New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1881-08-15
4 W1TERIyG-pyfcE SVIyDZrP.

A W1TERTNG-PIdCE SUINDLER.
The case of Mrs. Hudson is naturally at
| tracting much attention at time when
large part of mankind are staying at
| summer hotels, spending hours of every
day perhaps in company with people
they never saw before and hope
never to see again, and INDUCING in
all that familiar and perhaps reckless
association with strangers which seems to be
| an unavoidable feature of summer life. This
case can hardly be said to illustrate the
dangers of Watering places, but rather their pos
sibilities. certain humorst has demonstrated
from the number OF deaths which take place
in bed that there is nothing in the world so
dangerous to life IA going 10 bed. We all
know that citizen of New \ Orll may escape
the bandits of Greece and the pirates of Corea,
and then come home TO be murdered in broad
daylight on his own sidewalk, or at night in
his own house with his family sleeping about
him. SO it does not follow, therefore, that be-
cause one Ldvlike boarder ut Hu,lson
River hotel has abused the knowledge
gained by her on the piazza and in the
breakfast room. the vast family of boarders
scattered on every beach and every mountain
throughout the land shall forthwith stop
speaking TO each other, cease having views
about the weather the fishing, refuse to
pass the sugar-bowl, gaze upon their neigh
bors with the eye of suspicion, and jostle
one another with the elbow of arrogance
The watcring-place world is made up, as a
rule, Of people who have the money TO pay
their bills, whatever may be said of their pri-
waite characters their intellectual qualities
and happily swindlers of either sex are compare
lively rare.
This case is Of more than ordinary interest
because the woman was apparently not n pro-
fessional swindlcr, and it has called out some
of the sympathy which always, whether wisely
or not, is given to persons supposed To have
been led into crime by distress. The method
Of the fraud clumsy that it is not easy
to believe il was the work of an ACCOMPLISHED
adventures. Mrs Hudson, having made
IA favorable impre ssion upon her fellow
boAJcrs at Cornwall by the quiet and
refinement OF her manners, learned ut
which of the principal stores in this city
several of her new friends kept standing ac-
counts. Perhaps she learned it while profess
ing nnocently to seek instruction in n crochet
pattern, or perhaps in one of the close con-
iidences OF the piazza that, for some strange
reason, will follow acquaintanceship in the
country by few hours, instead of, as in the
city, by rs many years or perhaps she learned
it in the walk to and from the post Office
which the summer boarers are always travers-
ing, especially if they be persons who never
by any accident get more than one letter
a week. Mrs. Hudson came to the CITY,
went on several occasions to the different
stores where her new acquaintances had
accounts bought in their names considerable
quantities of goods, ordered them sent TO the
Grand Central Depot waiting-room, went there
10 receive them, assuming on different days Il
different name, and so got possession OF them.
The bills being soON sent in, the swindle was
at once discovered, and the woman was
arrested Not content with having used the
names OF several of these ladies for the Dur
pose of swimdling their husbands, the woman
used still another in q more injurious way, put
ting it down upon the station-house regis
tex as her own. This certainly indicates
n strange degree OF depravity for an anna
teur, which she seems to be. The de-
meanor of the prisoner since her arrest
has aroused suspicious of her sanity. Ii
has been shown that she has been in distress
of mind for want of money, while at the
same time she has been living In expensive
style. At the best, the story is one of the old
type. The woman could not, it seems. take
the advice which IN essayist once gave in an
other sense--to 'give up and come down. She
tlocihPucu w suipoib I'LL appearance Oh SOCIAL
Gritty by swindling-a crime old enough
to be in the decalogue.
While the possibility of like impositions
need not freeze the genial current of life at
the summer resorts, the incident may at least
suggest whether the middle-class American is
not little too ready to take his chance
neighbor at such places into his conf
dence in spite of the fact that he does
not know his character or antecedents.
and, perhaps not even his business or
his place OF residence. The stony hauteur of
the British tourist is one thing the too volu-
bic and too ensy familiarity of some classes of
our people, when on the summer march is
another. There is wholesome reserve on
personal subjects, which neod not wound the
self-respect of anyone else and will help to
maintain ones own. This is an adrnontion
which not many, perhaps, will need, but those
NAV heed it when they feel O warning trcmor.