The Baltimore County union. [volume] (Towsontown, Md.) 1865-1909, 1909-08-28
NEW GOLD BRICK aAnrs.


Americans are the cream of the
credulous, declares writer in Pear
sons Magazine. We sometimes har-
Dor the idea that the Britisher is the
most ready and willing of all men to
part with his money to a sure thing
gamester, but when it comes to COM
petition against all corners the aver
age American hits the bulIseye.
The sure-thing men of today (incor-
porated) know this and build upon it.
One of the biggest of them claimed
not long ago that if he were given
time he could sell worthless stock to
three Americans out of every FIVE
provided the gullible three had the
money or could raise it.
He actually counts upon one victim
for every so circulars sent out through
the mails. The common average, as
the postal officials will tell you, is one
dupe for every hundred circulars.
Not bad, considering the cheapness
of printing and postage.
There is a firm in New York that
collects and sells addresses of people
who buy things through the mails OF
who have at some time evinced a de-
sire to do so. These addresses are
sold at IS a thousand. They are
assorted under various headings. IT,
for example, 1000 men have sent in
applications for wives to New York
matrimonial bureau that list is worth
500 to s. diamond ring concern that
Is setting up circular mill.
The sure thing operator has passed
through various stages of progress.
The now unsafe shell game. gold
brick and green goods swindles which
he operated with such profitable re-
suits in the Cos and the early 'oos
made way for the half interest game,
which fourished 10 years ago, and
the employment game which Is still
going Oh, though not to its former
extent.
The half interest advertiser sold you
a partnership in anything from pea
nut stand to a piano factory. When
you had bought it the next thing was
to find it, or If you found it you dis
covered that 1t belonged to somebody
else who knew nothing about the men
who sold it to you.
The employment game consists of
an opportunity to sell on high salary
the goods or the stock of company
in which you must first buy shares.
Then when you have paid over your
money you are assigned territory,
generally long distance from the
company's Office.
After you have gone at your own
expense to Milwaukee, Dubuque or
Kansas City, there to await tele-
graphic orders as to what to do next,
you take it out in waiting. The
orders never come, and when you go
back to the company's Office you find
that the company has foated away
on the magic carpet, nobody knows
where.
But it was soon found by the swjnd-
lers that these devices, like the green
goods game, was rather crude and
almost equally unsafe. So to the
education of the man who ran the half
interest or employment scheme was
added post graduate course In high
finance.
It came to be recognized by the
swindling gentry that there was moth
ing like corporation when one want
ed to do really safe and prosperous
business. Then, too, the corporation
must have something somewhere.
If it is mining company it must
have hole in the ground. If 1t is
rubber or coffee company it must have
some sort of concession from the Mex
lean or South American govern, which
is always very easy to get. If 1t is
cotton concern 1t must have a fence
corner somewhere down South.
These things are actually necessary
in order to show In court when the
time comes that the men who have
taken your money have endeavored
to carry out their part of the contract
and that they have failed is merely
their misfortune. For to fail in bust
ness is not necessarily crime.