Ashtabula telegraph. (Ashtabula, Ohio) 1874-1880, 1874-04-18
OUR NEW YORKLETrER.
Black -1EailiRg--Hoac it is done and uhO
are the Ttctims- Temperance Currency
Buaness-h5e Builders and Trades In
Distress.
BLACK MAILING.

BLACK MAILING.
In grca; city, it Is safe to say, that
nearly one half of the pOpulsuon have
no good reasons for living. The number
of rum-sellers, gamblers, thieves, con
Fl lence men, and people who steal liv
ing, would, ifput together, make an army
large enough to have crushed the rebel
lion. now speak of the male ulcers on
the body politic-there are at least sc, 600
women in the city who live by equally
disrrputable means.
The meanest and most dcspicable of all
the scoundrels, who infest the city, next
to the polititians, are the
PROFESSIONAL BLACK MAILERs,
and few paragraphs devoted 10 them may
be OF interest to you ladies. The black
mailer is man, or woman who possesses
some knowledge of another person which
will not bear open daylight, and then ex-
tort money as the price of silence For
instance. the professional black-mailer
goes night after night 10 a fashionable
gambling house, and watches closely the
players. They are admirable judges of
human nature, indeed this is the first
qualification of the business. He fixes up
on some nervous player who is losing
heavily, and notes to a dollar his losses.
When the player finally quits and leaves
tie house, he does not know that he is
being followed, and that the street and
does he know that a walchful eye follows
him the next morning 10 the bank or of
fee where he is employed, and that by
noon of that day every fact in his history
IN the possession of a cool, calculating
merciless scoundrel. who by knowing
what he is, has hold on him that will
ruin him. We will assume that the VIC
tim observed in the gambling house is the
cashier Of bank. From the moment
the blaek-mailer spotted him he is not out
ofhls sight for an instant. His losses
are carefully noted, his goings TO and fro
are observed and noted, and every Incl
dent that at all compromises him is set
down with circumstance. For, be it
known, he who CANDLES has other vices
in fact the most of the raw men at gam
bling tables are those who have squan-
dered money not theirs on unlawful
pleasures, and they fly TO gambling in
the hope of getting even by stroke of
luck.
When the black-mailer has got "points"
enough ON his man-thal is when he has
facts concerning him, which if made
known to his employers or family, would
ruin him-he moves on him. He takes
him aside and tells him boldly what he
knows Ofbim, and fixes the sum at which
his silence can be assured. The victim
puts on bold front and defies him. Mr..
black-mailer expects this; and it dOsen't
move him. He pulls out of his breast
pocket little book, and he reads to him
that on such night he lost $4,000 at John
Chamberlin's; on such another night
81 900, on another night he was at an
assignation house, in 23d street, with a
woman closely yelled, but whose name
is So-and-SO, and moreover he pays the
board of Miss So-and-So, at such street
and number; in short the black mailer
reads to his victim a complete history of
his secret life. so methodically arranged
as to make denial useless. And after
this no denial is made He willis and grad
ually pays the pIice demanded.
But 1t does not end here. Having once
paid he belongs soul and body to his
tormeDtor. The threats of exposure, so
af1cacious the first time are equally so
the second. He comes again and again,
until the dupe becomes desperate and flies
the country.
Frequently they do not wait for COM
mission of crime. They selecta timid
nervous man and threaten to accuse him
of crime if he does not come down hand
somely, and in many cases they succeed,
the victim submitting to be bled rather
than to be accused. One of these gentle
men met his match the other day. A
black-mailer, graduate of the State Pris-
on, accused a clerk of stealing from his
employer, and proposed 10 "hush the
thing" for $500. The intended victim
gave seeming assent, but privately
made arrangements with the police and
had his black mailer arrested with the
money in his hand 1t was fortunate
that the clerk had pluck. Had he yield
ed to the first demand for money, he
would have found himself compelled,
in time, to pay over to his accuser every
dollar that he could save or steal.
WOMEN
make the best game ior these fellows. If
a married woman INDUCES in what, 10
her seems, to be an innocent Irritation"
ana happens to fall into the hands of one
of these men, it costs her dear. 30 val
liable is her reputation that rather than
have it called in question, she will do
anything. She pays the scroundrel mon
ey, sllver-ware, jewelry, anything, as the
price OF silence, for they imagine thou
sand evils where none could possibly oc-
curr. Next to women,
CLERGYMEN
are tie favOrite victims of black mailers,
Tor their position is so peculiar and un-
certain. In their cases. the services of
some fair but abandoned woman are
brought into requisition. Some years ago
distinguished preacher in Broadway
church resigned his charge and left the
city broken-hearted, because he had per-
mltted himself to he plundered by band
of men and women who had combined
to place him in a false position. His
friends felt that he was innocent, and yet
they advised him to go, because his
weakness had put him under suspicion.
He had been sent for to console dying
woman, and he went was ushered into
the room. and left alone with her, aud
was then surprised by confederate, who
claimed to be the Woman's husband. the
sha a