Evening star., 1921-01-02

say further-When sold. send US the
money. 50. and we will promptly for
ward to you our new automatic ten
sion sewing machine
Now that is the only agreement we
made, and we carried it out to the
letter. We hope you will sit down
and write us a letter and apologize
for insinuating that our object was
fraud. You have hurt our feelings
very much. We did not ask you to
pay US a cent. out of your own pocket.
We only asked you to sell our blue.
which you did. and we appreciate it..
The money from the sale of the blue
was ours, and you could do nothing
else but return it to US as you did.
The work you did was worth a COM
mission of 25 per cent. or 10 cents.
We sent you a premium that would
cost you in any store $1.50. Many la
dies who don't care for it for them
selves give = it to their daughters,
nieces, or cousin or sister.
You don't mean to sit down and
tell us that you, with your good sense.
would suppose that we, or any one
else. could afford to give away a
forty-dollar sewing machine for the
simple little work of selling So worth
of goods for us. do you?
Furthermore. we would like to tell
concern. and that we would not. think
of inserting an advertisement in any
paper without first obtaining the best
legal opinion that money could buy
in the state of New York. Our ad-
vertisement is perfectly honorable
and plain to those who read it care
fully. We would advise you not to
answer any advertisement again until
you are absolutely sure that you
u " nrY q
disappointed, but you would not have
been If you had read it carefully at
first
A summary and effective fraud
order put stop to this scheme. A
parallel case was where people were
led to expect that they would receive
a well-equipped bicycle in an adver-
tisement which gave an elaborate de-.
script ion of such a wheel" but who
merely received a cheap-watch charm
representing bicycle.
nNE particularly popular and much
worked dodge is to ipveigie the
credulously avaricious into sending
some small amount of real money for
a sample of goods for which an agen-
cy is to be established. "A company in
elaborate circulars with this propo-
sition:
I'VE will send <one sample spring.
charges prepaid, on receipt of 81. If
! you do not like the. spring after see
,, ing it. you wilIbe under no obligation
/ to accept thef agency. as we 40 nor
want an agent that cannot recon-
mend this spring above all others. We
send only one sample spring to a
firm. and under no circumstances will
we send two or more springs at this
price" This closing statement proved
quite true for no one was at all eager
to send a second dollar after receiv-
ing only a small coil Of wire.
The diamond contract hocus-pocus
seems to have had a particularly
profitable run on the Pacific coast in
1904. when large number of fraud
orders were issued. The nub of this
contract was that one dollar week
ular contract wSs abe oldest ort-
standing it would be redeemed for
! about twice what, had been paid in.
Some few contracts were paid off
from two or more subsequent con-
Tracts, but as the number of new con-
tracts dwindled the number of liabil-
ity contracts grew. The fact that the
size of the disaster was in inverse
ratio to the magnitude Of its contracts
received moved Judge Kohlsaat to re-
mark that this was "a literal dem
onstration Of the old saying: The
deuii takes the hindermost.
Religious faith rather than a pro-
lection and shield has quite too often
been a shining mark for the rogue
About twenty years ago minister
advertised in number of religious
papers that while on a visit to the
Holy Lands he had collected a number
of seeds of the. Bible-famed Jonahs
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