The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1911-08-10
THE LATEST SPINDLE IS SLICK.

When a Philadelphia man came home from Europe the other day, he didn't know his own house. He had only been gone a few weeks, too, and came back perfectly sober.
 This mans name was Brown. Ar irving in Philadelphia, he aclimbed into taxfcab, gave the driver his house number and settled back com fortably to enjoy a renewal of ac- quaintanceship with the familiar scenes of his home town.
 When the taxicab stopped, Brown was astonished. The taXicab. had stopped before a house that didn t look familiar at all. He glanced He looked about at the neighboring houses. They were the same old houses. Even the children on the street seemed to remind him of old times and one of them hailed him with Hello. MT. Brown!"
 But the house! Instead of the old, familiar building that used to look like all the other buildings on he street, with plain front and an or dinary room, it had two bay windows, a highly decorated room a big glass door and Q new coat of paint.
 MT. Brown began to think about the heat, the cholera scare, sea sick ness, European hotel fare and other things that are likely to turn ones head. He was wide awake, he told himself-aand that should be his house, but it wasn't.
 Jusut then a neighbor came along and while MT. Brown wasswondering what to say, the neighbor began to congratulate him on the improve ments to his property.
 But who ordered 'em," exploded Brown. The neighbor looked at him warily, remarked that the heat had beeen oppressive and said that he didn't knOW who had Or6arn6 tbo i'm = provements, but that workmen had been engaged on the job for three weeks. A contractor by the name of Leberwitz had supervised the work.
 Then Brown hunted up Leberwitz and it was Leberwitz's turn to have visions of a lunacy court.
 Leberwitz said man by the name of Levin had ordered the work done, and he was to receive one thousand dollars for doing it.
 Has he paid you?" asked Brown.
 ''No," replied Leberwftiz, -but he accepted my bid on the contract, showed me the house, gave me the plans and specifications, and came over once to see how I was getting along put up cash bond of $500 in Levin's hands to do the work ac- cording to contract"
 Then Brown and Leberwitz began to hunt for Levin. They hunted in vain. They appealed to the police and the police also hunted in vain. Levin had left town.
 After several days an explanation of the whole affair drifted into Browns and Leberwitz's understand ings. Levin, knowing of Browns ab- sence, had contracted with Leberwitz to make repairs to the vacant house, had induced him to put up the cash bond and had absconded $500 richer for the trick.
 And thus to Philadelphia belongs the credit of setting before the world the newest and neatest swindle on the market.
 The man who conceived and exc cuted this swindle must have been a man of rare genius. His scheme shows originality and resourceful- ness of a high order. It took cour- age to carry out the plan and it must have required a fine bit of act ing to avoid arousing the contractors suspicious.
 One wonders why a man with Le- vin's talent should prefer to live a dis honest life. With his capacity for original ideas and his ability to put them into execution, he would un- doubtedly prove successful in almost any line of legitimate business.-Tren- ton True American.