The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1910-05-17
KANSAS COMMENT
GOVERNMENT AID.

1t is fortunate for the Easy Marks
that the government keeIs father
ly eye on them. and gives them lts
protection, or they'd all land in the
poorhouse or the insane asylum.
The government keeps such close
tab on the business of the postone
department that the people who make
business of shearing the Easy Marks
are badly handicapped. When 1t is
discovered that one of the shearers is
doing a fraudulent business, his mail
is confiscated, and he is arrested and
the chances favor a rapid trip to the
penitentiary. This condscation or the
mail gives the government. and con-
sequently the people, some idea of the
wonderful prevalence OF the Easy
Marks.
You doubtless read the story about
the old man in Missouri who adver-
tised in a matrimonial paper, saying
that he was bIushinS damsel OF
seventeen, named Nora, that ne was
heiress to small fortune. and that he
wanted to correspond with some soul
full young man. with q view to a nap
by married life.
Nine hundred and ninety-nine in a
thousand of such advertisements are
fakes, and the fact has been printed
so often that all the Easy Marks have
had the opportunity to become famllar
with it. Matrimonial agency SHARKS
are being convicted and sent to prison
all the year round. and as soon as an
institution of that sort opens Tor ousl-
ness it becomes an object of suspicion.
Yet the Easy Marks fall for all the
fake advertisements. not as single
spies, but in battalions.
If man of ordinary Intelligence
would use his head for a minute. he
might know that no attractive. girl,
with a fortune coming to her. would
advertise for a husband; and he might
realize that any girl advertising for
h 1cIa or,I icv1sf NIL Inc
Easy Marks never use their heads.
They send their money to matrimonial
agencies, to dealers in mining stocks,
to all sorts of get-rich-Quick takers,
and they'd send more than they do II
the government didn't interfere now
and then.
The old Missourian who worked the
Nora graft is a grandfather; he is
bald, and homely as mud fence, and
he chews twist tobacco. Yet thousands
of Easy Marks wrote love letters, and
many sent him money 10 buy his trouS-
seau, and nobody knows how much he
cleaned up altogether. OF course 1t
will do him no good. now that the gov
eminent has got him anG he is busy
explaining that it was all joke. Some
how it is easier to symDathize with
| that old rascal than with the cheerful
| idiots who sent him the money.-Em-
poria Gazette.
THE TARIFF AT WORK.
| The new tariff law is making good
so rapidly that even it's friends are sur
priSed and there is less and less OPP
position to it from the enemies who are
not merely political. Its reductions on
necessities and increase on 1uxur1es
have resulted in an increased revenue,
Sc that instead of a deficit the national
| treasury is once more getting a sur
plus of receipts over expenditures This
| is a part of the tariff law which is not
alluded to in Democratic speeches and
yet it is a part which the Democratic
theory should consider the most i'm
| portant.
| The first object of tariff law is &c
raise revenue, and sufficient revenue
but was finally losing revenue. The
government has to have money to pay
4 expenses. The new tariff is producing
| the money and it has not advanced the
| price of single article in common use
/ The only people who have real griev-
| ance are the consumers of champagne
1 the wearers of silks and the importers
| of jewelry The other 500 out Of 6
| thousand are benefited by the new tar
if and it has never done one of the evi
things which were predicted.
/ The reduction of the tariff on lum.
Der, leather, iron and other schedules
has not resulted in lower prices because
| a. reduction in tariff very seldom brings
a lower price.
The new tariff was criticised by many
and questioned by many more, but Il
has not brought any of the bad effects
which its enemies predicted Not one
Hutchinson News.