Evening star., 1921-01-02

Also give him fried cabbage and
oysters. tripe and pigs feet to keen
fluffy"
A parallel of the cat story told
above is the one being worked
right along. where the advertiser Of
fers thoroughbred hunting dogs. well
trained. and then picks up any old
KIND of ours and yellow pups in the
local community and ships them out
at fancy prices. $50 to s100.
So, also. is there a companion pic
ture to the medicinal Falstaff in the
pseudo faith healer" One of the
most famous of such cases that has
veXed the postal authorities for many
years was a woms n in Florida who
was convicted upon an indictment
found against her for fraudulent use
of the mails. Extension of the fraud
order was recently made in another
historic ruse. This extension includes
society in Indiana. The scheme
consisted in selling and advertising
through the mails treatment alleged
TO cure all diseases without the use
of drugs, surgery or even seeing the
patient. The method of healing was
by the so-called silent" or absent
trea tment."
The originator and promoter Of this
imposition on confidence was SEN
tenced first on October %, 1909 to
Leavenworth penitentiary for a year
and day. But il appears that the
same man was again sentenced on
November IL. 1914, for four years in
the same institution and on June %.
eral penitentiary at Atlanta.
The endless chain scheme is one that
spreads as the little wavelets when a
pebble is dropped into still water.
! The general idea is to induce many
persons to send in dimes under the
faS a hax 70 rat 10
clothes, a silk petticoat or other
articles. One of these plans was for
an individual to secure a coupon for
% cents and send that in with a
dollar. for which he would receive
four more coupons. He would re-
imburse himself for his dollar by
selling the four coupons. When these
| four coupons with another dollar each
| were sent in the original coupon pur-
| chaser would get his suit, or what
| ever was offered. a.
Washington saw notable illustrs- =
! tfon of the chain letter cheat a couple
/ of years ago. The operator was in
Milwaukee or Minneapolis. Silk petit
coats worth IS each were to be re-
ceived for 10 cents. Government
| workers and department store en-
ployes sent in dimes as fast as they
| could address envelopes, and write
] the letters. The proposal was to send
in 10 cents. make 10 copies of a letter
and send these to ten friends each
Of whom was to send I'm 10 cents and
write ten more letters. The fraud
| order was issued 50 promptly and the
promoter made his getaway 50
abruptly that only comparatively few
lost their dimes, but the evil OF the
| endless chain was shown in the fact
| that the dead letter Office was stack ed
high with the withheld letters, each
| containing a dime And SO far did ii
| spread that 1etters are still being re-
| turned to the senders. Folks all over
I the country, in every city and town
of any size, were caught in this chain
| letter progression.
tions patterned after this were start
ed, which the post Office inspectors
| had to watch and suppress
All of these frauds attempted
! through the agency Of the mails are
suppressed by fraud orders issued by
! the solicitor of the Post Office De-
partment, which prevents the trickster
| from collecting the profits from his
| wiles. and the letters containing his
! intended spoils are sent back to the
. addresses. The fraud order has been
no less instrumental in protecting the
guilible. ignorant, chedulous or avari-
cious tempted by the. advertisements.
| than has been a conscientious volun-
! tary stand by the newspa pers and
| magazines. which refused to accept any
advertisements that are recognized as
| tricky or suspected of intent to cheat.
| It is as impossible to estimate the
| amount of money that these crooks
and nimble-wits have cost Uncle sam
! in suppressing their sporadic out
| breaks and in returning to the sendefs
! the waves of silver they let loose. as
| it is to estimate how many millions
| of dollars have been saved to the
| innocent and unwary by the enforce
o,anf of this hanpflcant law