The morning call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1878-1895, 1893-01-22
THE CHAIN LETTER.
A Nuisance That Should
Be Suppressed.
INVENTION OF A GENIUS.
The Wonderful! Sums That May Be
Accumulated by Those Work.
ing the Scheme.
written for THE MORNING CALI.

Ipresume that nearly every reader of
THE CALL has at some time in his or her
lifetime received ''chain letter."
Judging from the number that have re-
celved of late. this form of pestilence has
again broken out in the land.
have accorded these communications a
variety of receptions. l have meekly COM
piled with their unassuming request to
''send 10 cents" always 10 cents to the
deserving object for which the chain is de-
signed to raise fund, and have selected
from among my friends three other
victims and inflicted the outrage upon
them, In turn. l have bought off
the senders by direct contributions
of money; have cruelty ignored the touch
ing reminder that ''any one who declines to
comply with this request and does not no.
tify the originator thereby breaks the chain
and causes irremediable confusion in the
sequence" and stony-hearted and regard
less of results have consigned the letters to
the waste. basket, and | have returned the
things TO their source, declining to be vic
timiZed by their plea, but not until one of
these chain letters appeared the other day
asking the donation of 10 cents and the
writing of three letters involving the outlay
of considerable valuable time and 10 cents
more for postage and paper, all for the
benefit of an orphanage somewhere in the
East, did l sit down to consider the true
inwardneSs and significance of letter of
this sort.
The request seems so trning on the face
of IL. Ought we not help this good work
| have plan. II is not original, and / ask
you to help In il. 1t will cost you a dime
and a little trouble. Each one receiving
this letter Is asked to make three extra
copies of it, sending them to three of your
friends, changing only the heading and
putting one number higher at the top.
At the same time send this letter, with the
names aud addresses OF your circle OF three,
and incl0sng 10 cents, to. etc, etc."
BY the time you have complied with these
requests you have consumed anywhere
from an hour TO an hour and half Of yalua-
BILE time. You have written four letters.
three of them OF good length. You are out
the cost Of four sheets OF paper, four en-
velopes and four 2-cent stamps and 10 cents
in money. You have. moreover. sense of
having imposed upon three of your friends,
and are already wondering, deprecaIingly,
what they will think of you. Judging from
your own feeling of resentment toward the
sender of your letter, you think you can
Judge pretty accurately as to what they
will think. Your letters all mailed beyond
recall, you begin TO wish you had had the
moral courage to give the crlngng, lying
imposition the gO-by.
|Only ~ cents anu lItli6 Trouble,
f0rso0th! Ii has cost you double that
amount in actual money. and the trouble.
TO bo0t-to say nothing of the loss of self
respect involved and the direct injury to
your sense OF justice. But the appalling
thing about these chain letters Is the result
that very little calculation about them
will bring TO light
This particular one TO which | have
reference states that it is one of chain of
sixty-fOnr. That does not seem q very
long chain. You think, carelessly. that it
hardly seems worth while TO take that
amount OF trouble for the small result that
will obtain. But consider what this
chain of sixty-four means. l have gone
through a trif1lng calculation over Ii and
the process covers several sheets OF paper.
Ii is like the old problem OF the nails in a
horses shoes.
Number l of this series is sent out by
the initial fraud to three people. Each OF
these three persons, il obliging or lacking
in courage to refuse, sends back 10 cents
and mails q copy Of the letter to each OF
three other friends. and thus nine letters.
each numbered ~, are sent forth TO de
stroy the peace OF mind of nine victims.
These nine in turn send out twenty-seven
letters numbered %" The twenty-seven
write eighty-one letters, numbered a."
and the eighty-oue victims in turn Sc
lect two hundred and forty-three others
who shall be mucted Of 10 cents in
coin - 10 cents in value and "a little
time" These 243 receive letter No "5."
and send letter No. to seven hundred
and twenty-nine other fellows. who. unless
they are stOne-hearted and Indifferent to
the orphans cry and the managers yearn-
Ing TO accomplish needed repairs" will
each send 10 cents TO the aforesaid manager
and write two thousand one hundred and
eghty-seven letters to as many other inno-
cent men and women, some Of whom doubt
less never did any harm to any living
to break the chain, letter No. goes 10 six
thousand five hundred and sixty-one un-
fortunates; No. is received by nineteen
thousand six hundred and eighty-lhree,
and when No. 10 goes forth II carries its
burden TO ffty-nihe thousand and forty
nine people. The dimes by this time foot
up to quite tidy sum, and the originator
OF the scheme has SSS57 20 as interest on
his original outlay.
have carried the multiplication of this
nuisance up as far as letter No. &c,
which is the number Of the one that lies
before me, and / find that If no one has re-
fused to comply with this simple request
copy of this twenty-sixth line in the chain
has been sent out to 2,493, 253 921, 329 other
people, and If each one who received il re-
mits dime the poor little orphans VIII be
able 10 repair their orphanage to the tune Of
S249. 325, 392, 1872 90 which is quite a COM
Portable sum, even II you leave off the 90
cents. The letter tells US that there are
Sky orphans III tnlS Orpnanage, anQ Ii
seems to me the management ought TO be
able to get along and keep the wolf from
the door for quite spell on the above
amount. They evidently think otherwise.
for while the above result is on the twenty
sixth letter they state that the chain will
not end until 1t has reached No g.
When one considers what that means one
wonders why they end Ii at all Why not
let 1t ''go on forever" like Tennyson's
brook, and become permanent source of
income
Now, of course we know that no such
number of letters has been written in be-
half OF this orphanage, and it would hardly
be possible 10 estimate just what propor-
ton has refused thus to dry the Orphans
tear; but the management evlnces small
faith in human nature in leaving so broad
a margin for possible hardness oil charitable
hearing. Even allowing that only one one
hundredtb OF / per cent Of the peopIe
who receive this letter No. 26 send
back 10 cents the poor little orphans will
receive something like S24,932 539 20. and
the charitaby inclined respondents will
have spent the same amount for postage
But 10 this tidy sum must be added the
amounts sent by recipients of all the pre-
vious letters up to No. &C. and reason
totttrs In the attempt to grasp the mean
ings OF the figures that result from the cal
culation. 1t staggers belief; yet | have
worked this thing out In every imaginable
way; have diagramed and analyzed il. and
the same stupendous results obtain When
one realizes the fullness of anticipation in
which the managers of that orphanage must
have sent out that chain of sixty-four. one Ia
tempted to echo the cynic's prayer: Lord,
bless the rich; the poor can always have the
privilege of begging"
ADETJNr II Ky,n,