The Republican journal. [volume] (Belfast, Me.) 1829-current, 1908-12-10
FISHING FOR SUCKERS.

The Journal received last week from a
Western advertising agency an order for
the insertion of an advertisement headed
t'Ten to Twenty for One," and which
offered "a thoroughly legitimate, high
class industrial stock, in which an invest
ment of $500 to 81, 900 can be made to
produce competency for life" This
recalls the advertising of a few years
ago which promised 1920 for 81, and from
which the following quotation is made:
eve want few more stockholders at
once Want their influence. Only one
share to every 100 people. They are
going fast. You can invest 81 or $500.
All the proof you want. No get-rich-
quick scheme. Just great profit -making
business, managed by man who knows
how to make it pay" The inspectors of
the Post Office Department, after an in
vestigation of considerable length, found
that the representations made by this
company in their advertisements, pam
phlets and circulars were false; that
''while the business was ostenslbly held
forth as a medical concern, in fact, there
was no demand for its preparations, and
the only receipts were the money SUBJ
scribed by the public for stock" At the
time of the investigation the manager
admitted to the inspectors that he had
received S114,00 from the public and
had spent some S65, 900 of that amount
advertising for further sales of the stock.
No account was given of the funds ex-
pended from this source for other pur
poses For the protection of the public
a fraud order was issued by the Post
Office Department against the concern
in November. 1905, and it stands today.
The effect of the fraud order is to pre-
vent the further delivery of mail and the
payment of money orders to the person
or concern against which the order is
directed, and to cause such mail and
money orders to be returned to the
.Senders.
Then it will be recalled that few
years ago advertisements appeared in
many of the Maine papers in which it
was said that ''S1, 900 year can be easily
made by any man or woman who can
spare little time night or morning, or
SO, 900 to $1,000 if they can devote their
whole time. How? By joining our cor
poration and raising -" Did
any one save the promoters of the cor
poration realize even fraction of the
lesser sums named?
The old green goods game seems to
have been abandoned 1t was risky and
provided for swindling only one individual
at a time. 1t was much easier, and safer,
to capitalize a hole in the ground in some
remote and inaccessible part of the coun-
try and capitalize it at any number of
millions that suited the promoters and
sell the stock to the public at from ten
cents to $40 a share. Hardly week
passes that some concern of this kind
does not collapse, with nothing to show
for the stockholders money. tits noticed
that men once engaged in this business
never abandon it until they are caught
red-handed and locked up. Driven out
Of one place they go to another, and with
a change of name or of scheme, or both
continue to fleece the public. 1t evidently
does not occur to their many victims that
if what they had to offer was so valuable
such sure road to fortune they would
not be peddling it out in 81 or $40 shares
and spend thousands of dollars in adver
Using for customers.