The daily morning journal and courier., 1904-08-04

sAAMNs VI DVA4e@A5 elNG T 1Au Ao S1BuA-
 dreIs Every Year-some Typical
 Cases.
 Blackmail, according to those who study the undercurrents of modern life aourishes far more widely than the general public realizes, says the New York Tribune. Where it is known that one dollar is paid as the result of extortion. one hundred dollars. so police detectives say, is paid secret ly. From the very nature of this evil 1t shuns the light, and only comes to the surface as the result of some moral upheayaI. Where one victim turns at last on his perseeutor and gives fight in the open, ninety others either continue ito pay tribute or take to the abyss. The public is still talking about re- cent case of alleged blackmail, in which a negress is charged with having wrung nearly seven hundred thousand dollars from an old man, but it knows nothing of many more instances of ex- tortion which will ever remain secret.
 Though it's purpose Is relentlessly the same, blaekmail exists in the most va ried forms. It may take the shape of the bullying policeman who keeps driy- ing the push-cart peddler from one cor ner to another until few greasy coins turn away his wrath, or it appears in the bedizened adventures who is levy- ing secret tribute on some highly re- spected merchant. Now and then it is dragged before the magistrate in the person of thug, who has threatened the life of some unwary out-of-towner, caught in the meshes of the badger game, or it may walk up and down the sunnier side of Wall street, tricked out in smart clothes purchased with money wrested from some speculator to pre- vent a raid on his securities on the ex- change.
 Although the case of alleged black mail exposed the other day by the suit against a negress involves sum of money unparalleled in former instances | it lacks the tragic features which have characterized many cases. New York has all but forgotten how a blackmailer was shot dead in Madison avenue after
 
 l the endeavor to obtain sixty thousand dollars. It occurred in 1881. wher Louis Strasburger had a large jewelrS | store at 15 Maiden Lane. For some time Mir. Strasburger had been receiv- ing threatening letters through the mall, and on one occasion his little daughter was snatched up by stran- lgers and nearly ktdnapned
 'oIHoL le soEyo u5IsIoJ 5ql tuoIS uolBt
 At last the jeweler became desperate and he asked the police to lay traI for his persecutor. It was accordingly arranged that the governess, as the blackmailer had demanded, should walk through East Sixty-eighth street, ir which MT. Strasburger lived towarc Fifth avenue. She should carry be. tween her fingers an envelope contain. 1 ing the money, and at pistol shot she should drop it in the street and run The governess did as directed, but ir addition detectives under cover of tht lneighboring houses watched her close. ly. As she approached Madison ave Inue, two men slunk across the street and suddenly one of them fired the pis. tol signal; the governess dropped the envelope. containing a few bits of pa lper, and his pal stopped to pick it up As he did so a detective jumped on his back, reached for his arms, but instead found himself looking down the barrel of a pistol. Tn self-defence he pulled his own revolver and shot the black mailer through the head.
 Not So many years ago a plot was revealed which shows how many an in nocent man holding high position 1T the community from which he might be hurled by even the talk of scandal, nc matter how false it may be, will pay Iblackmail for silence. The pastor of 8 lchurch in an up-town part of the city was threatened by a servant girl witt E a suit which would accuse him of g crime unless he paid one hundred dol lars to her father. Rather than have a word of scandal spoken about hin lthe clergyman paid the money, think. ling he would never hear from the lblackmailers again.
 Tn only q month, however, the father made the request for five hundred dol. liars and threatened not only the publi. cation of the false charge but bodily harm as we'll This sum was paid. ana many more, until the minister had ex. hausted all his savings and had mort. gagged his property. Then he turned I and had the vampires hauled to court Father and child were hardly throwr | into prison, however, before the mar confessed his crime in the effort to ob tain light sentence
 Physicians are in more danger of fall ling victims of blackmailing plots thar men of many other professions. They 1 are called to visit persons who arc strangers to them, in houses into whicl they have never entered before, so tha unless a doctor is guarded he may fal the victim of a badger game much tht same as an unsuspecting countryman. Dr. c. Halsted, for example, some years ago received a letter at his office l172 West Tenth street, which read al follows:
 Dr. c. Halsted: I am suffering from severe attack of asthma and bron, clrial troubles. l have been advised bJ several of your patients to place myself in your care. Will you please call al once, as I am suffering great distressi
 LAURA HOKEY,
 No. -- West Sixty sixth street. < The doctor called at the address and was surprised to find the woman look. | ii, CT wall TJa yHn S inst ahni1t tn exam.