cities, and are represented by at least one in
almost every town or city of any prominence
in the Union, East, North, and West. You
can hardly pass block in any of the streets
usually crowded with promenaders, with
out coming across one of these dens, the snowy
windows surrounded with a greedy and ad-
miring crowd. 1t is fearful and astOund-
ing fact that although this Dollar Jewel
| ry" humbug has not been two months in
troduced, there are now no less than TWEEN
ty-six different places where it is on sale in
New York alone, and half as many in
Brooklyn and Williamsburgh. The city is
positively flooded With it and unless the
public accept the warning in time these
men who have gotten up this fraud will ac-
tually fulfill their intention, in originating
it, of actually dipping the credulOus of the
city and country out of more than five mil
lion dollars, which they have earned hard
enough, but which in such a case as this,
to purchase this stuff would be nothing less
than casting it with open eyes and clear
senses, yet wantonly, into the streets !
Brother Jonathan.