Evening star., 1922-05-07

ers and !. A notorious gam
bier went by with q woman in . fabu-
lous fur wrap.
That's Blank, the card man." said
my first pedestrian friend. Made q
fortune skinning people--and they
say honesty's the best policy"
HE amt done yet" commented the
second, and, we went along on our
aimless way.
A mile further down the walk we
came upon two sleek and paunchy
men browsing in wheel chairs set to
catch the full puissance of the tonic
sun. and beside them two obviously
pretty girls. most fairly caparisoned.
"See those two crooks?" said No. /.
who seemed to have too much knowl-
edge to be purposeless. "They just
went machuiah down in Baltimore
for fve hundred thou. Up here
spending their bankruptcy losses"
"An'. they amt done. neither"
growled No. 2.
co my friends fell to arguing the
merits and demerits or the re-
wards or penalties of dishonesty. an
aimless and interminable debate. CEN
tering mainly upon the final earthly
fates Of confidence men and others
Of their kind. what usually became
of such men? Where went their
money? What deaths did they die?
One of my men contended with much
acrimony that dishonest dollars are
worthless and that the crook dies a
crooks death, while the other would
have none Of all this and dismissed
the whole idea as q bit Of sentimental
morality. with nothing behind 1t but
envy and anger
Let us see.
One bitter autumn morning some
years ago a gang of grafters was
making Its home trek in an open coal
car, shivering miserably before the
geld wind. not more than a dollar or
two in cash among them. bound for
New York's Mills hotels. The rattling
freight train curved about the lip of
a river and the cheap confidence men
saw before their eyes. on rising ground.
nne country house, with spacious
grounds and graceful trees.
"see that grand shebans up there?"
said one Of the grafters.
"Wot Of it," asked another.
'sW-eN, Il belongs to Jones. that poor
snceer Ne took for three hundred
bucks at the fair last spring"
Here ends this familiar story. COM
monty told among the adventurous
crews that rove the country and
practice sharp games on tho unwary.
The raconteur usually pauses a mo-
ment and then adds sententtously:
"You see. it's grave question as
to who's the sucker"
But the final irony lies beyond the
anecdote. The show place on the hill
was built by Brown, the gambler, and
sold to Jones. the bankruptcy shark.
Somewhat later It passed into the
large possession of Blue, the confidence
man.
THE men in the coal car and the
men in the big house stand at the
poles Of the world of roguery. And
there is the answer to all this dis
pute. Stupid. inefficient dishonesty is
the same as stupid. plodding honesty.
Either ends in failure and humility;
both with the same precise certainty.
The men in the big house were the
clever and successful crooks, and
their neighbors and intimates are the
clever and successful honest men. The
dishonest failures were quaking in
the coal car and the honest wrecks
were repairing the track.
1t Is better to tell youth the honest
truth than to confess 1t with dishon-
est moralizing.
The important difference seems to
be that honest failure involves no
imprisonment, unless it be in the
poor house.
To understand what happens to the
con mans money it is obviously es-
sential to agree upon definition OF
that parsonage. Broadly, con man