The Alaska citizen., 1911-09-18

have fraudulent employment bureaus
fake correspondence schools and fake
patent agents. We have swindle>
run by individuals and swindes by
corporations. and. in short. all sorts
of swindles under the sun. As il is
now we are striking at the big men.
and We hope TO wipe out great
part of the business. We have 4
score or more of schemes which
are being carried on all over the
country. some of which we are rap
idly eliminating We have the swind-
Ter syndicate by which the sChemers
try to induce the unSuSpeCting to
buy green goods or gold bricks We
have swindlers who pretend to sell
counterfeit money. and for good
hard dollars give the would-be TaS
Gals green paper or sawdust instead.
We have diamond ring swindlers
who pick up diamond rings near
jewelry shops and sell them for half
the value, so changing the ring that
the victim gets only a cheap imita-
ton.
We also have swindling an
agents and swindling real estate
dealers. Among the latter was Clar-
tlNt - i1illiildl. VI Stdlllt. W no
made about S10oO.o00 in land
schemes and town-lot schemes. of
ten selling land to which he had no
title at all. He laid out towns and
published pictures of the improve
ments. including railroads and fac
tories. which had no existence. He
was considered one ct the largest
real estate operators on the Pacific
coast. bur We exposed his fraudulent
methods and he is now in the peni-
Tertiary for over Two years.
Fake Prizefighters.
How about the fake priZe.fghting
schemes. Mr. Inspector"
They are among the singular
frauds carried ON through the mails"
was the reply. They are usually
backed by men who pretend 10 be
millionaires and their victims try
10 make money by swindling the
swindlers. Take Mabray. who TO-
gether with his organization made
something like $1,000. 900 out of that
game. His victims came from all
parts of the country, and each was
robbed of from $1,000 to $50, 600. In
these cases the victim was APP
preached by che of Mabray's confed-
] crates. who Contidcntially tOld the
man that he was secretary of com
pany OF milliOnaireS who had
priZe-fghter with them whom they
We're matching at the various places
in such a way thai the result was
dead sure thing. The confederate
/ claimed to have charge of the bets
and he got the victim TO bet some
Money for him and at the same time
20 put in a LOT Of his own money on
the fight. Du ing the fight some
unforeseen thing always happened
and the money was lost In some
cases one Of the prize-hshters held
rubber bag of blood or red ink
in his hand which burst as he
struck his opponent, giving claim to
+ the statement that the man had a
/ hemorrhage and was. therefore. de
| feated We convicted Mabray and
nine of his associates and made
them pay a fine Of 10000 as well
as TO serve two years in the peniten-
tiary"
is much money stolen from the
/ pOStOfiiCe?'
Yes; We have professional burg
lars who seem to deal only with
! postoffices. They have stolen great
/ quantities of stamps and at times
/ considerable money as well Not long
ago a robbery occurred in the post
office at Minneapolis. whe,e 5000
stamps were carried away. The
, thieves entered the pCStOftice at
night and opened the safe with a da-
mOnd drill. They took their plumber
% Chicago ana DISPOSED of it there
through men who acted as postage
stamp fences. They had still about
$4,000 with of stamps left when
they were caught and convicted.
One OF the largest poStoffiCe rob
berries of recent tines" continued
the chief inspector. was that which
occurred at Richmond in March, 1910
In this case over $S4 900 We're stol-
en-, the vault being entered by drill
ing hole under the combination
knob. This hole was threaded with
a steel thread cutter and then by
a jimmy ard screw the lock was
forced back. The inner doors CT the
vault wele opened in the same man
ner.
This work was done by Eddie
Fay, a man who had escaped from
Jail in Wisconsin Il short time be-
fore. while awaiting trial there for
the robbery of the pOStOffiCe at West
Superior. Fay was known to be the
leader Of a gang which had robbed
the p0stOitice in Chicago of $74, 900
in 1901. He posed as a retired bus
mess man living at Tacoma, Wash.
under the name of R. j Cummings.
He owned real estate in Tacoma.
and was considered a respectable
citizen. We got on his track by
tracing his trunks, one of which was
sent to the Grand Central station,
New York Inside the trunk was
$2l 900 in two-cent postage stamps.
1t was claimed by Fay. who was
thereupon arrested. and to make a
long story short was convicted of
burglary, fined $4,000 and sentenced
to serve ten years in the Federal
penitentiary at Atlanta. Ga"
AS the chief inspector concluded
this story | thanked him for the
talk and rose to go. AS | turned to-
ward the wall | faced the photo
graph of a train robber, who held a
revolver which seemed to point
straight at my eyes. Below it in
black ink We're the words Hands
! up" AS | walked across the room
the eyes of the photograph followed
me. and the gun seemed to move
and to ever point straight at my
!. head. remarked upon this when
Mr.. Sharp said
fee inspector who helped convict a