Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1893-1920, 1910-12-17
TRICKS IN TRADE.
Feather Renovators Grafters of
High Degree, Says a Man
Who Knows.
TELLS OF PRACTICES
Usually Fleece the Customers and
Even Carry Stock of Moths to
Help Get Business.

Goose feathers in Rock Island
feather beds are about as scarce as
oysters in the conventional church
stew" said a man in the mattress bus
ipess to an Argus reporter the other
day. There used to be plenty of good
feathers around here, 1 find in can
wasting the city, but the renovatorS
got most of them. There's a graft
that is a graft. The housewife that
can get past the renovatOr man with
a nice goose feather bed is dandy
This city, like nearly ever other one
In the country, has been worked to
death by feather merchants and they
have left tale of woe behind them
that l am hearing every day. l mo
that the common practice has been ia
switch chicken feathers for goose
feathers, and when the former are
freshly renovated the ordinary house
wife cannot tell the difference. But
this sort of fraud. which gives the Gus
toner an approximately equal weight
of inferior feathers taken for the good
ones taken is not always followed.
Sometimes the renOvatOr, convinced
that he has a soft mark, takes half or
more of the feathers and returns the
tick light just that much. If he is not
required to weigh the ticks AT both
ends of the transaction there is little
chance of detecting the fraud and no
way of proving it if the owner of the
bed should desire to prosecute.
Solicitor Gets All the Money.
Just to prove 10 you that the prac
tice of fraud in regular part of tht
business I may say that the ordin-
airy solicitor for a renOvating estab-
ishment gets for his pay all the mon
ey demanded for the actual work q
rCnovating, which is done al a ride
ulously low figure, and often is paid
a commission of 10 per cent or so on
the pounds. BY pounds" is meant
the feathers that are taken outright
or replaced with chicken feathers.
Good feathers are worth from 40 10
so cents per pound wholesale, and so
you can readily see that the removal
or has a chance to make a good thing
OUT of a 10 or 90 pound bed.
Carries stock of Moths.
IAN ingenious trick is commonly
used 10 help get the business. Ordi-
Tarily it is not easy TO convince house
wives that their feather beds are in
need of treatment, so the solicitor has
a way of helping matters along. He
goes into the house of a prospective
customer. armed with a knife and a
lead pencil. After the preliminaries,
in which he usually fails to make
much of an impression, he asks to
examine the feathers. With his knife
he Sits the tick. Reaching in he gets
a few feathers. These he rolls in the
palm Of his hand discoursing mean
while about the prevalence of moths.
When he picks up the bunch of feathers
again he exclaims: "Why, your feath-
ers are full of moths. Here's one
now" And, sure enough there is evil
dence in support of his statement IN
the palm of his hand. OF course the
unsuspecting victim takes one look at
the moth and signs a contract.
THE part the pencil plays is this.
1t has a rubber eraser Under this is
a supply of moths. which most rem
Ovators keep on hand. During the
preliminaries the solicitor transfers a
moth from the pencil to a wrinkle in
the palm of his hand so that it is there
when the feathers are dropped upon
1t. OF course some feathers are real
~ infested with the insects, but in four
cases out of five where a solicitor finds
moths in a feather bed he put them
there himself