The Republican journal. [volume] (Belfast, Me.) 1829-current, 1881-07-14
The Ladies, Deposit.

one, but has been played successfully at
least once within the past twenty-five
years III each OF the countries OF France,
Italy and Bavaria. Its latest European
form, the "Dachau bank" of an exact
ress, Adele Spitzeder, which was operat-
ed III Munich from 1869 to 1872, and by
which the BavarianS were cheated out of
millions of dollars, is intrinscally the
most interesting of these sWindles, and is
especially SO to us because it had so
many points in common with the Ladies'
Deposit of Boston. No one, indeed, who
has studied the stories of the two together
can doubt that in some way or other, di-
rectly or indirectly, Fraulein Spitzeder's
plan was the inspiration and model of
Mrs. Howe's. Both opened banks of de-
posit, promised preposterous returns of
interest, and successfully invited loans OF
money from the public. Neither had any
pecuniary capital, or offered any security,
the sole and sufficient reliance of each
being upon her own lmpudence and the
combined cupidity and credulity Of her
customers. Each made friends by play
ing the Lady Bountiful upon occasion,
had a mixed party Of gulls and knayes
committed to her cause drew herself out
of poverty and into luxurious comfort by
means of her bank, ended her career in
prison, and left assets enough behind her
to pay her creditors a dividend Of about
five per cent. The absolute essentials to
| long continued success, as each sWindler
knew, were the prompt payment OF the
ridiculous rate of stipulated interest, and
the prompt punishment in q depositor of
| any want OF faith by a return of her prin-
cipal and a naughty refusal ever to re-
| sumo business relations with her This
| latter operation, a very shreWd kind Of
moral ''bull-dozing," Mrs. Howe and her
assistants used to perform magniticently
and with great effect Each counted
upon a very rare withdrawal Of principal
so long as the extraordinary interest was
paid and the customers confidence lln-
shaken. Many perSOnS-and the writer
admits to being one-at first found little
difficulty in understanding how such q
concern could pay twenty-four per cent.
a month quarterly in advance, even for a
couple Of years, without investing its
funds or receiving help from without.
But the explanation is really quite sim
pie; when once the popular faith begins
to be established in such bank, the
principal flows in for some time in an
ever-increasing stream, and for some time
there is more than enough money on hand
to meet the cu}TeHt demand for interest
and leave the operator a handsome mar
| gin for silks, jewelry, hot house flowers,
and all the other proper living expenses
although, OF course, at every moment
the concern is in fact utterly insolyent
In the case OF the Ladies Deposit some
of the figures already given Illustrate this
well enough the number of depOSitOrs
in 1850 was five times as great as in 1879,
and the receipts from the first quarter of
the former year were therefore far more
than enough by themselves to meet all
the demands for interest then accruing
on deposits of 1879, to take care of the
usual small withdrawal OF principal, and
to give Mrs. Howe and her friends every
thing they needed for comfort 10 keep
such a concern alive there must be a like
increase of deposits upon a geOmetric
ratio all the time, and such q rate of ad-
vance cannot possibly be maintained for
many years, The longer the thing lasts
the wider is the circle Of it's final disaster
and injustice, and the duty, therefore, of
| every honest man, whatever the duty OF
honest woman may be, is to destroy such
an enterprise as soon as it is unearthed.
Mrs. Howe quite surpassed Miss Spitzeder
in scrupulous obedience to the spirit of
their common scheme. The latter some
times though rarely, to be sure-made
investments of her deposited funds; the
former never did such a thing, excepting
once, when she lent few hundred dol
lars to furniture dealer; and her Ladies'
Deposit had not single cent Of 'jnc0Dec"
in the bankers sense Of that word. Mrs.
Howe, in fact, carried on her business in
all its branches with appropriately Spar
tan simplicity. She took her depositors'
money kept it in the drawers of a cbH-
| fONierp in the business paror by day, as
! Mrs. Gould has often said, carried it Oft
in baskets at night, and put it somewhere
probably under her bed-for safe keep
| ing; paid out interest and principal from
it when there were calls for such disburse-
ments bought her own house and land
and furniture and fixtures with it +; and
always treated it entirely as her own, ,-
which, indeed, in an important sense, it
was For this sort OF banking none of
the frippery of modern masculine book
keeping was needed, and none was used;
the accounts Of a FIJI Island 1sh-dealer
could not have been kept more simply
than those of Mrs. Howe, the Boston
Financial agent" and Miss Crandall, who
testified in court that she did not know
the difference between day and a
ledger, was the very woman to serve as
her chief clerk. lnaudacity the German
operator sometimes surpassed her Amer
lean imitator, but in cunning the latter
absolutely eXcelled. Mrs. Howe who
ever elaborated the original conception Of
her bank-recognized the decided superb
orty in sensbilty and inquisitiveness Of
the average Bostonian over the average
Bavarian, and her operations were con-
Quoted, especially at first, with an almost
exquisite tact. The air OF reserve and
coyness with which the management en-
veloped itself acted like magic upon the
credulity of the ordinary uneGucated WO
man. Miss Susan Smith went to the La
dies Deposit with her two hundred dol
lars in her pocket, little timorOuS, some
what dubious, rather incredulous. 10
her surprise, she found that her patron
age was by no means solicited, was not
even wished, unless she was exactly the
right sort of a woman and precisely met
moments she began to burn with desire
to enter the enclosure thus jealousy
guarded and if she succeeded as she
generally did in the end-in persuading
the person in charge to take her little ALL
she departed with sense of deep graft
tude that she had been permitted to be-
come depostor. The same idea, little
varied, was beautifully carried out in the
request, delicately but firmly made in al
most every case, that the customer would
not gossip about the Ladies' Deposit. IT,
indeed, she had a particular female friend,
who was excessively worthy and greatly in
need, and who happened to have two
hundred dollars or more, such a friend
might, as favor, be very quietly inform
ed of the privileges of the establishment
but there was to be no babblng into the
worlds rl1o ear abOut these sacred mVS-