The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1909-08-22
SOME NEW GOLD
BRICK GAMES

Americans are the cream of the credu-
lous, declares a writer In Pearsons Mag
azine. We sometimes barber the idea
that the Britisher Is the most ready and
willing of all men to part with his money
to sure thing gamester, but when 1t
comes to competition against all Corners
the average American hits the bulseye
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 Amer
leans out of every five, provided the gull
lible three had the money or could
raise it.
He actually counts upon one victim for
every 30 circulars sent out through the
mails. The common average, as the pos
tai officials will tell you is one dupe for
every hundred circulars. Not bad, con-
sidering the cheapness of printing and
postage.
There is a firm in New York that COL
lects and sells addresses of people who
buy things through the mail or who have
at some time evinced desire to do so.
These addresses are sold at s. a thou
sand. They are assorted under various
headings. II, for example. 1900 men
have sent in applications for wives to a
New York matrimonial bureau that list
is worth 500 to a SO diamond ring concern
that is Setting up a circular mill.
The sure thing operator has passed
through various stages of progress. Tho
now unsafe shell game, gold brick and
green goods swindles which he operated
with such profitable results in the sos
and the early Dos made way for the half
interest game, which hourished ten years
ago, and the employment game which is
still going on, though not to its former
extent.
The half interest advertiser sold you
a partnership in anything from a peanut
stand to plano factory. When you had
bought 1t the next thing was to find it..
or if you found it you discovered that 1t
belonged to somebody else who knew
nothing about the men who sold 1t to
you.
The employment game consists OF an
opportunity to sell on high salary the
goods or the stock of a company in which
you must first buy shares. Then when
you have paid over your money you are
assigned territory. generally long dis
lance from the company's office
After you have gone at your own ex-
pense to Milwaukee, Dubuque or Kansas
City, there to await telegraphic orders
as to what to do next you take 1t out In
when you go back to the companys Of
fee you find that the company has float
ed away on the magic carpet, nobody
knows where.
But it was soon found by the swindlers
that these devices, like the green goods
game, were rather crude and almost
equally unsafe. So to the education of
the man who ran the half interest or en-
ployment scheme was added a post grad
uate course in high finance.
1t came to be recognized by the swim
ding gentry that there was nothing like
a corporation when one wanted to do a
really safe and prosperous business. Then,
too, the corporation must have something
somewhere.
II 1t is a mining company 1t must have
a hole In the ground. II it is a rubber or
a coffee company 1t must have some sort
of concession from the Mexican or a
South American government, which is al
ways very easy to get. If it is a cotton
concern 1t must have 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 misfor-
tune. For to fail in business Is not nee
essariy a crime.