The daily morning journal and courier., 1902-09-27
sWINDLING BY MAIL.
Some Schemes That Have Been Worked
 Successfully.

Some Schemes That Have Been Worked
 Successfully,
 Notwithstanding the fact that we are generally credited with being newspaper reading nation. l am often tempted to believe that there must be many millions of intelligent persons in the United States who never so much as glance at the headlines of a newspa- per-" remarked an offical of the post office department. 'At any rate, if these millions to whom l refer ever ac- tually do read the newspapers, their gulibility must be so profound as to be unfathOmable. The pOstoffice depart nent is constantly issuing fraud orders against individuals and alleged firms engaged in getting rich in the operation of schemes that it would seem any shrewd child of ten ought to be able to see through without the least bother.
 "The other day, for example, the de- partment got after chap out in Cin- cinnati who for some months had been conducting what he called Turf Bu- reau.' He alleged in his really admira- hly written circular that he had private and absolutely certain methods of ob- l taining information as to the horses | that were slated to win races on tracks all over the United States. and he guarant nteed returns of tremendous pro portions. Well, when we looked this | fellow up he promptly skipped, and his incoming mail was seized. It seems in | credible. but every days mail brought l in thousands of dollars, in amounts ranging from five dollars actually up to | five hundred dollars, and the letters in- 1 closing cash and checks were nearly all of them apparently written by persons of education. The book in which the man kept his simple account of cash re- ceived showed that since he put his scheme into operation he had taken in no less a sum than four hundred and sixtv-fiye thousand dollars almost out | of the question, as it may appear. He has got away, but even If he is cap tured, very much doubt if any very heavy punishment can be visited upon 1 him. These slippery chaps who work 1 their lodges by means of the malls have the money to employ first rate lawyefs. and these lawyers can gene rally successfully cOnstrue their clients circulars as not having really promised anything to the guls, after all.
 "The endless-chain schemes that the department runs down year after year are all of them money-makers for their operators It would actually seem as il all a busted individual had to do to get rich is to get lot of circulars printed and send them out, borrowing the mon ey for postage, and there will always be enough gulls to start him on his way The cherry-tree scheme worked by gang of southern men, one of them clergyman, was a colossal success fol it's promoters, and yet not man in the crowd had coin to bless himself witt
 when they started the endless-chair scheme in motion. The more recen
 fountain-pen fraud, worked by couple of Pennsylvanians, yielded returns tha
 went into the thousands every day. ant
 I haven't a doubt In life that any mum : Der of similar endless-chain schemes
 are being worked this very day that w
 shall have to go after later on.
 "The people who bite on these end
 less chain schemes all obviously want
 whole lot for nothing, or little or noth
 ing, and this, combined with thei
 strange simplicity, is at the bottom Q
 the success of the fellows who attemp
 to make their fortunes through the us
 of the mails.
 "You would naturally suppose tha
 persons sufficiently intelligent to pos
 scss an interest in stock speculation would be able to steer clear of invest Iment agents whom they only know o
 through circulars, would you not? An'
 yet the department is constantly in re