Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1914-03-13
to some other cause than the wiles of

his customer. so strikingly has been
the evidence Of the memorandum book
with its list Of numbers.
The fake directory" game, accord
ing to Allender, is also one that is not
often prosecuted. An agent calls upon
a business man and represents that he
is soliciting advertising for new di-
rectory. The merchant is invited to
contract for space, but is informed
that no money will be collected until
man sees his advertisement in print.
He signs an agreement to this effect
But the contract is so craftily word
ed and printed that 1t can be cut in
two in the center without severing a
letter, with the result that the part
bearing the merchants signature be-
comes a simple promissory note, COL
lectible upon demand. After some
months, when the transaction has be-
come haZy in his memory, the note Is
presented for collection, always by IAN
innocent purchaser" The victim, see
ing his own undoubted signature at
tached to a note may be confused into
paying, as the sum is some such small
amount as s25 or $50.
The fake employment agency" is
operated chiefly upon foreign-born la
borers. The swindler opens an office,
with lurid signs advertising that he
has work to offer in railroad camps at
$3.50 a day and board. Each appli-
cant pays fee and is gratified by see-
ing his name written in a book A day
and hour are appointed for his depar-
ture to the camp, and not until they
arrive does he learn that he has been
f1eeced. He has no evidence better
than a verbal. contract. He appeals to
the police. but the bird has usually
flown. One Austrian, according to the
records, recently obtained SO each from
$50 countrymen in one day by means
Of well-staged employment office"
On every hand honest persons are
besieged by more or less ingenious
schemes to separate them from their
money. Some Of them are old, but
they still find victims even after they
have been exposed repeatedly.
Such is that of the man who, hat
less and coatless as II he lived or work.
ed near by, rushes into a restaurant
where there is preferably girl cash.
ier. He has quantity Of change in
one hand and a stamped and address,
ed envelope in the other. He requests
a $40 bill in return for the change. as
he wishes to mail a remittance.
The cashier gives him the bill, and
thinks she sees him put it in the en-
velope and seal it. But on counting
the change she finds it amounts to
only $19.95.
my goodness" exclaims the man in
surprise. Here. take your $50 while
/ run around the corner and get an
other nickel" He tosses the envelope
on the counter, sweeps up his $19.95
and disappears The cashier waits a
| little while and then opens the envel-
ope. 1t contains a blank sheet of pa
per.
Rural visitors arriving in st. Louis
at the Union station are subject to am
buscade by a systematic band of
swindlers. One of them sold the Eads
Bridge to a farmer for few hundred
dollars, and another sold the Pierce
building to a second countryman. A
third farmer was robbed of $50 in
broad daylight in matching game"
played on the head Of barrel on
Olive street, between Third and Fourth
streets; and another was so duped that
he rushed home to Montreal to get ST.
900, which his sharper friends were
planning to steal from him on his re.
turn. He was saved by the suspicious
of his banker, who refused to give him
the money, and communicated with
the st. Louis police. This eager gull
was furious at his banker and the po-
lice, whose meddling he said, prevent.
ed him from making a profit of $4,000
on a horse-race.
Women from the country are the
prey of men who advertise for house
keepers, and on their arrival In the
city steal their baggage or borrow
their money and vanish. One such
sharper, now under arrest in st. Louis,
is 20 years old and has just been re-
leased from the penitentiary. hu-
morous sidelight on the case is that he
is accused of stealing $40 which he did
not know he took. He is charged with
stealing a woman's suit case contain
ing clothes. Among them was pair
of shoes, in the soles of which the
owner had hidden two ten-dollar gold
pieces. The prisoners chagrin when
he learned he had overlooked his loot
was tragi-comic.-St. Louis Post-Dis-
patch.