Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1903-05-30

I
had. He sold his drugs at rates much be-
| low those of the drug stores. and none OF
his patronage ever complained that his
dope" WASN'T. Of athe best Dan the
| how much morphineher cocaine each of his
| hundreds of custom<ts used per diem and
/ he invariably had their deadly little packets
ALREADY and Yrappsd for them when tney
got along to his corner with their money.
The .fends" all Clipped in to give Dan
| the Dope" good funeral, and they de-
! canted mellowhy upon how charitable ne
| had always heen-how he had never re-
| fused to give them tick" for their abso-
| lutely needed dope when they were up
ag'in it an wft'out de price" The chart
table Daniel was al4morphine hend OF re-
known himself, and as it is stated upon
what seems reliable authority that he had
gradually "hunched'' his daily allowance
of the poison until he was taking nearly
200 grains day Oft at the time ne me.
with the accident, it is likely that the
wheels of the beer truck did not rae many
years from his expectation of life.
The "heirS-at-law'' dodge, as 1t Is now
being worked profitably and pretty brazen-
ly by a number of alleged legal firms in
New York, cannot long escape the atteh-
ton of the local police nor the ban OF the
Post Office Department, since the bar AS
ISOLATION of New York is said to be pre-
pairing to make raid upon the schemers.
The game is comparatively simple one
so simple that 1t seems surprising tnat IL
was not shown up long ago. An aieged
crecy of lock box, a long list or names Oh
persons who are claimed to have left es-
tates to their descendants, these estates
only recently having been got into shape
for distribution to the heirs. The pro-
jectors of the scheme get their long lists OF
| names at random from old New York
directories. They advertise something in
this fashion:
1t will be to the advantage of the legal
heirs Of the following named persons to
communicate with the undersigned at once:
1885,
Jake Jones, who lived on Church street
in 1884, etc.
Taken From All Directions.
Hundreds of names are often included in
these lists which, as said, are taken at
random from old city directories. In the
old days only persons of some consideration
and property contrived to get their names
into the New York directory, and the adj
vertisers take the chance that the de-
scendants of many of the dead and gone
residents of old New York are still living
In the city or in places where the adver-
tisements are liable to come under their
eye. The rest Of the scheme is easy enough.
The descendants of Peter Smith, who lived
on Oak street in 1888" communicate with
the exploiters of the bogus inheritance
game, and then visit the elaborate offices of
the SwindierS.
The lawyers skillfully extract lot of
liliOl tTOIIl the easy DIS "
old Peter Smith-of whom the lawyers, of
course. know absolutely nothing beyond
the fact that his name appeared in the New
York directory for the year 1S3S-and then,
having working basis to go upon, they
succeed in making the descendants of old
man Smith believe that parcel of money
or property of which the first-hand heirs of
Peter Smith knew nothing at his DEATH
has recently been discovered. Retaining
fees scaled according to the 'give-up"
looks of the clients are extracted in order
TO get these newly discovered parcels of
property out of litigation" and the clients
bled and kept between the devil and
the deep sea for years at a stretch, sus-
tanned by the nope and generally, the be-
lief (more is the PITY that they will even
tually come into possession of property of
their ancestors which never existed. The
whole business is about the most bare
faced fraud that has ever been practced
in this town, and the fact that it is a sue
cess and ''money-maker'' for its projec-
tors only serves to further emphasize the
truth of the observation of Mr.. Chuck Con-
nors which is quoted at the beginning of
this letter.
Novels to Order.
There is a writer over here-"commercial
fictionst' is the appellation which he sar-
donically bestows upon himself-who makes
a business, not to mention first-class liv-
ing, by writing novels to order for well-to-
do individuals, usually women, who are am
know themselves to be absolutely devoid of
literary ability This man writes the novels
and sells them out of hand to the persons
who have the money to pay his price for
them The purchaser assumes the chance
of being able to find publisher. But, as
the novels all Of them pretty good stuff
of their sort, none of this writer's custom
erS," 1t seems, has yet been unable to dig
up a publisher The novels, of course, are
published under the names of the pur-
chaSers. Not few of them have been quite
highly praised by the critics, and thus the
persons able to afford to buy the brains of
the commercial fictionist'' have basked
in the more less ephemerai fame which
comes to those whose names find their way
onto the covers of sure-enough, honest-In-
jun printed books. 1t is a cheating scheme,
of course, but the Commercial fictionist''
states that this fact does not rest heavily
upon his conscience, since he is only sort
of accessory before the fact in the cheat
ing. the people who consent to having an
others work appear under their own names
being the reprehensible parties in such tram
sactions. The commercial fictionist" lives
in right royal style. and he has all of the
novel writing that he possibly attend
to. He says that he can slap together"
novel that has nine chances out of ten of
being accepted by a publisher in three or
four weeks, and he gets from $500 to 81 900
each, in advance, be it understood for
writing the novels-whch is q good deal
more money than the average published
novel earns for its writer, since it has
Deei estimated ny d puDHSDer with the
lingering habit that only one novel out
of about 20C0 succeeds in earning a profit
for the publisher and writer thereof The
commercial fctionist sometimes writes
his "to-order' novels from scenarios sub
mitted by his customers" but as a gem
eral thing he is given carte blanche to go
ahead and write any old thing that he
chooses, 80 that he makes it clever his
clients add
All of which would seem to make the
fact stand out that them id library
felers" are assuredly getting their bust
ness down to a pretty fine point here in
little old New York.
Women Now Wear White Stockings.
This is another year of continued rever-
sions In the matter of apparel to the habiIi-
ments-private and on view-of other days.
Witness the fact that the New York wo-
men who make pretensions to keeping in
the van of the juggernaut of fashion are
now wearing white stockings, not only for
evenings, but for the shopping district in
the hours of daylight. The corners that