The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1888-06-03

Another form OF Matchmaking which was
broken up by Capts. Williams and McCul-
Tough was what was styled 1.-THE virtuous
boarding house keeper racket" The oper-
ator, a handsome and attractively dressed
Young woman, would entice a man prefer
ably Oh old one, into her room in a SEEM
ingly respectable house. Five minutes at
ter the alleged proprietor, with three or
four contederateS, would break in the door
denounce the girl and victim and send a
confederate for a policeman to arrest both.
The girl, thoroughly trained, would fall
upon her knees, offer her jewery and a
large roll of money for her release, while
her prey, urged by sympathy, fear and
the dread of scandal, would in every case
follow her example. The business was pro-
fitable for a number of months and paid
handsome profit to Miss frankie DeForest,
Mrs. Ginevra Jackson, and Miss Gussie Ar
cher, who, so far as is known, were the au-
thors and sole beneficiaries OF the system.
Its abolition WAS brought about not by
the courts but by liberal application Of
the policeman's club and an implied order
to every officer to similarly treat every
member of the set whenever and wherever
they might be found.
Another criminal trade pursued by the
New York adventures is "the chattel mort
gage game" Chattel mortgages, if the
reader does not know the law on the sub
ject, are signed, acknowledged before no.
tary, filed in the Registers Office and there
indexed alphabetically, but not locally
The swindler buys large invoice of furni-
ture on the installment plan, pays moder-
ate first intallment and then moves to
another part of the city. She then applies
to money lenders, bankers. brokers and
other investors for loan, with the furni-
ture as collateral security, using differ
ont pa NTH oh ,-io
send an appraiser to the house, who values
the property and reports to his principal
The mortgage is executed and filed, the
money paid over and the woman forthwith
gives up the house, leaving the furniture
for her creditors to fight over.
In one case Louis Post, the celebrated
labor union leader, was fleeced by Brooklyn
woman named Mrs. Rogers, who. as he
afterward ascertained, had secured loans
aggregating among the thousands from
various parties. The chief operator in New
York is Mrs. Matte Dopeler, who is known
to the police and to her creditors under
more than thirty aliases. She is a young
woman, of not more than 25, with rather
pretty, baby-like face, and a voice and
manner overlooking with innocence and
childishness. Detective Macdonald, who
has been on her trail several times, declares
that in the past five years she has stolen
over Sl5, 900 IN this and other ways.
A new style of adventures has appeared
in New York in the last few years, who
adopts literature as her particular VEIN 1t is
seldom that she can write; in fact, in some
cases she cannot even spell correctly. Her
modus operandi is to make the acquain-
tance of a circle of good natured newspaper
men and by some tale of pretended poverty
induce them to write for her stories, poems,
humor, descriptive work and even news
items. Then armed with letters of intro
duction, she forces or foists her goods upon
editors who are paving good salaries to the
real authors of the articles Sometimes
they are even more reckless and deliber-
ately copy poems and articles from out-of
town papers or old books and dispose of
these as brand new productions. Only two
months ago one of the ilk sold to the Nail
and EDpreSs a forgotten poem by Fitz
James O'Brien, entitled THE Matching of
the Easter Egg" first published thirty
years ago.