The Lambertville record. [volume] (Lambertville, N.J.) 1872-1968, 1886-06-02

How They Work 10 Successfully keep
The Mails Clear of Frauds.

ane WniES Clear OF Frauds
The maintenance of large force of train.
ed detectives or inspectors" as they are
designated upon the rolls of the Post Office
Department. has greatly purified this
branch of the service in the particular
mentioned. An infinite 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 department. II is
an easy matter to obtain full lists of any
required number of names, running up into
the millions Lottery companies make
business of selling 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 any one of the
hundreds of snap advertisements wonder
how it is that the hundreds of fascinating
enterprises from one end of the country to
the other obtain their addresses, and they
feel, some way, that they must be persons
OF Importance. Their vanity is fiattered,
and In innumerable instances they undergo
regular course of training before they &c.
quire sufficient fund of experience to en-
able 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 swindle that is
very hard for the department to reach, and
which affords a livelihood for large num-
ber of enterprising and INSCRIPTIONS per-
sons. The knaves tax the great army of
unsophistieated girls who imagine they
have artistic tastes by showing them,
through the medium of circulars, how they
tan put themselves in the way of earning
! comfortable incomes with the expenditure
of trifiing sum for an outfit. They prom
Use to take work that is produced according
to their SYSTEM and require small cash
| payment in advance from the favored artists.
The department finds this most trouble
tors protecting themselves very completely,
rs n rule, against prosecution.
The Post Office 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 country ON payment of
~ or S3 or "a to defray 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 ten per cent of
the sum RENTED in each ease. Another
fellow made lot of money by boxing and
forwarding very cheap mouth organs to all
who patronized him through the mil.
The proprietor of n snide but harmless
cure for deafness reaped harvest of $50 on
$40 day for n long time His head.
quarters was in New York. The president
of bogus medical college did prosperous
business in selling spurious diplomas. but
as the men who bit at Lis bait were confess
edly as great swindlers as he was, the dc.
partment was a long time getting at him.
This was swindle pure and simple.
An army of ruralists forwarded hard.
earned dollars for u knowing machine
knife sba.pener, simple, effective" and
received In return sticks dipped in emery
dust and pieces Of iron. Another ingenious
operator found market for thousands Of
copies of cheap edition of the Scriptures by
representing the book to be a collection of
very tough stories. II is not recorded that
the department interfered with this mission.
airy enterprise.