Part 5

Replying to your application to write letters for us at your home during spare time, we beg to say that your writing is satisfactory, and we have decided to offer you the appointment.

The work we give out is simply writing letters from a copy which we furnish, for which we pay you direct from this office at the rate of twenty dollars ($20.00) per thousand. You do not have to write any certain number of letters before receiving pay, and all letters you write you return to us. There is no mailing them to your friends, as most other advertisers who advertise for letter writers demand, neither is there any canvassing or selling anything, or anything else to mislead you; you simply write from a copy which we furnish, and we pay you direct. We are an old, reliable firm, always state plainly what is required, do exactly as we promise and treat our employes honestly.

The work is easy; the letters to be written are the length of the ordinary business letter, and all we require is neatness and correctness. We furnish all materials free of charge, paper, etc., and prepay all costs of delivery to your home. You work only when you desire or have leisure time, and no one need know you are doing the work.

We pay spot cash for all work done the same day as received. We use thousands of these letters for advertising our business, because we receive better results from using written letters than from plain printed circulars. We have a large number of people all over the country working for us, and if you desire to become one of our regular workers we request that you send us one dollar, for which we will send you our regular dollar package of goods you are to write about.

This is all you are required to invest, there being no other payments at any further time, and this deposit is returned to you after doing work to the amount of two thousand letters. We are compelled to ask for this small deposit to protect ourselves against unscrupulous persons who do not mean to work and who apply out of idle curiosity.

We also send you first trial lot of letter paper, copy of letter to be written (as we desire all letters to be written on our own letter paper), also instructions and all necessary information. After receiving the outfit you start to work immediately. More reliable workers are needed at once, and we guarantee everything to be exactly as represented. If you find anything different we will refund the amount invested.

Fill out the enclosed blank and send it to us with one dollar or express or postoffice money order (stamps accepted), and we will immediately send everything, all expenses prepaid. You can start to work the same day you receive the outfit by simply following our plain instructions.

Kindly reply at your earliest convenience. Fill out enclosed blank and direct your envelope carefully. Trusting to be favored with your prompt services, we remain,

Very truly yours, LESLIE NOVELTY COMPANY, Per C. C. KENDALL.

ROB BED-RIDDEN WOMEN.

In their investigation of this sort of swindle the police discovered that almost invariably the victims were bed-ridden persons or women in straitened circumstances who were in frantic search of some means of keeping the wolf from the door. Many instances were found where some unfortunate had taken up a collection in the neighborhood in order to raise the necessary dollar to send for the "outfit." Persons were found who were actually starving and who had pawned their last possession to get the money that was to start them on the road to affluence.

Of all the offices raided Detective Wooldridge did not find record of one instance where a victim had been able to keep the requirements of the swindlers. The supposed letter sent to be copied was generally about 800 words in length, full of words difficult to spell, of rude and complicated rhetorical construction and punctuated in a most eccentric manner. The task imposed was practically a life-time job, and even if anyone had fulfilled it there were a hundred loop-holes whereby the thieves could escape payment by declaring their specifications had not been heeded to the letter.

The "outfit" consisted of a cheap penholder, a pen and a box of fake pills.

Imagine the joyous anticipation with which a starving cripple would await the arrival of the "outfit" that was to give him the opportunity of prolonging existence! The bright hopes of the work-worn widow who expected by this genteel means to keep her little ones in bread!

Think of the despair of both upon discovering they had paid out money so sadly needed--money which probably had been begged or borrowed--only to discover that they had been victimized instead of benefited!

"OPERATORS" CRINGING COWARDS.

Trembling, cringing, whining specimens of humanity were found in charge of each of these fakers' dens when Detective Wooldridge swooped down upon them. They were typical of their graft--small, mean, snake-like, cowardly. None among them was found who would bid defiance to the officers, who would resist intrusion by the law or who would go into court and fight. All were cheap and dirty in mind, loathsome, shrinking, snarling, but not daring to bite.

Among those driven out of business by Detective Wooldridge were the Twain Novelty Company, the Leslie Novelty Company, the Illinois Industrial Company and Blackney & Company.

"I have raided all classes of swindling institutions," said Wooldridge, "but it gave me more pleasure to run down these fellows than all the others put together. They did not dare try to get money out of people who could afford to lose it, or who were out in the world where they could talk with others of more experience. Their dupes were in almost every instance the most pitiable objects of the communities in which they lived. The facts disclosed by these raids were enough to fill the heart of the blackest grafter with indignation and a desire to trounce the perpetrators."

SHARKS RUIN BUSINESS MEN.

NEW LINE OF FINANCIAL GRAFT.

A new loan shark, or self-styled "financial agent," who preys on the business man and manufacturer, robbing him of his money and business more relentlessly than the old-time loan shark ever dared with the helpless wage earner, has made his appearance in Chicago and says he has come to stay.

Under the guise of discounting a manufacturer's accounts at his usual rate of discount, the "financial agent" secures his first hold on the struggling manufacturer, who sees the opportunity to enlarge his business by collecting cash for his merchandise as he sells it. But the first step with the "financial agent" means entering the portals of bankruptcy.

The loan shark first finds for his victim an industrious, hard-working manufacturer or wholesaler, who by his push and perseverance has built a business beyond his capital, and approaches him.

"You have a good business here," remarks the agent. "If your customers all paid cash it would be pretty easy sailing. Life would be one long, sweet song if everyone paid for goods as soon as they were ordered, wouldn't it?"

OFFER OF CASH AROUSES INTEREST.

Even the largest manufacturer in the country could not but accede to this.

"I have been watching your business for some time with a great deal of interest," continues the suave grafter, "and I would be glad to discount your bills at the regular rate of discount, so it would cost you nothing and you would have an opportunity to double your business.

"I presume you give the regular trade discount of 1 per cent a month for cash. On that I can save you a little money and help your credit materially. You receive 1 per cent a month on your purchases.

"This you cannot take, as you are cramped for money, because your customers do not pay their bills promptly. Thus you lose 2 per cent a month by not buying and selling for cash."

GETS $800 FOR $1,000.

The manufacturer begins to see a thriving business on a cash basis without exposing his weakness, and agrees to allow the banker to discount his bills.

"In the morning," begins the agent in explanation of his system, "you send us $1,000 worth of duplicate invoices of the goods which you shipped today, with shipping bills attached. You attach to the invoices a note for $1,000, so the account may be kept from the notes, and not from the invoices which we hold. In return for the note we will send you a check for $800, less our commission of 2 per cent a month, just what you are paying now because your business is not done on a cash basis. The $200, or 20 per cent, we have to deposit in the bank which loans us the money which we in turn pass to you. When any bills are paid we will refund your 20 per cent which we hold. Any bank compels us to have a representative in your store to look after our interests, as a matter of form. We will just appoint your bookkeeper--a matter of form entirely. Once a month we will send a man over to check up your books. He will see that none of our money has been overlooked."

BEGINS TO SHOW HIS TEETH.

All this sounds businesslike and plausible, and the arrangement runs smoothly for a time, probably six months, to allow the manufacturer time to sell all his open accounts to the financial agent. Then the loan shark sends in a statement of the account, and, if the manufacturer complains, begins to show his teeth.

On the statement appears all money the manufacturer has received and in addition an extra charge for $50 a month to cover the services of their agent--the manufacturer's own bookkeeper. Also an additional charge of from 1 to 2 per cent for additional service rendered, although the agency has had absolutely nothing to do with the accounts beyond holding them as security. All overdue accounts are charged back to the manufacturer, and a request for a check to take them up immediately accompanies the statement.

As few accounts, if allowed to mature at all, are received by a manufacturer on the exact day when due, the check called for often is a formidable one. The manufacturer is at his wits' end. He goes to the agency post haste and, after they find it is impossible to hold him up for a check, they say:

"Oh, well, never mind, the bank--always the bank--is pressing us on those overdue accounts, but we can hold up the 20 per cent until these accounts are taken care of. That will be satisfactory, we are sure."

LOSES HIS 20 PER CENT.

After this the manufacturer's chance of ever seeing anything more of his 20 per cent has vanished. Each day the agency trumps up some fictitious charge of stamps, new check books, extra labor, taxes, additional fees or other charges that could originate nowhere but in the brain of a financial crook.

Finally the manufacturer finds he has nothing on his books but accounts belonging to the agency, on which he is paying carrying charges of from 5 to 10 per cent a month. The agency refuses to return his 20 per cent, which they claim has been charged off by the bank to take care of the overdue accounts.

The victim, seeing the plight in which he is placed, demands an accounting and threatens legal proceedings. The agency in turn demands he give them an itemized statement of each account, which they have. They agree to check them up, and, if found correct, promise to give him a check for the 20 per cent which they hold. That night the light burns late over the bookkeeper's desk in the manufacturer's office. In the morning the statements go to the office of the loan shark, who says:

"I'll have the auditor check them up and send you a check as soon as we find out everything is straight."

TRADE STATEMENTS TO CUSTOMER.

The manufacturer leaves the office. The loan shark gets busy with the statements, and stamps each of them:

"This account has been transferred to Killem's Mercantile Company. You are notified to pay this account to no one else."

These statements are mailed to the customers. When the manufacturer returns the loan shark greets him cordially and remarks:

"Unfortunately one of my clerks mailed out a lot of your statements last night, but I guess that won't matter. He stamped on them that they had been transferred to us and sent them out as he does everyone else's. He didn't understand. I am sorry."

As expected, the manufacturer, when he sees his business and confidence abused in this manner, flies into a rage. Then the suave agent takes the bull by the horns and issues his ultimatum.

"Our bank"--always "our bank"--"thinks we are not getting all the money coming to us from your account. They demand that in the future you deposit all your checks with us. I am sorry, for I know everything is straight, but your using us as a bank will last but a few days. Everything will then run smoothly again."

And unless some friend comes to the aid of the manufacturer the agency's prophecy comes true, and it does last but a little while.

SHREWD BEGGAR GRAFT.

Pretend to be Deaf, Dumb and Blind, Playing on Sympathy--How Philanthropy is Humbugged--Begging for Money to Reach Home--An Army of Frauds and Vagabonds--Mastering the Deaf Mute Language for Swindling Purposes--The Public Should be Careful in Disbursing Alms.

Speech is so common, eyesight so precious, that he who would appeal for charity needs no better warrant than that he is dumb or blind. In an age when words are multiplied and golden silence is seldom found, the very fact that lips can give no utterance is so unusual that their mute assertion of misfortune is seldom questioned. There is nothing so pitiful in all the world as an asylum for the blind. There is nothing which so draws one to share the burdens of another as the appeal of him in whom the wells of speech are all dried up. We sympathize with illness, we grieve at the misfortune which visits our friends, we mourn with them when bereavement comes, but all these things are in the course of nature. They are sad, but they may be expected. But then a figure in health rises and asks for charity in the hushed language of the mute, philanthropy halts and humanity gives alms. But if the dumb can evoke assistance, assuring of sincerity and disarming doubt, how hushed is the questioning when the blind apply! How much stronger than speech or silence are the sightless eyes that stare unblinking at a darkened world! How sad is the fate of that man who was buried by demons when God cried out, "Let there be light"!

But not every man is mute who stretches out his hand in silence. Laziness is such an awfully demoralizing vice that some who choose to beg a living and decline work are even base enough to feign a misfortune they ought to fear. Fellows who find the winter pinching and the ranks of vagabonds full to repletion arm themselves with a slate and pencil and haunt the public with appeals for help on the untrue claim that they are dumb. One of the most persistent beggars of this kind makes the rounds of residence districts with a printed card on which is stated the bearer's desire to reach his home in some distant city--the destination varies from time to time--together with a long-primer endorsement by a group of names which no one knows. The fraud always asks for some slight money offering--nothing can be too small--with which to assist him in the purchase of a ticket.

Usually his paper shows that he needs but a very little more, and he asks one, by a series of pantomimic signs, to enroll his name, together with the sum advanced, in regular order on a blank list which he tenders with his touching appeal. He is so well drilled as never to be surprised into speech, and looks with such straight, honest eyes into the faces of the women, who form much the larger number of his victims, that they cannot question him and usually give up a dime or a quarter without a struggle. The beggar can readily collect a good day's wages in this manner, and it is a matter of surprise if he does not receive an invitation to partake of food three or four times a day. He never lets his list get full. However small a margin he may lack of having raised the sum needed to buy his ticket to his home, he never gets quite enough, for nothing is easier than to stop in some secluded spot and erase the names of his latest donors, thus proving to those on whom he shall presently call that their help is not only needed, but will so nearly end the necessity for continued appeals. This class of beggar never looks like a dissipated man, is always polite, and bears refusal in so noble a way that nine times out of ten the flinty-hearted women who refused him at the back door hurry through to the front and give the more generously that they have harbored suspicion.

Another set of leeches have mastered the deaf mute language, and always ask with a pleading, painful face which meets you as your eyes lift from his written questions, if anyone in the house can talk with him. He supplements the penciled question and the eloquent glance of eyes trained by long use in the art with a few rapid passes of his hands, a few dexterous wavings of the fingers, in a language you have heard of and read about, but cannot understand. If the unexpected happens and a person be present who can converse with him, your beggar is sure of some entertainment, and the usual scene of one you know to be honest talking to one who may be equally so, and certainly seems needy, will almost infallibly wring from you the coveted assistance. It is like two minstrels at a Saxon court. You know your own has seen the holy land, though you have not, and as he tells you, this thread-bare guest talks familiarly and correctly of distant realms. That is all any one can know to a certainty, but you give him the benefit of the chance that he may be honest, and help him with such loose change as comes to hand. Time and again the pretended mutes have been detected in their imposture by men who pitied a misfortune and gave money at their homes in the morning to see it spent for drink by an arguing, contentious fellow in the evening.

Some beggars even assume the appearance of blindness, and haunt the homes of comfortable people, led by a little girl and asking alms in the name of an affliction that is always eloquent of need. He will sometimes carry a small basket full of pencils, or other little trinkets, and glazes over his evident beggary with the appearance of sales. But he does not hesitate, once the money is in his hands, to ask his patron to give back the pencils, as he cannot afford to buy any more. These people can sometimes see as well as the child that seems to lead them, and yet their eyes, when they choose to assume their professional attitude, seem covered with a film through which no light can penetrate.

The public should be chary in bestowing charity, and especially to able-bodied men who appear blind, deaf and dumb, or are still claiming to be victims of some recent disaster. Most any one who has charity to bestow can easily think of some deserving and honest unfortunate in their own neighborhood.

PARALYTIC A BAD ACTOR.

The most transparent fraud on the streets of the great cities is the pseudo-paralytic. At almost any street corner can be seen what purports to be a trembling wreck of a man. His legs are twisted into horrible shapes. The hand which he stretches forth for alms is a mere claw, seemingly twisted by pain into all sorts of distorted shapes, trembling and wavering. The arms move back and forth in pathetic twistings as if the pains were shooting up and down the ligaments with all the force of sciatica.

The head bobs from side to side as if it were impossible to keep it still. And the words which come from the half-paralyzed mouth are a mere mumble of inarticulate sounds, as if the tongue, too, were suffering torture.

A more pitiable sight than this could not be conjured up. And the extended hat of the victim of what seems to be a complication of St. Vitus dance, paralysis, sciatic rheumatism, and the delirium tremens, is always a ready receptacle for the pennies, nickels and dimes of the thoughtless. This is one side of the picture; now look on the other.

It is dusk. Just that time of day when the lights are not yet brightening the streets, and when the sun has made the great tunnels between the sky-scrapers, ways of darkness. Detective Wooldridge is watching. He has been watching two of the deplorable fraternity for two hours. As the dusk deepens he sees them both arise, dart swiftly across the street and board a car. By no mere chance is it that they are both on the same car. The detective follows. Before a low saloon on the West Side the victims of innumerable diseases descend from the car, walking upright as six-year soldiers on parade. They enter the saloon. They seat themselves at a table behind an angle in the back which conceals them from the street. The detective loiters down to the end of the bar and watches. From every pocket, even from the hat rim, pours a pile of coins.

The two sort out the quarters, the nickels, the pennies. The heaps are very evenly divided over two or three cheap whiskies or a couple of bottles of five-cent beer.

Then the real finale comes. Detective Wooldridge gets busy, and a goodly portion of the spoil finds its way out of the hands of the sharpers in the way of a fine.

But for every one of these paralytic frauds caught there are dozens, even scores, who get away unscathed. It is the estimate of the best detectives that not one in a thousand of these paralytic beggars is genuine. It is one of the most bare-faced cases of deception of the public which comes under the notice of the police.

EASY MONEY FROM KIND HEARTS.

Charity covers a multitude of sins, almost as many backs, and quite a bit of graft.

Thoughtless giving is almost a crime. It serve to encourage idleness, and idleness is at the bottom of more crime than any other one thing, unless it is poverty.

Here is a story, given in the words of the man himself, which shows how the charity graft is worked in a number of ways. It covers several fields, and is so dramatic that it is given as the best example of all-round charity grafting:

"In experience in charitable work last summer I discovered some of these truths. It was the first time in all my life that I ever engaged in any charitable enterprise, and the needy that I sought to relieve was myself.

"Any one will beg, borrow, or steal in the name of charity. They may be as personally honest as a trust magnate--and they would be horrified at the idea of begging or stealing for themselves, but charity makes them respectable. At least this is the theory I worked on.

"I was broke and far from home. I decided that I would starve or steal rather than beg. Then a fellow I met accidentally put me on to a way of making a living.

FOR THE BENEFIT OF THE HEATHEN.

"He had a lot of literature either really from a big church, charitable organization, or fraudulently printed, and he explained to me that I was to sell these 25 cents a copy for the benefit of the heathen somewhere, or home missions. I was to get 25 per cent of the money resulting from such sales.

"About a week later, when I had received $12 besides a little expense money from him. I discovered that he was keeping all the money. I took the rest of the literature and destroyed it. Three days later, when I was hungry, I rather regretted destroying it.