The Lee County journal. (Leesburg, Ga.) 1904-19??, 1907-07-26
SWINDLING BY MAIL.
How the Government Saves People from
Buying Gold Bricks.
By FREDERIC J. HASKIN.

I The machine proved to be toy affair,
and the letter in answer to a woman's
threat to sue is filed away as a mark
of genuine cleverness on the part OF
the artful dodger who originated the
scheme Bogus detective agencies
were thick in the land for while. For
a certain sum of money they would
send a star, certificate of membership,
credentials, etc, to the purchaser, and
not until the astonished victim has
been hauled up before unfeeling mag
istrates for carrying. a gun or for I'M
personating an officer did the luckless
fellow realize that he had been the VIC
tim of a scoundrel.
A Dallas firm found a ready market
for mineral rods" which were sup
posed to discover gold and silver below
the surface of the earth. In order
to stimulate interest in them the firm
offered to buy up all old coins that
might be revealed by thisemagic. Other
schemes of this kind have had sur
prising success but they, too, have been
suppressed by the government. Nevada,
| Mo. sprung a wonderful school of mag
netic healing on the public. The pres
ident of the institution guaranteed to
devote certain time each day to
absent treatment" Of his patients for
the sum of S. a month, payable in
!
been healed, because the president was
busy debating letters to other trusting
souls at the time he should have had
his mind on his prepaid patients. 1t
is a pity he came under the govern
ment's displeasure, for he guaranteed
to cure poverty and to give success
in business at the rate of 81 a month
a patient
A Florida woman got into trouble
by promising to devote fifteen minutes
a day to each patient when thoughts
from her soul would renew them to
better and higher life She was lit
tie more clever than the Missouri man,
ment sufficient absent treatment sue
cessfully to eyade the penalty of the
law, though it has been on her heels
for several years. Physicians with
marvellous new remedies are thick in
the land, and there is little that they
find themselves unable to cure, to
judge from the optimistic circulars.
They raise the dead in their litera-
ture as expeditiously as they raise
money from the pockets of the living
in reality. Mining enterprises draw
victims like honey pot draws ants,
and the man at Baker City, Ore, who
sold stock in the White Swan mine
found a crowd of eager bidders. So
did banking company of st. Louis.
Despite its promise to leave it's affairs
to board Of directors and to invest
the deposits in United States bonds,
the president managed to get for his
own use a comfortable little fortune,
and the depositors got much expert
ence
Tropical plantations have a roman
tic atmosphere that is hard to resist
when exploited on paper above the
name of some firm in Boston. Many
people have grown wise through Uncle
Sans intervention in schemes of this
kind, and they who drank a cheap
brew of coffee, believing it to be from
the great plantations in which they
had an interest, learned that labels
are easy to buy and certain grades of
coffee easy to repack when no coffee
exists on the wilderness they helped
to buy.
Stock and bond purchasers are easy
to find, if the tales that disappointed
investors write are true, and the gov
eminent hear many of these.
1t took the endless chain enterprise
fully to awaken Uncle Sans ire.
Churches were built that way, clothes
sold, houses furnished, wine cellars
stocked-or would have been had the
chain remained unbroken. 1t, too,
was counted a gambling scheme, and by
the time Uncle Sam had done a little
figuring he decided it was too hard
proposition for his children. BY the
time the sixteenth series Of people
had bought their tickets and had per-
suaded three times their number to
buy it would have taken 387 ,39S,619
persons to finish the chain-something
like 3O0,0O0,000 more people than he
had altogether.-New York Tribune.