The Warner sun. (Warner, Brown Co., Dakota [S.D.]) 1885-1???, 1886-03-05
POSTAL DETECTIVES.
How They Work to Keep the Mails Clear
of Frauds.

How They Work to Keep the Mails Clear
of Frauds.
Hartford Globe.
The maintenance of a large force of
trained detectives or inspectors as
they are designated upon the rolls Of
the Postofice Department, has great
" purified this branch of the service.
An infinite number of swindles are
still carried on through the agency of
the mails.
Swindlers reach their intended vic
TINS by circulars and by advertise
ments 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.
1t is an easy matter to obtain full
lists of any required number ofnames,
running up into themillions. Lottery
companies make a business of selling
full lists Of thenames 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 advertise
ments wonder how it is that the hun.
dreds 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 fat
tered, and in innumerable instances
they undergo a regular course oftrain-
ing before they acquire a 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 overt the country
like an epidemic has developed a swim
die that is veryhardfor the department
toreach, and which affords a livelihood
for q large number of enterprising and
INSCRIPTIONS persons. The knaves
tax the great army of unsophisticated
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 expen-
diture OF q trIfiing sum for an outfit.
They promise to take work that is
produced accordingto their System"
and require a small cash payment in
advance from the favored artists.
The department finds this a most
troublesome class of cases to deal
with, the originators protecting them
selves very completely, as a rule,
against prosecution.
The Postoffice Department spent
months trying to break up the scheme
of a man who contracted to send
pianos and organs from his manu-
factories In Maine and California to
any part of the country on payment
of SO or So or 81 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 box-
ing which was about 10 per cent. of
the sum RENTED in each case. An
other fellow made a lot of money by
boxing and forwarding very cheap
mouth organs to all who patronlzed
him through themails.
Lie PROPRIETOR Ol ~ SUluc DuU ndfIl-
less cure for deafness reaped a harvest
of $50 or $40 a day for q long time.
His headquarters were in New York.
The president of bogus medical col
lege did a prosperous business in sell
ing spurious diplomas, but as the men
who bit at his bait we're confessedly
as great swindlers as he was, the
department vas a long time get
ting at him. This was a swindle pure
and simple.
An army journalists forwarded hard
earned dollars fora moving machine
knife-sharpener, simple, effective, and
received in return, sticks dipped in EN-
esy dust, and pieces of iron. Another
ingenious operator found q market for
thousands of copies ola cheap edition
of the Scriptures by representing the
book to be a collection of very tough
stories. 1t is not recorded that the
department interfered with this mis-
sionary enterprise.