Evening star., 1902-01-25
Some Of the Schemes They Work
on the Public.
TIE EVICTED- TENANT DODGE
The Beautiful Widow and the
kind-Hearted Gentleman.
MAG, THE FIT THROWER
Special Correspondence of The Evening Star.

qulre II with much urgency they begin TO
think with incredible intensity and velocity.
How to get it?'' is the concentrated gist
of their thinking. They never fail to evolve
some sort of method, ingenious either for
it's complication or for it's very simplicity.
OF simple and yet. highly successful
schemes, that which an elderly woman (in
need of the money! began to practice as
soon as the cold weather arrived conamends
itself for its novelty. Her process OF
thought brought her to the conviction that
eviction ought to be a pretty good thing
from business point of view. So, with
three half-grown children borrowed from a
willing relative somewhere up in Connecti-
cut, she took squalid room in a miser-
able tenement house on a street which, for
all Of it's wretchedness, Is passed through
morning and evening by great many we'll
to-do business men She put dilapidated
COOK stove, chair, three-legged bed and
few battered kitchen utensils into this
tenement room. She paid weeks rent in
advance, and when the agent came around
for the next weeks rent in advance she told
him sad tale of poverty. Tenement agents
in New York are not soft hearted as a
rule, and this one gave the woman three
days IN winch to get together the rent
money or be d1spossessed. OF course, she
didn't have the rent money when he called
three days later-that is she had 1t all
right, but she didn't have it for him.
Put Ont Onto the street.
So, armed with his writ of dispossession,
he put her, her Children and her be-
longings on the street-which was precise
ly what she wanted. She was put on the
street at an hour when scores Of business
men were passing through the thoroughfare
on their way to their establishments. She
sat on her old cook stove, with her tattered
shawl protecting, as best it might her
three children from the biting cod. She
rocked to and fro, moaning. Now hurry
ing and scrambling business men, and par
ticularly New York business men, on their
way to work could not, by the widest
stretching Of the point be called Senti-
mental or even especially tender-hearted.
But here was a picture that gave them
pause-a faded woman in a tattered shawl,
rocking to and fro on cook stove with
three weeping children gathered about her,
weeping and shivering.a The passing busi-
ness men naturally enough felt that they
couldn't walk brutally by a scene like that
and sleep well in their beds after having
done SO. Almost to a man they stopped
and talked for moment with the moaning
woman, and then, hastily handing her q
gave her silver-a bill of some denomination
or other seemed to them to be called for
under such circumstances.
BY careful estimate the woman must have
gathered in at least $3.50 on that first morn
ing that she worked the dodge. She and
her" children and her battered belongings
were of course gone from the street when
the business men passed that way that
evening, so that all Of them experienced a
glow of good feeling in the thought that
they had helped to stow her away in some
snug place. She was certainly snug that
night. She had taken another squalid room
In another miserable tenement on another
wretched street through which, never
theless, many well-to-do business men had
to pass to get to their plants. And ten
days later she worked precisely the same
plan, and, as the same careful author
tiles estimate, got about the same amount
Of money.
Fell Into Hands of the Pool.
The police got her few days ago. They
calculated, when they took her, that she
had practiced her ingenious plan perhaps
ten times in various well-separated sections
of New York and Brooklyn. They found a
matter Of 81, 900 in her tattered clothing
She clawed and screamed when they took
1t away from her. But she will get IL all
back after she does her six months on the
island. The police cannot, of course, keep
1t, and there Is no way Of giving 1t back
to the befooled almoners. The three decoy
young ones were restored to the Compiai-
SAINT Connecticut relative.
The police ascertained that the elderly
woman who had set in motion this prolita-
BILE dodge had been a race-follower, and
that she had "gone broke on the races at
the wfnd-up of the last racing season.
Doubtless her idea was to arrange for an
other campaign at the beginning Of the
next racing season. She has made her idea
stick and the arrangement Is made She
will just about be out in time to bet some of
that 81 200 on the suburban handicap
Then there recently came into view here
a young and beautiful creature a widow
lady."-who, having determined that She re-
quired the currency, performed her success
full little bit of thinking. She advertised in
the personal column of New York
"a In i1u
sort Of thing that she was young and at
tractive widow unfortunately out Of funds,
and would some kind gentleman assuage
her woeful condition by making her an ad-
what her attractiveness had to do with aer
financial straits was not obvious from the
personal" but that point Is immaterial,
as most points worth considering are to the
pulp-headed individuals who respond to
such advertisements
Many "Kind" Gentlemen Appeared.
The kind gentlemen proved to be too nu-
merous to mention. The lovely. young
widow lady" had only to take her pick of
the scores Of generous letters she received
in reply to her advertisement. Having
made her pick, she made an appointment to
meet the kind gentleman in the parlor of
some swagger Fifth Avenue hotel. Here
she would shrinkingly, almost tearfully
meet the kind gentleman-Who, somehow or
Oluef, was usually d QuAto poAt1y anu elQer-
ly person-and she would proceed to tell
him that the diamond ring In question was
her engagement ring, given to her by her
poor, departed husband-she invariably had
to apply her little lace, handkerchief to her
eyes at this point-and that she wouldn't
have it go permanently out Of her possess
sion for anything in this life or the life to
come. Would the kind gentleman assure
her, on his sacred word Of honor, that he
would return the ring to her, at an advance
which he himself could name, whenever she
obtained the funds to redeem it2 or course
the kind gentlemen would, every time; and
without any advance, either! Then she pro-
duced the ring, beautiful stone in Tiff
fany setting, worth about $500. She only
wanted loan Of 500 on the, ring. Now, It
never seems to have occurred to the scores
Of victims upon whom the young and beau
tiful widow worked this game that 1t would
have been the easiest thing In the world for
her to secure 500 loan on ring worth
500 or more at any round -the-corner pawn
shop No, they didn't think OF that at all,
which clearly goes to show how thought
less New York kind gentlemen are. Wen,
when the chivalrohs and kind. gentleman
would produce his wallet and prowl around
therein for the hundred, she would pro-
ceed to dilate again upon how earnestly she
hoped he would take good care Of the ring.
Would he put 1t In his safe, and was his
90 20 $o2 Yoo7 So good OF him sha n,, =