St. Landry democrat., 1888-01-21
OBSERVATION-DISCLOSURES BEATS.
Tricks Resorted to by Men and Womer
VINO Live on Their Wits.

HhO Live on Their Wits.
One of the most interesting elias
OF swindlers who resort to fashionabl,
boarding-houses,' said an experienced
boarder the other day to New Yorl
Mail and Express reporter, "are thu
advent both men and women,
who establish themselves in these
houses, because of the prestige which
a fashionable location gives them.
and the facilities it affords them fol
carrying OH various kinds of shady
schemes Any one who goes into a
clearinghouse in Gramercy Park or
on Fifth avenue or any of the side
streets in the neighborhood of the
Windsor Hotel, must needs be on the
lockout for them. The small fry are
young men who secure ballroom in
the morning and promise to pay
a week in advance when they
come homo in the evening. Some
times they do pay for it, stay q few
days, and then get out with such val
uables belonging to the boar,lers as
they can conveniently get hold OF.
"One of the cruelest swindles ever
perpetrated in a fashionabl boauline o.
house." continued the boarder, sis one
heard of while recently hunting for
new accommodations The landladv
with whom ] am now located wanted
to charge me two dollars q week for a
| fire and would allow me but two scut-
ties of coal a day, and l determined to
make a change. The story l speak OF
was Told me BY a very delightful old
lady who has been in the boarding
house business for years, and has had
under her roof every body from
the relatives of the richest PEG.
pie IN town to the youthful
clerks in the neighboring bric-a
brac establishments. She sal d that
very polite individual had called on
her the beginning Of last summer in
answer to an advertisement which she
had printed in a morning newspaper
and had told her that he was an En-.
glish physician who, with an associ-
ate, wished to open an office in New
York. He was perfectly willing to
pay q handsome price for suite OF
rooms with the use of the general re.
ception room for patients who were
waiting to see him. He entered into
~ contract and q few days thereafter
moved in with his daughter. AS soon
. ~ he was established in the house he
advertised through various mediums
thai staff of English doctors
and surgeons fourteen in number,
had located themselves at this
house and as it was their first
visit to New York they were willing,
an order properly to introduce them.
selves before the public, to give medic
al advice free. Having spread this
announcements broadcast, the polite
gentleman, who had as yet no asso-
ciate whatever. went to the front door,
and nailed large tin sign in con-
spicnous position. The magical prom.
ise OF medical advice free had its nat
llrai effect. The door bell Of The old
lady's boarding house was pulled and
jerked and tortured into a condition 81
llnremitting activity. The girl whose
dnty IL was to open the door became
an Involuntary profe ional pedestrian
and walked against time between the
kitchen and front stoop making in
laps to the hour. The
handsome parlor was overrnn with
crowds Of poor. sick and many times
diseased people. As
many as three hundred peoplea day
rang the bell, and the staff of four
teen hospital surgeons, consisting
However, OF the polite gentleman and
one associate, who finally appeared
upon The scene, talked with all OF
them. They were all kinds Of chronic
but the invariable represen-
tation of the Gilbertian staff OF four
teen was that each case would be
snred in six months. If such medicine
was taken as the English physicians
would furnish. OF course The variou:
specimens OF suffering
humanity declared that they would
axe the medicine and when they were
adorned that the cost Of it was So
nneh they paid for It then and there,
u if they had no mon ey went i
sronnd among their frien ds and |
II. In this way the L
alleged staff Of fourteen sold hun. /
lreds OF bottles Of their So /,
allied medicine, collecting from the
aiserably poor patients who came to /
ee them III the way from live dollars i
d fifty dollars each. Within 4 com. !
.fatively brief period the collections I
the polite gentleman segregated {
hundreds Of dollars, al OF which came /
ut ct tenement houses and the poor.
st and most Wretched novels in the Z
PIPER part OF the city. AS he always 1
Did Ills patients that nothing could be {
fected under six months time, no {
,WkWard questions were asked By the q
6iserable people who were scrapina
ogether 4 few dollars from week e {
,eek herewith to pay him, antI nc i
were made over the fact 3
hat no favorable changes in their 4
onditlon had been accomplished. Att i
be end Of month, long before the )
49, !.