The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1889-12-08
SAVANNAH, GA, SUNDAY, DECEMBER s, 1899.

e@A uOZen OFFERS OF marriage all or which
she rejected, although several of her suitors
were men of wealth. Still she led them ali
dance and, what with her prayers, her
crosses and the innumerable little
costly presents and equally numerous
htCle dinners, suppers and theater parties
OF which she was the recipient, there was
always lots of loose change flying about, a
good deal Of which naturally found its way
into her pocket Soon she began TO drop in
at the offices of various brokers in Wall
and Broad streets, and to study the work
Her luck was limited, however, and $50, 900.
which she had somehow scraped together,
soon went skying in a venture
IN oil stocks. The certificates are to-
day worth about 10 cents a share.
Then she tried the matrimonial game
again, leading her victims almost to the
verge OF the altar, only to fool them. In
some cases she would suddenly discover a
disparity in age; in others, it would be a
difference or religion that would stand in
the way; and again she would lament bit
terly her lack of fortune, and sweetly
refuse to saddle her own unhappiness in
this respect upon the devoted one who
wished to marry her. She had at one time
on the string a United States senator, a
rich broker and very gallant sexage-
marian, who lives in Brooklyn and does
business In the Swamp in this city. The
i1ot tA141S L saw uer was Oh bfOdQWaY. Cl0
was magnifcently dressed and looked
younger than ever. No one, to look at that
lovely face, with its fine eyes and innocent
expression, would credit that the Madonna
like creature had for the last eight years
lived on her wits-a veritable Arachnis,
weaving her spider-like net about men to
entice and destroy them.
One of the smartest blackmailers in New
York few years ago was little black
eyed widow, who occasionally used to have
the pluck to drop into the offices around
Broad and Nassau streets in the guise of
simple, unsophisticated book-canvasser,
For subscription agent she had rather
poor success: she was illtterate, and, what
was worse still, she could not hide her igno-
rance. But she was wofully clever, not
withstanding, and had the art of dressing
prettily and ogling her victims until they
fairly fell at her feet. She had at differ
emit times dangling after her and
giving her presents, a VERY prominent
broker and a distinguished professional
musician. She belonged to the little-sup-
per-and-Small-loan fraternity, who work
their victims till the latter are either dis
gusted or dead broke. The little widow
was a money-saver. too, and soon had
beautiful home, the tribute of her suscep-
tible acquaintance, who had thus far re-
lieved her of the necessity of exercising
her talents as a canvasser to anything more
than a nominal extent Statuettes, fine
paintings by masters she had never heard
of, cabinets loaded down with rare antiques,
and valuable collection of jewels make up
her treasures, and in ten years or less she
has learned the secret of keeping substan-
tial balance at her bankers
The typical blackmailer is, however,
usually a woman of far more than or
binary ability. Sometimes she has beauty,
but this is not essential. 1t is the style, the
dash, the ''nerven that carries her through
safely and successfully. She knows just
how to wheedle and coax and flatter, and
then, when the gudgeon is fairly hooked, to
pull for all she is worth at his purse-strings.
She is charming aud complaisant enough
SO long as the golden stream flows abuud-
antly; but the instant it ceases to flow she
shows her teeth-and they are sharper and
more voracious than those Of the
man-eating white shark of the Allan
tic, which is her prototype. Sometimes the
spell endures for an indefinite period, owing
to the faulty of the victim. A woman
of this character was at the opera with a
gentleman one evening lately, when the
latter observed his wife in a box with some
friends. He was indiscreet enough to men
ton the fact to his companion, who in
stantly told him that that woman must
leave the theater at once, or there will be a
scene" He actually went to the box and
persuaded his wife (who luckily hadn't seen
his companion) to go homes
Married women are rarely heard of as
blackmailers, and only when they act in con-
junction with their husbands do they ever
come under the observation of the police in
that capacity. The "badger game" is COO
we'll known to need to be mentioned as the
lowest form of blackmail in which man
and woman can be engaged as confederates
It is scarcely possible to work it success
fully in New York now, SO well known are
the methods and the individuals to the de-
tectives. The female harpy usually prefers
to work alone. She tries sympathetic role
that is sure TO produce an effect in a ma
iority of cases, even If it fails in Others
Widows, divorced women and occasionally
single young women-mere girls-are in
this perilous business. All the conditions
of married life are unfavorable to such a
vocation. Marriage is surrounded by pure
and absolute safeguards, and it is only when
these are broken down and all barriers re-
moved that the wife strays into the forbid
den field and begins to make prey of society
at large.
''There is only one way to deal with
blackmailer,n said headquarters detective
Yesterday. "The moment a man or woman
tries under threat of exposure to extort
money, they should be handed over to the
police. No mercy ought TO be shown; Tor a
failure in one place simply makes them
the more determined to succeed in the
next. 1t sometimes requires good
amount of moral courage to do
this. especially where the victim has some
thing he does not care to have people know
about; but it is far preferable to make bold
front of it, whatever 1t Is, rather than to
submit to endless extortion. And a woman is
worse than man, for she has no limit to her
demands and will even kill the goose that
LAYS the golden eggs. There are more
business men ruined by this sort of
thing, and driven to s exile e. or M suicide
will stand any amount of bleeding rather
than risk an exposure that may cause
domestic breach and end in divorce
court In nine cases out Of ten, the victim
is tortured by delusion that his tormentor
has got hold of some damning secret, when
the latter has really got nothing OF the sort,
and is working largely on surmlse: leaving
the fears of his prey to do the rest"
Sale Of the Graphic.
rN L =.