Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1893-05-27
ENTERTAINMENT TICKETS BY MAIL.
Notwithstanding Under Pretext Of .
Charitable Purpose.

Quasi Matchmaking Under Pretext OF .
Charitable Purpose.
From the New York Sun.
The nuisance OF tickets sent by mail with a
demand for payment for them, has been greater
the past winter than ever before and it is
steadily increasing. The management Of al
most every entertainment of any kind in New
York which is in the cloak Of charity or which
can get any of the odor of charity to perfume
itself with prints tens of thousands of tickets.
with which it posters everybody whose name
it chooses to select in the business or society
directories. These tickets are usually num-
bered consecutiveiy, SO that 1t appears that a
record of the numbers and tine man to whom
they were sent has been kept in a book, and
the request is in the nature of a demand to pay
over promptly from 81 to SOS.
This nuisance takes the name of all forms
of benevolence, balls chowder parties picnics,
church fairs and everything of the kind The
senders of the tickets rely on their knowledge
of American nature-that an American would
rather give away a few dollars than be thought
mean or be put TO the trouble of returning the
tickets. The system is to send out the tickets
several weeks before the entertainment with
an addressed envelope, rarely stamped for
their return in case the man to whom they
are sent Is unwilling to pay for them, and a
blank for him to fill out and return with the
money in case he keeps the tickets. The
numbers of these tickets show that in some
cases as many as fifty or sixty thousand have
been sent out, and the sending Of them must
be profitable or the senders would not 90 to
the expense Of the printing and the postage.
Ii Is rarely that any of these tickets are
used. even If they are kept and paid for. The
senders pick out people who are not likely to
SO to the entertainment or fair they are giving
and would not contribute money TO il IN any
Y he sal n nd
almost Notwithstanding process Of these num-
bered tickets.
This is an imposition in a good many ways.
ball or chowder party or even a church
fair has no more right to make Q man 60 to the
trouble OF returning their tickets than a thea
ter or dime museum would have. A theater
has no less rights to send a number of admis-
sion tickets around the city, with a request
that the men who receive them should pay a
dollar apiece for them or return them under
the pain of further demands for money and
the obloquy of everybody connected with the
theater and his friends. than these quasi
charitable institutions have to make this de-
mand on the New York public.
In the cities Of no other country in the world,
especially Of any European city. would such
custom be tolerated If every man who re-
ceives these tickets would tear tear them up
and throw them into his waste paper basket,
refusing to pay for them, and il he wishes to
go TO the fair buy his tickets in the regular
way, the custom would be abandoned. But
from the growth Of this system OF extortion il
must be that large number of people who
are thus attacked pay up in order to avoid
trouble.
One of the worst phases of this business is
the demand made for the money OF the tickets
after the entertainment or fair is over. The
man who has received the tickets may have
forgotten everything about them. They may
have been put into pigeon hole, dropped into
the waste paper basket. or lost when the de-
mand comes that he shall either return the
tickets or the price of them. IL is hard to see
how he, by any act of his. has put himself in a
position where he should be subjected to fur
Their annoyance. but it often happens that he
will pay the few dollars demanded rather than
be bothered further with the opportunities Of
the ticket senders.