The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-03-14
ON
 SURE THINGS
rom the Kansas City Journal.

From the Kansas City Journal.
 A curious phase of human nature is re- vealed in the recent capture of four men, arrested in Little Rock, Ark, in connec- ton with alleged gigantic swindling ope- rations conducted through the means of fake horse races, prize fights. wrestling matches and foot races in various parts of the west.
 It appears that these swindlers operated in number of states and chose for their victims men of wealth and prominence. Their scheme, no matter what the form of the contest, was to assure their vic- tim that the contest was prearranged so that their man was sure to win and to in duce him to bet thousands of dollars on the result. As an inducement it was often the case that they allowed the victim to officiate as stakeholder, and the swindlers would put up several thousand dollars or their own money in his hands, along with his own. Of course they were careful to arrange matters so that the money would fall into their own hands at the climax of the swindle; and they stopped at nothing, not even murder, to accomplish their pur- pose.
 The curious phase of the case is that the victims have proved almost invariably to be hard-headed, successful men, many of them with a wide experience in the ways of the world, who had amassed their fortunes by the exercise of superior prudence and judgment in business af- fairs It would naturally be supposed that men of this type would be quick to detect such a shallow swindle as these sharpers proposed, and that they would refuse to follow the lead of perfect stran- gers, confessed scoundrels. in going to strange places. generally out in the woods and carrying large sums of money to be placed as a wager upon wrestler or runner whom they had never seen or heard of, upon the bare assurance of ras- calls also perfect strangers to them, that the affair was fixed for them to win. But, strange to say, the victims are num- bered by scores, and perhaps hundreds, of the most prominent men in various communities These latest sharpers, who made their headquarters at Little Rock, found any number of credulous victims in Missouri Iowa, Colorado, Kansas and other western states. Four residents of Denver, two of them prominent bankers, alone were buncoed out of $42 GOO in vari- ous fake matches. The il-gotten gains of the sharpers' syndicate are estimated by government detectives to amount to con- siderably over q ,0O0,000. Such is the cred ulity. and, we blush to say the frailty, of human nature.
 Even more curious, too, is the virtuous indignation of the victims against those who have fleeced them. In great earnest ness they deman dthe aid of the law in recovering their money and the condign punishment of the sharpers apparently quite oblivious of their own guilty partic- patton in a scheme to swindle other sup posedly innocent persons In sure-thing game Their snug responsibility and un- conscious hypocrisy are most amazing. It was perfectly legitimate in their eyes to bet on sure thing. which could only be made sure by rascally collision, but when the case was reversed it became quite an other thing. What a queer bundle of in- mankind.