Audubon County Republican. [volume] (Audubon, Audubon Co., Iowa) 1885-1894, 1886-03-11
POSTAL DETECTIVES.
How They Work to Keep the Mails
Clear of Frauds.

Clear of Frauds.
The maintenance of large force OF
trained detectives or inspectors" as
they are designated upon the rolls of
the postoflice department, has greatly
purified this branch of the service. An
infinite number of swindles are still car
ried on through the agency of the mails.
Swinders reach their intended victims
by circulars and by advertisements in
careless and characterloss 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. 1t is an easy
matter to obtain full lists Of any requir-
ed number Of names, running up into
the millions. Lottery companies make
business of selling full lists of the
names of their patrons, and other swim
ding 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 know their adj
dresses, and they feel, some way, that
they must be persons of Importance.
Their vanity is fattered, and in in
Vulnerable 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 an 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 hard for the depart
ment to reach, and which affords live
lihood for large number of enterpris-
ing and inscriptions persons. The
knaves tax the great army of unsophis-
ticated girls who imagine they 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 expendi-
ture of tritling sum for an outfit.
They promise to take work that is pro-
duced according TO their system and
require small cash payment in adj
vance from the favored artists. The
department finds this a most trouble
some class of cases to deal with, the
originators protecting themselves very
completely, as rule, against prosecu-
ton.
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
country on payment of 81 or So or 81
to defray the cost of boxing the instru-
nentS. The articles were received ac-
cording to contract, but they proved to
De cheap toy pianos and organs. the
'Xpense of boxing which was about 10
Der cent of the sum RENTED in each
asses Another fellow made q lot of
money by boxing and forwarding very
help mOnth-organS to all who patron
ed him through the mails.
The proprietor of a snide but harm
SIS cure for deafness reaped harvest
t $50 or $40 dty for long time.
is headquarters were in New York.
the president of bogus medical col
eye did prosperous business in SELL
g spurious diplomas. but as the men
tho bit at his bait were confessedly as
,reat swindlcrs as he was, the depart
nent was long time getting at him.
This was a swindle pure and simple.
An army of ruralists forwarded hard
armed dollars for a "mowing-machine
inife-sharpener, simple, effective" and
rnceived, in return, sticks dipped in
merry dust, and pieces of iron. An
other ingenius operator found mar
iet for thousands of copies of cheap
'dtion of the scriptures by represent
ing the book to be collection of very
Tough stories. 1t is not recorded that
he department interfered with this
missionary enterprise. Hartford Globe.
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