Western Kansas world., 1886-03-06
POSTAL DETECTIVES.
How They Work to Keep the Mails Clear
of Frauds.

Hartford Globe.
The maintenance of large force o1
trained detectives or inspectors" as they
are designated upon the rolls of the
postoffice department, has greatly purif.
ed this branch of the service. An inf
mite number of swindles are still carried
on through the agency of the mails.
Swindlers reach their intended victims
by circulars and by advertisements in
careless or characterless newspapers. The
former method is preferred by sharpers,
as being the least likely to come under
the notice of the official spies of the de-
partment. 1t is an easy matter to OBJ
tain full lists of any required number OF
names, running up into the millions.
Lottery companies make business of
selling full lists of the names of their
patrons, and other swindling concerns
which obtain original lists are addicted
to the same practice.
Countrymen who reply to ony one of
the hundreds of snap advertisements
wonder how it is that the hundreds of fas-
cinating enterprises from one end of the
country to the other obtain their ad-
dresses, and they feel, some way, that
they must be persons of Importance.
Their vanity is hattered, and in numera-
BILE instances they undergo a regular
course of training before they acquire
sufficient fund of experience to enable
them to realize that they are on the
wrong side of the institution for the
feeble minded.
The art craze, which during the last
few years has spread over the country
like an epidemic, has developed swim
die that is very lard for the department
to reach, and which affords a livelihood
for large number of enterprising and
INSCRIPTIONS persons. The knaves tax
the great army of unsophisticated girls
who have artistic tastes by showing
them, through the medium of circulars,
how they can put themselves in the way
of earning comfortable incomes with the
expenditure of trifing sum for an
outfit. They promise to take work that
is produced according to their system
and require small cash payment in ad-
vance from the favored artists. The de-
partment finds this most troublesome
class of cases to deal with, the origina-
tors protecting themselves very COM
pletely, as a rule, against prosecution. .
The postoffice department spent
months trying to break up the scheme of
man who contracted to send pianos and
organs from his manufactures in Maine
and California to any part of the coun-
try on payment of 81 or So or 81 to de-
fray the cost of boxing the instruments.
The articles were received according to
contract, but they proved to be cheap toy
pianos and organs, the expense of boxing
which was about 10 per cent, of the sum
remitted in each case. Another fellow
made lot Of money by boxing and for
warding very cheap mouth-organs to all
who patroniged him through the mails.
The proprietor of snide but harmless
cure for deafness reaped harvest of $50
or $40 day for long time. His head
quarters were in New York. The presi-
dent of bogus medical college did a
prosperous business in selling spurious
diplomas, but as the men who bit at his
bait were confessedly as great swindlers
as he was, the department was long
time getting at him. This was a swim
die pure and simple.
An army of ruralists forwarded hard
earned dollars for moving machine
knife-sharpener, simple, effective" and
received in return, sticks dipped in
emery dust, and pieces of iron. Anoth-
er ingenious operator found market for
thousands of copies of cheap edition of
the scriptures by representing the boo
to be collection of very tough stories.
1t is not recorded that the department
with this missionary enter
prise.