The Pulaski citizen. [volume] (Pulaski, Tenn.) 1866-current, 1874-05-21
The Patent SwindIe.


Is there to be no end to the swindles
perpetrated on the gullibls people of
the west, If not of the whole country,
by host of travelling sharpers, In the
sale of patent &c territory" to thousands
upon thousands of victims to these
patent territory Jeremy Diddlers p
Among the generally intelligent of the
commercial world there is hardly con-
ception of even tithing of these swim
dies. OF course the sufferers are of the
comparatively ignorant class, or at least
ignorant of the force and scope of our
patent laws otherwise the occupa-
ton OF these patent right thieves
would be "gone." Probably many OF
your general readers viii not do less
than believe me guilty of gross exag-
geration when I say that the aggregate
of the swindles or frauds upon the COM
paratively poor purchasers of "patent-
right territory" in the northwestern
states alone amounts TO one million dol
lars yearly, yet this estimate is very far
too small rather than exaggerated. One
Of these patent-right chaps, or some
tOnguey and of course INSCRIPTIONS
agent, comes along generally in pairs)
with " letters patent" to some Peter
Funk, giving Exclusive right to manu-
facture, use and sell" said Funk's pa
tent feIloe expander, or Buncombe's
patent gate fastener, or may be Did
dler's patent fly-catcher or moss attach
ment, and prOffers to sell, not the patent
article, but parcels of territory-that is,
to divide his patent into little parcels.
from that OF state down to a county
or even a township-pretending to give
the purchasers exclusive right to man
ufacture, use and sell" within his pur-
chased territory. The gudgeon is hook
ed. Some five or ten others of his gull
hble neighbors have bought each one
or more " county rights" the vender
has pocked from 81, 900 to S., 900, or, as
Is often the case, has made haul from
a single neighborhood of $4,000 to
500, 900, pocketed his cash, assigned to
some innocent third party his notes and
mortgages, and is suddenly gone to some
other " field of usefulness" to the
swindling fraternity. The poor victims
within week or month, or at least ulti-
mately, find out that so far as the pur-
chasing of thing of practical use or
value to them-no matter how valuable
the patent as a whOle-theymi Just as
well have purchased one screw from an
engine or one hoof from a horse that
their neighbor victim who has bought
the adjoining town or county can sell
or resold anywhere in the United States,
and therefore that both are clearly
swindled out of every cent paid the
vender of moonshine; and then both
go to work wiser, but financially, half
or wholly ruined men. Many hun
dreds of these patent swindlers, with
| their stOol-pigeon aceomplices, are now,
/ and long have been in every state, at
! least of the north and west, depredating
as stated nor can but rarely a town
ship, and probably nowhere a county,
be found that has not suffered every
year, or at least within say five years,
to the tune of many thousands at the
| hands of these infamous vendors of pa
tent-right territory. Surely some means
| should be sought and found to stay
these depredators from their infamous
work, if not to mete to them their Just
! penal dues for past villainies.- Western
! Subscriber Of NetO York Tribune.