The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1910-01-26
HOODWINKED THE
 CHOSEN FEW
Society Women Victims of
 Willy Book Agent
Used that Old Gag, |'EOur House Has Selected You As One of a Few Who Will
 Be Allowed to Purchase"
(Kansas City Journal. )

(kanSdS Clty Journal
 There is the difference of six hoodwinking a person into buying something he really wants and sell ing him by the same methods some thing he can have no possible use
 for. This was what Judge Ralph
 I.atshaw of the Criminal Court said
 yesterday afternoon while assessing the above penalty on A. W. Johnston,
 g. book agent, because he was proved
 to have sold sets of books to the
 women of the Athenaeum Society by
 false representation.
 In many ways the Criminal Court
 room yesterday afternoon looked like
 it was witnessing eL regular session
 of the Athenaeum Society. In the
 place~~for a woman chairman, how
 ever, was Judge Latshaw; and instead
 of expert recording secretaries about
 the official desk were common old
 lawyers and men clerks. The only
 splash of color in this end of the room
 was or the witness stand, where
 stately plumes of one tint or another
 nodded emphatically to the questions
 of the County Prosecutor or quiVered
 in negation to the inquiries of the
 attorney for the defendant It seen1-
 ed from start to finish that there
 wasn't much show for Johnson. He
 was villain of the fashioned,
 beetle -browed kind in the eyes of the
 women witnesses who bent every ef-
 fort to convict him, sometimes over
 riding the rulings of the court to get
 through a word of condemnation. To
 one only casually interested, Johnston
 is 8 good looking man with an in-
 telligent face and exemplary man.
 ners. His smile, the few times it lit
 has features yesterday, showed dis
 tinct sense of humor.
 That Johnston did get a deal of
 fun out of his business transactions
 with the members of the Athenaeum
 testimony of Mrs. A. J. Welch, one
 of the society directors. He came
 to each of us,' Mrs. Welch said, with
 his proposition to sell us 25 books,
 entitled Authors Digest, as one of 25 good women of the city who would
 chase the sets. Invariably we asked
 him if he had sold many. To this he would reply that he had sold one to Mrs. w. L. Bell and one to Mrs. M. H. DeVault of the society. You are number 23, he would assure us, jokingly. He told the 23 yarn to every one he approached on the book deal"
 Some of the witnesses had not pur- chased the books, some had only paid down the $7.75 asked by the agent, others had remitted $20. One woman, who roTuSed to try 10 cOnV1CL Johnston because she said she had got her moneys worth of experience with the books, invested $115 cash with her order Mrs. Bell said she had refused to buy, but that she was willing to help prosecute on general principles. She declared the agent made some of his sales by telling his victims that a much admired thesis
 read by Mrs. DeVault a week or two before was prepared by the firm he represented. On his assurance that any woman of the chosen 25 could get a real thesis on any subject that would neither rip, split or turn down at the heel' with every order, the
 club woman was usually willing to put her name on the business end of the contract.
 There is one mitigating circum- stance in the case of this young man." l said Judge Latshaw in giving his de- cision. ''He approached women who l could stand small loss. He did not 1 go to the poor ones, he went to the | better situated women whose hus- bands indulge them with pin money. Nevertheless he was practicing a de- | liberate fraud which was a misde- meanor at the time, but is now by a special act of the Legislature, a felony punishable with penitentiary term.'' Judge Latshaw sentenced Johnston | to six months in the county jail. John ston appealed, and was released under | bond of $500.