The Jackson standard. [volume] (Jackson C.H., Ohio) 1847-1888, 1875-07-15
From the Scientific American.l
The Natural History of Swindles

The swindler is perennial, and always
busy. His methods vary with time and
circumstance, but at bottom he is always
the same. And there is, in the perma
nent propensity of men to be swindled, g
never-ending inducement for him to con
coct his swindling schemes. He simply
furnishes what the public call for.
What is the basis of this irrepressible
tendency to be "taken in"2 What are
the fundamental conditions of its devel
opment2
We refer chiefly to the amazing gulla
bility which induces or suffers men
practical men, so called-to honestly en-
ter upon mechanical and financial shemes
of enormous promise and certain failure.
The swindler has motive that can not
be mistaken: but what is the motive oi
the victim? Is it native stupidity, in
vincible ignorance, eagerness for sudden
riches, or what, that makes capitalists
notoriously shy of taking hold of enter
prises of real merit, so ready to invest
their money in palpable frauds?
There is need of another Darwin to
study the various species of swindles
Do they follow a consistent law of evolu-
ton, and mark successive stages of indi
vidual unwisdom and popularity and in.
capacity for learning? It would be GU
rious study-a consumedly interesting
study: we fear it would be as humiliating
to human pride and disastrous to our
theories of human progress. To. say the
best, it does take mankind a terrible
while to learn anything by experience or
otherwise.
A good deal of light has been cast on
many phases of gregarious foolishness-
of human sheepishness, as Sir Arthur
Helps cleverly characterizes the tendency
of men to "go with the crowd" right or
wrongly the study of epidemic delu-
sions, wherein whole communities, often
whole nations have gone mad with some
dominant idea as of witchcraft or the
like; but such studies throw little direct
light on the philosophy of swindles.
Those take possession of crowds; these
are limited in their operations to indi-
viduals.
Besides, epidemic delusions are always
of an emotional character, and have to do
primarily with spiritual affairs, though
their manifestations and results are often
enough grossly physical; while the swim
die has always a material object. To use
rough but sufficiently accurate figure,
the one usually speculates in corner lots
in the New Jerusalem, the other in
swamp lots in some wild cat city
of the Far West. The one trades on
the transmutation of the base metals of
human weakness and wickedness into
celestial gold by the violation of all social
and moral principles; the other on the
conversion of common lead into double
eagles by some impossible circumvention
of the laws of Nature.
In both there is firm, often intense,
belief in the incredible. In both there
is a confident expectation of getting a
very large something out of nothing, or
what is worse than nothing. In both
epidemic and individual delusions, too,
the victims are often men who, on other
subjects, are shrewd, sane, practical
The social conditions and current be-
liefs, which prepare the way for the
reign of the first, can be clearly
made out. Is it possible to do
the same for the second2 To estimate
how far the two rest upon common
basis of misconception as to the condi-
tions of existence, but how far the swim
die depends on individual conditions of
hereditafyt environment, want of knowl-
edge, and greed of gain?
We are inclined to think it quite pos
sible; but we leave it to the future Dar-
win of this department of natural his
tory to undertake the task. 1t will be
sufficient for US, when time and space
permit, to notice few of the determin-
ing conditions which make the trade of
the swindler so enticing and remunera-
tive