Ashtabula telegraph. (Ashtabula, Ohio) 1874-1880, 1877-11-30
OUR NEW YORK LETTEK.

/
The Temperance Mov-aenI-LIfe In
snranee SvvindIers- rhe Vanderbilt
Case One Cent D1nners-BusInesG
and the weather.
THE TEMPERANCE MOVEMENT.
The managers of the Law and Order
League" have departed from the plan laid
down by Mr.. Crosby, and are making raids
on the fashionable drinking places. Last
week all the big hotels and restaurants
were assaulted, and their proprietors re-
quired to answer. 1t was an astonlsher on
these people. The great hotels had favored
the movement upon the rum mills, but the
idea that their places would ever be inter
fered with never entered their heads.
Therefore when officers entered and shut
them Nd. and when they were called upon
TO answer their Indignation was beyond
telling. 1t doesn't make any difference,
however. with them. Guests simply order
drinks to their rooms. and there is, in each
of them, room in which liquor can be
had, served by an irresponsible party, and
without making the hotel responsible. The
little doggery cannot do this, for it never
has but one room, and its trade must ne
cessarily be open and without cover. Mr..
Crosby was right. OF course it isn't logi-
cal to squelch Tim Rafferty, and let the
Fifth avenue go on, but it happening to be
the case that Tim Rafferty, can be squelch-
ed. while no law that can be made can pre-
vent the Fifth avenue from selling liquor.
And it has the further reason that the peo-
pie who drink at the Fifth avenue are less
injured than those who swallow RNfertys
poison. Rafferty, actually takes the bread
out of the mouths Of women and children.
the swells al the Fifth avenue, it is true,
kill themselves, but is the world any the
worse for it? If liquer can be kept from
the lsborers great point is pade-by ar
raying the swells against the movement,
big risk is taken that it will fail entirely.
At the Astor last Sunday, "a regular drinker
at the bar found it closed. f'Step into No.
g." whispered the attendant who stood
there to direct the regular customers. 81
wish to God No. 6. could be closed too,''
was the response Of the victim. But he
went and took his drink all the same, and
after two or three was cursing the league as
heartily as though be had an interest in IL
quor.
THE TROUBLES OF LIFE INsURECE swINDLERs.
Thank Heaven the courts of New York
can no longer be said to favor rich sFind-
lers while they are severe upon lesser ones.
The respectable life insurance fraud is now
upon the same level with the saw-dust
swindler, and gets the same penalties. Gill
man, the forger, is serving out his time in
the penitentiary, and now Rost. L. Case,
one Of the most intensely ''respectablep
BUSINESS men of the city, has been found
guilty of perjury, and on Friday morning
was sentenced to the State prison. Case
was the president of the defunct Security
Life. When the affairs of the rotten con-
cern were examined, it was found that Mr..
Case had sworn to a cash balance of nearly
a million, when in fact few hundreds only
were found. He had sworn to ali sorts Of
mythicalsassets, and IN short by sheer
force of5swearfng tosfalse statements had
kept the swindfe shop going. for $ long
while. Mr.. Case is an old man, and put
in the plea that he signed and swore to
the statements without examining them,
and that he knew nothing at all about
them. But the court very properly held
that that had nothing to do with it. He
had sworn to certain condition of things
which did not exist, and it was perjury.
Cases lawyers made piteous appeal to the
jury, begging mercy for a respectable old
man, who stood-high in. society and all
that, but the jury were grimly reminded
that this respectable" old gentleman had
swindled eleven thousand families, fifty
five thousand women and children, and
swindled them in the meanest way posi-
bic, by taking advantage of the best i'm
pulses in men. And they very promptly
brought him in guilty" Allen, the vice
president. also an old respectability, will
be hauled over the Goals next, and he will
follow his chief. Then comes Lambert, of.
the American Popular, and Stedwell, Of.
the New Jersey Mutual, when he is caught,
which he will, finally, be, the insurance
frauds are now about broken up, and the
sound companies are rejoiced thereat. 1t
has had the effect of stopping the business,
almost entirely. but now that the irrespon-
sible and fraudulent concerns ara 5out of
the way, it will revive and the old COM
panies will be stronger than ever.
TIE VANDERBILT CASE
is fairly under way. The suit was brought
by Mrs. LIE Bau, one of the daughters who
refused to compromise with William H.,
her claim being tlat the old man was un-
der undue influence in giving his $780,
100000 to one son, and that to bring this
about William H.conspired to misrepresent
Cornelious: Scott Lord, her lawyer, admits
that the Commodore did not HketCornel-
ius because of his habits, but asserts that
four years before his death he relented, and
determined to make an equal division, at
least as between the sons. To prevent this,
William employed man to personate
Cornelius, and frequent all the .brothels
and faro banks in the city. The statement
that Cornelius had relapsed was brought
to the ears of the Commodore, who immedi-
ately instructed William to employ a de-
tective to determine the truth of the re-
ports. William did employ a detective
who had never seen Cornelius, the man
who was personating Cornelius was pointed
out to him as Cornelius, and he was fol-
lowed and all his ldoings were reported to
the Commodore as those of his son. This
so enraged him that he cut him off with
the income Of $500, 900, and left nine-tenths
of the estate to William. 1t is also
charged that the old man was under the
control of women, and thus William took
advantage Of that fact and furnished his
father with women who were in his interest,
going so far as to Dnt one in his house for