Twenty Years a Detective 16

	Twenty Years a Detective 16

BONAPARTES BIG STOCKHOLDERS. There is also the case of an important Indian army officer who went broke. The authorities gave him first-class passage to Calcutta, and $250 expense money. He had lost several thousands. As much as $2,500 has been paid out to a big loser so that he could settle up his hotel bill and take himself and family home. Should such money be paid back the Casino might again welcome the man. The sums usually paid range from $25 to $200, and an average of 1,000 people a year apply for this relief. The profits of the Casino are immense. Last year they were $7,500,000, an increase of $760,000 over the previous year. Seventy per cent was paid to the shareholders. The majority of the shares are held by the Blanc family, the leading member of which is the Princess Marie Bonaparte, whose father was Prince Roland Bonaparte, and mother the daughter of M. Blanc, the founder of Monte Carlo. She is the wealthiest princess in the world, and was lately married to Prince George of Greece, who is an impecunious princeling and needs the money. PRINCE OWNS NO STOCK. The prince of Monaco has not a single share in the enterprise. But he derives his entire income from the sum paid him by the Gamblers' Company for the lease of Monaco. The prince is of especial interest to Americans, because of his American wife. She was Miss Alice Heine of New Orleans. When she married the prince she was a widow, the Dowager Duchess of Richelieu. The prince is a "divorced" man. He first married Lady Mary, the daughter of the Duke of Hamilton and Brandon, and a son and heir was born. But eleven years after the marriage the pair were so unhappy that an appeal was made to the pope. The Catholic church, of course, does not recognize divorces, but the pope issued a special pronouncement declaring his 11-year-old marriage invalid, for the reason that the Lady Mary's mother "over-persuaded her to marry." RECEIVES ENORMOUS INCOME. The prince, in return for the gambling concession, has been getting an annual income of a quarter of a million dollars and all the expenses of running the State of Monaco, including the maintenance of the army and the royal palace. He recently granted a further contract to the "Monaco Sea-Bathing Company," or to give the gambling concerns the full title "La Societe Anonyme des Bains de Mer et Cercle des Etrangers a Monaco." This concession now extends to 1947, and the annual income of the prince has been raised $100,000. Every ten years it will be raised an additional $50,000. In six years time the Casino will also have to pay him a lump sum down of $3,000,000. It is stated that the prince of Monaco is by no means in favor of the Casino, and that he abhors the gambling and the consequent scandal in his state, and that could he do so, he would at once stop it. But in the old original contract it was agreed that the concession should be extended to 1947, and the prince is not rich enough to break this contract and pay the indemnity which the law would quickly assess. GAMBLING KINGS GO BROKE; OFTEN DIE IN THE POORHOUSE. Some one has advanced the statement that every human being is a gambler at heart. Yet for a man to go into the business of establishing a card gambling house under modern conditions is to attempt one of the riskiest businesses in the world. Recently one of the most noted gaming-house keepers in the country seems to have suggested a further anomaly in the situation in his utterance in a court of record: "When I conduct a house on a 10 per cent basis of profit it is only a matter of time until my steady patron 'goes broke.'" In the face of this statement, however, the innocent layman may be still further at sea when it is recalled by old habitues of the gaming table that nearly every gambling king of modern history has finished close to the poorhouse and the potter's field! How is it possible that the gambler with the insidious, certain 10 per cent which inevitably wrecks the man who goes often enough to the green table almost invariably dies in poverty? MUST HAVE FORTUNE TO INVEST. Today it is the gambler king who at least has an ephemeral show to gain fleeting riches. But in order that these riches shall approach riches as they are measured in other businesses, the man who opens the gambling house must have a fortune for the investment. His outlawed business itself will make it certain that he pays the maximum rental or the highest price for the property which he chooses for occupancy. To sustain this he will need to seek out the wealthy patron who not only has money to lose, but who may have a certain influence which may tend toward immunity for keeper and player alike. The "establishment" will need to have the best cuisine and the best cellars, with palatial furnishings and a retinue of servants in full keeping. And somewhere money will be necessary in blinding officials to the existence of an institution which is visible to the merest tyro in passing along the street. A constitution of iron, the absence of a nervous system, the discrimination of a King Solomon and the tact of a diplomat are requisites for the successful gambling king. Considering the qualification of the man for such a place and the final ending of the gambling king's career, it might be a sociological study worth while to determine where, on a more worthy bent, such capacities in a man might land him. In real life, however, it must be admitted that the gambler king is looked upon in exaggerated light. Almost without exception the big gambler is posing always. Conventionality has demanded it of him. But for more than this, in order to command the following which he desires, he must have a certain social side which is not too prominent, but which with tact and judgment he may bring out on dress parade. To the layman the gambler is the dark, sinister figure pictured in melodrama. He bears the same relation to gambling that Simon Legree bore to the institution of slavery of fifty years ago. STORY OF ONE GAMBLER KING. One of the noted gamblers of his time in this country passed from laboring on the docks into the prize ring. When his ring work was ended the gambling house was an easy step onward in illegitimate fields. On the docks his reputation was not above a bit of "strong arm" work in separating a man from the money which the dock walloper wanted. Naturally, under the Queensberry rules, there were things in the ring which he could not do in overcoming an antagonist, and he learned to make concessions to fairness--which was education. Opening a gambling house that was adapted to the wants of a rich clientele, it was a necessity that he preserve this educational regard for his patrons, and that he should add to it. Soon he was in a position where it was imperative that his reputation for fair dealing be kept intact. He became the "gentleman gambler" whose "word" carried all the accepted concomitants of his gentleman's business. In the course of events he attained a high legislative office under the government. But it may be said for those who knew the man as a man, not one ever ceased to regard him at heart as the dock walloper, with the inherent and unreconstructed disposition to regard other men as legitimate prey. Had other conditions and circumstances made a card sharp of him, he would have held to the promptings of his nature. In the conduct of a gambling house of the first class, the gambling king needs for himself and for his patrons the assurance of uninterrupted play. Men of money and position will not go to a house where there is menace of a police raid. The small gambler may subsidize the policeman on the beat in which his house stands, but he cannot placate the whole Police Department. And even when it is thought that the gambler king is impregnable in his castle someone may break over the barriers and raid the place in the name of the law and order. [Illustration: (Gambler passing card to partner by foot)] [Illustration: (Man getting caught passing card)] Within a few years New York has given to the world some of the inside working of the gambling business. When Jerome raided the place of places which had been considered immune, the proprietor of the house was considered worth a million dollars. Before the litigation was done and the fine paid the gambler king was out $600,000, his "club-houses" were closed, and he had been branded officially as a common gambler, pursued in the courts for payment of lawyers' fees, which he designated as outrageous and a "shrieking scandal." Yet this man was of the type whose word had been declared as good as his bond. DICE, FARO AND ROULETTE. Dice, faro and roulette are the principal games of the gambling house and, considering these, the experienced player will tell you that he is suspicious of a "petey" in the dice box, a "high layout" in faro, and a "squeezed wheel" in roulette, in just the proportion that the gambling house keeper has not recognized that he cannot indulge them because of the fear of detection. The gambler holds to the gambler's view of the gambler--and it is not complimentary to the profession. That the gentleman gambler is justified in his attitude toward the gentleman player, too, has been shown in the New York revelations. There one gentleman player, loser to the extent of $300,000. compromised with the "bank" for 130 bills of $1,000 denomination. There a gentleman player who had lost $69,000 to the bank tried to compromise on $20,000, but was in a position where the bank could hold him. How much the gambler king may loan and lose in the course of a year scarcely can be approximated. The gambling debt is "a debt of honor," and even in business not all such debts are paid. Whether a borrowed debt or a debt of loss to the bank, this honor is the security, unless in emergency the gambler king discovers that he can blackmail with safety to his interests as a whole. In general, the gambler who is "on the square" operates on a 10 per cent basis for his bank. In addition there is the "unknown per cent" which is his at the end of the year. The roulette wheel, for example, presents to the player just one chance in thirty-seven of winning on a single play, while the winning on that play is paid in the proportion of only 34 to 1. MORE NERVE TO WIN THAN LOSE. The one great characteristic in human nature on which the gambler counts is the fact that it requires more nerve in a man to win than is required of him to lose! It is startling for the layman to be told that $5,000 in a night is a big winning for a player, while $5,000 is only an ordinary loss in a big establishment. This fact is based on subtle psychology. There are two types of players, one of which gambles when it is in a state of elation and the other when in a state of depression. With either of these types winning, it is a gambler's observation that the man who will play until he has lost $25,000 when luck hopelessly is against him cannot hold himself to the chair after he is $5,000 winner. Gamblers have made money--fortunes--in times past, only to be buried in the potter's field. There are several reasons assignable for this end. Extravagant living appeals to the gambler, and when he has left his own special line of gaming it does not appeal to him strongly as either pastime or means for recouping his fortune. If he turns to gaming at all it is likely to be in fields where he does not know the game. Sometimes he goes to the Board of Trade--sometimes to the stock market. Playing there he is without system and without knowledge of conditions. He is likely to bull the grain market two days after the weather conditions have assured the greatest grain crop in history. Once a gambler, always a gambler, is his condition; and it is only a matter of time until someone has a game which beats him out. IT'S UP TO YOU, YOUNG MAN.     There are two trails in life, young man.       One leads to height and fame,     To honor, glory, peace and joy,       And one to depths of shame;     And you can reach that glorious height--       Its honors can be won--     Or you can grope in shame's dark night.       It's up to you, young man.     Stern duty guards the upper trail--       Exact obedience, too--     And he who treads it cannot fail       To win if he be true.     But tickle folly, gay with smiles,       Rules o'er the other one,     And leads to ruin with her wiles.       It's up to you, young man.     At parting of the trails you stand.       At early manhood's gate;     Your future lies in your own hand--       Will it be low or great?     If now you choose the trail of Right.       When you the height have won,     You'll bask in Honor's fadeless light--       It's up to you, young man. A HEARTLESS FRAUD. SCHOOLS TO TEACH SHOW-CARD WRITING CATCH MANY VICTIMS AMONG THE POOR GIRLS. December 5, 1905, J. H. Bell, the proprietor of a SHOW-CARD COLLEGE at 21 Quincy St., was arrested and the place closed. Bell advertised for students to learn to write show-cards and signs. He is said to charge $1 for a course and to promise positions at large salaries as soon as the course is completed. After the course has been finished and the tuition paid Bell is declared to have refused to give the graduates employment on the ground that their work is unsatisfactory. A great many girls are attracted to the scheme, and sign contracts to pay Bell for the instruction in the belief that they will be benefited. Bell tells them that he has customers who will purchase all the cards they can make. They are to receive a few cents for each card as soon as they learn the business, but they are required to pay a fine of 2 cents for each card they spoil. "They are set to work painting gold borders such as are seen in the windows of the department stores, but the task is so difficult that only a finished artist can do the work. Bell has a woman accomplice who hustles into the office when it is filled with women and girls and tells how she makes from $25 to $30 a week painting cards. Her talk encourages the girls to keep on spoiling Bell's cards and increasing his income. SWINDLER JUMPS BAIL. "When taken before the court, Bell made a hard fight for freedom, but he was held to the Criminal Court on five charges of obtaining money under false pretenses. Bonds were placed at $300 in each case by Justice Prindiville. "He was unable to do the work he was requiring the girls to do, so when the grand jury saw through his scheme the five indictments were promptly returned. "J. H. Bell jumped his bail, fled to Minneapolis, where he conducted the same business. Here he was again arrested, fined and given so many hours to leave the city." Milwaukee, Wisconsin, was the next place Bell opened his Show-Card College. On the 28th of September, 1906, he was again arrested for operating a confidence game and fined $80. He then went to St. Louis, Mo., and opened an office in the Century Building, under the name of the Clark Institute. Charges of swindling women who applied to learn card-writing were made against him and he was arrested, but later released through some technicalities set up in the warrant of his arrest; also lack of evidence to support the charges made in the warrant. The newspapers published his swindling operations and on this account Bell threatened to sue both the publishers and the police officials. Detective Wooldridge located him through an article which appeared in the St. Louis paper, which gave a description of his Show-Card College, which was being carried on there. John M. Collins, General Superintendent of Police, sent Bell's picture and his Bertillon system of measurements to the Chief of Police in St. Louis, and requested him to make the arrest. On the following day John M. Collins. Superintendent of Police, Chicago. Illinois, received the following letter from E. P. Creecy, Chief of Police, St. Louis, Mo.:           St. Louis, Mo.,           Dec. 22, 1906.      JOHN M. COLLINS, ESQ.      Superintendent of Police,      Chicago, Ill.      Dear Sir:      Replying to your letter of Dec. 21, relative to J. H.      Bell, wanted in your city for obtaining money by means of      a confidence game, will say that W. H. Clark, office 354      Century Building, this city, was in the Court of Criminal      Correction this morning charged with larceny by trick, and      a _nolle prosequi_ was entered by the prosecuting attorney.      He answers the description of Bell and is undoubtedly the      same person, but I would suggest that you send someone to      identify him before the arrest is made, as he is making a      fight here on his case. Clark is carrying on the same kind      of business here as he did in your city.           Very respectfully,                E. P. CREECY,                Chief of Police. Detective Harry Harris of Chicago was sent to St. Louis to identify Bell, and swore that in his belief Clark was Bell. The detective department wanted the case continued until Friday, but Clark insisted upon immediate trial. Judge Sale held that the detective had not been positive enough in his identification. Detective Wooldridge arrived on the scene as Bell was leaving the court room after being discharged the second time by the court. Detective Wooldridge seized Bell and turned him over to a St. Louis police officer and filed a new affidavit of positive identification that Clark was Bell. His lawyer demanded an immediate trial, but Detective Wooldridge secured a two-day continuance to bring witnesses from Chicago to prove the identity of Bell. This so enraged the attorney that he turned upon Wooldridge and informed him that he would again free Bell and even offered to bet $200. He further stated that he had asked Governor Folk not to grant requisition papers for his client. Detective Wooldridge replied, "Do you remember Admiral George Dewey at Manila Bay who told Captain Gridley to fire when he got ready?" Wooldridge further told him he didn't care any more for him than the dew that dropped on the jackass' mane. Wooldridge told the attorney that Bell had defrauded over two hundred working girls in Chicago, Illinois, and that the Cook County grand jury had investigated the matter, and returned five indictments against Bell, and the Honorable Charles S. Deneen, Governor of the State of Illinois, had caused to be issued requisition papers for the arrest and apprehension of J. H. Bell, and he had made Detective Wooldridge a special messenger to go to St. Louis, Mo., and bring Bell to Chicago where he could be placed on trial to answer to the indictments that had been brought against him. Detective Wooldridge stated that he had come three hundred miles to perform that mission and he intended that Bell should return to Chicago with him. The attorney replied "he hardly thought the Honorable Governor Folk of Missouri would grant requisition papers on Bell." Detective Wooldridge told the attorney that he came for J. H. Bell and was fully determined to take him back to Illinois to stand trial and that he would cross the bridges as he came to them and burn them behind him. He told Bell's attorney if the Honorable Governor Folk refused to grant the first requisition papers, he would try on each of the other indictments asking for requisition papers. If this failed there was five forfeited bonds by which Bell could be brought back to the State of Illinois on extradition papers. If all this failed he had made arrangements to have him brought back by the strong arm of the United States Government, through an Inspector of Mails and United States Deputy Marshal for using the mails for fraudulent purposes. Wooldridge called up John M. Collins, General Superintendent of Police, Chicago, Ill., by the long distance telephone and requested the second set of requisition papers, certified copies of the five forfeited bonds, and that the bondsman be sent to St. Louis at once, which was done. Thirty minutes after he left Bell's angry attorney, Wooldridge was aboard a Missouri Pacific fast train, bound for Jefferson City, Mo., to see Honorable Jos. Folk and lay before him the reason why requisition papers should be granted. Arriving at Jefferson City at 10 P. M., the following morning (which was Sunday morning) he made a demand upon Jailer Dawson for the body of Bell. Jailer Dawson referred him to Judge Sale. Wooldridge found Judge Sale at his home, who, after examining his papers, found them all right and ordered the jailer to turn over Bell to Detective Clifton R. Wooldridge. Bell was again brought to the office of the Chief of Police and confronted by Wooldridge and Harris who arrested him. When J. H. Bell was arrested in Chicago December 5, 1905, Mr. Turner defended him and afterwards went on Bell's bond for $1,500. Bell was turned over to Wooldridge who slipped a pair of handcuffs on him as he was boarding a street car, landed him in East St. Louis, Ill., none too soon, as Bell's attorney had sent out a writ of _habeas corpus_ and would watch all trains and stop the detective from taking Bell from the State of Missouri. Wooldridge requested the Chief of Detectives to inform Bell's lawyer that both he and Bell were now in the State of Illinois and their address would be in Chicago, Ill., if he wished to see either of them. One of the police officers at East St. Louis overheard Bell tell his cell-mate he would make his escape before he reached Chicago, and told him to watch the newspapers the next day. This information was given to Wooldridge. Detective Wooldridge had tickets over the Chicago and Eastern Illinois Railroad. This train left at 11 P. M. at night and the first stop it made was twenty miles north on the Missouri side of the river. Wooldridge could not take his prisoner and board the train there on account of _habeas corpus_ writs for Bell. Officers were watching all trains expecting him to leave St. Louis. Wooldridge outwitted them by taking interurban street car, traveling some twenty-five miles in company with two officers whom the Chief of Police had sent along with him. Upon arriving at the station in a heavy rainstorm he found the agent had deserted his post and gone home. The headlight on the Eastern Illinois fast express train showed up in the distance. What was to be done to bring the train to a stop so that they could board it? At this important moment Wooldridge's eye rested upon a switch lamp under a switch only a few yards from him; with one leap across the track he secured the lamp and began to swing it across the track to and fro with a red light pointed towards the approaching train. This was a signal for the engineer to stop. But would the engineer see the signal in time, or would the rain which was beating down in torrents prevent the engineer from seeing the signal? It was an exciting few seconds to pass through. But the engineer did see the signal to stop, he blew one long blast of his whistle, reversed his engine, applied the air-brakes which brought the train to a stand-still right at the station door. A conductor and brakeman had alighted and run forward on the sudden stop of the train as they thought some accident had happened, inquired of Wooldridge what was the trouble. He replied, "Nothing but two passengers for Chicago." At this time he and Bell were aboard the train. The conductor told Wooldridge that he had no right to flag the train. Wooldridge told him that he had purchased two tickets to Chicago with the understanding that the train stopped there to let on and off passengers, furthermore the card stated that this train stopped there, and arriving there he found that the agent had abandoned his post and gone home, and he had taken it upon himself to act as station agent for the time being and stopping a train. He told the conductor that he had to be in Chicago the following morning as his business was urgent, furthermore he could not afford to stand there all night in the rain without shelter because the station agent had neglected to do his duty. On gaining admission to the car Bell was made comfortable: By turning two seats together he had two big pillows on which he might rest his head. Wooldridge then stooped down and unlaced Bell's shoes so he could rest his tired feet, he then called the porter and gave Bell's shoes to him with orders to shine them up and keep them until the detective called for them next morning. Wooldridge then reached down into his traveling bag, took out a pair of leg-irons which he placed around Bell's legs, and locked them securely. Bell made a protest and assured the detective that he would not give him any trouble or make any attempt to get away. Wooldridge told him the first law of human nature was self-protection and he was exercising that precaution in this case. Only a few weeks prior to this time an officer was returning from New York with a prisoner and neglected to take these precautions, dosed off into a little sleep, the train had just then stopped to take on coal, the prisoner only had handcuffs on, and in the twinkling of an eye passed the officer who was asleep and succeeded in getting off the train just as it started. His escape was not noticed by the officer until they had gone several miles; it was then too late, the bird had flown, and having money in his pocket found a man who filed the shackles off his hands. He made good his escape and the officer lost his job. After Bell had been securely shackled and made as comfortable as possible, Wooldridge turned two seats together on the opposite side of the car, never closed his eyes until they reached Chicago the following morning, taking Bell to the Bureau of Identification, had his measure and picture taken. He was then turned over to Cook County Sheriff. A few months later J. H. Bell was arraigned for trial and confronted by over thirty angry women, whom he had robbed, as witnesses. After a long trial he was found guilty of obtaining money under the confidence game. He asked for a new trial which was denied and on March the 9th, 1907, he was sentenced to Joliet Penitentiary for an indefinite time by Judge Brentano. His counsel asked for the arrest of judgment so he might have time to write up the record and present it to the Then the Bell luck, which could beat even detectives, broke Bell's way. Also the Bell honesty suffered a recrudescence. It so happened that while Bell was in the County Jail a plot was set on foot to make a big jail delivery. It was planned, and the plans seemed to have been well arranged, to smuggle enough dynamite into the jail to wreck even that formidable building. The plot was hatched by George Smith, Eugene Sullivan, Morris Fitzgerald and Alfred Thompson. On March 2, 1907, this precious crew had been arrested for robbing a mail wagon. They were apprehended and taken to the County Jail. There they hatched the plot for the introduction of the dynamite. Many other prisoners were admitted to their secret, among them Bell. Smith, who was as big and powerful as Bell was little and insignificant, threatened to choke Bell to death in his cell if he told of the dynamite plot. Bell's spirit appeared to be as big as the other man's body. This may have been due to the fact that he saw that "peaching" on his confederates was the only method of escape. Anyway Bell "peached." He told of the dynamite plot and the dynamite was seized. Dr. J. A. Wesener afterward declared that there was enough of it to have destroyed the whole building. It was so undoubtedly true that Bell had been of service to the state in revealing this plot that a plea for clemency was made for him and so he escaped the penalty for his crimes. But the experiences of Bell, and the fear of Detective Clifton R. Wooldridge had the salutary effect of putting a stop to the "Show-Card Writing" fraud in Chicago. THE BOGUS MINE. $100,000,000 EACH YEAR LOST BY INVESTMENTS IN FAKE MINING SCHEMES. To what extent investment swindlers have operated in Illinois will never be known, for some of them have so thoroughly covered up their transactions that it will be impossible to disclose them. This is especially true of a class of mining companies, the promoters of which remained in the background while their dupes were gathered in by seemingly respectable residents. These concerns operated by giving blocks of stock into the hands of unscrupulous men with good or fairly good reputations, and the latter disposed of it to such unsophisticated acquaintances as could be easily gulled. Gold and silver mines in Colorado, Nevada, and Utah furnished the basis for most of these swindles. Sometimes the company really had an old mine or claim that had been abandoned, sometimes it had a lease on some worthless piece of property that was "about to be developed," but frequently it had nothing more than its gaudy prospects and its highly decorated shares of stock to give in return for the money it received. Money-grasping church deacons were the favorite agents for these swindles and widowed women without business judgment their most common victims. It is estimated that in this country every year nearly $100,000,000 are taken out of the savings of people of limited means by financial fakers, especially mining and oil fakers. During the last five years Detective Wooldridge has observed the "financiering" of several thousand fake companies, each of which secured a great deal of money from ignorant people. Bands of swindlers repair to mining camps and establish branches there. They expend a few hundred dollars for shreds and patches of ground void of present or prospective value. They then form a mining corporation, place its capital stock at some enormous figure--a million, two or three million dollars--appoint themselves or some of their confederates, or even their dupes, directors, and sell the worthless claims to the company for a large proportion, or perhaps, all of the capital stock of the company. The stock must be disposed of with a rush. It must all go within a year or shorter time. When it is gone the suckers who get the stock for good money may take the property of the company. They always find an empty treasury, worthless claims, and the rosy pictures that led them astray, smothered in the fog. During the last five years the advertising columns of leading newspapers have been full of offers of mining stocks as "sure roads to fortune." Nearly all of these mining companies, into whose treasuries the public has paid millions, have either been abandoned or the properties have been sold for debts, and invariably they bring very little. The major portion of receipts of these companies from the sales of stock is stolen by their promoters. Official statistics of the mining industry show that out of each one hundred mines, only one has become a success from a dividend-paying point of view. About five earn a bare existence, while the balance turn out utter failures. PROMOTER'S WORD VALUELESS. Investors will do well to consider that stocks of mines which are only prospective are the most risky form of gambling. In buying stocks of the undeveloped mines offered to the public on the strength of statements the only substance of which is the imagination of promoters, one runs up against a sure-thing brace game. Don't take the promoter's word for it. When you wish to place money where it can work for you, don't bite at the first "good thing" you see advertised. It is to the interest of the man who wants to sell you stock to place it before you in the rosiest light. Otherwise he knows you would not buy it. If you want to buy stock, don't rely upon what the seller says, but consult others. Before consulting persons whom you think may be able to express an honest and intelligent opinion, ask the promoter to furnish you a statement of the condition of the company, showing its assets and liabilities, profits and losses, and an accurate description of its property. You will then be able to judge whether the company is over-capitalized; whether it is incumbered with debts (for debts may lead to a receivership), and if its earnings may lead to permanent dividends. Also ask for a copy of the by-laws of the company. If, with such information at your disposal, you cannot get a correct idea as to whether the stock is desirable or not, consult your banker or somebody else in your community who may be able to advise you. If some one offered you a mortgage on a certain piece of property, common sense would tell you to ascertain whether the property is sufficient surety for the loan, or if the title to the property is good and there are not prior incumbrances on it. The man who would buy a mortgage without ascertaining the value and condition of the surety, would be considered an idiot. Why not use the same precaution when buying stock? Don't believe what the promoter tells you about the value and prospects of the stock he wants to unload on you. Don't take it for granted the stock offered you will turn out a great money-maker and dividend-payer because the promoter tells you so. The promoter, generally a person from another city and entirely unknown to you, has no interest in you, but is prompted by his own selfish interest to sell you something which, in many cases, he himself would not buy. He may Offer you a good thing, but it is up to you to find it out. INVESTIGATION NECESSARY. In most cases, an intelligent investigation will prompt you to let alluring offers of great wealth for little money severely alone. The observation of the common-sense rules outlined above will save investors bitter disappointments and heavy losses. It is safe to say seventy-five per cent of the so-called "Mining, Plantation and Air Line" schemes and "Security" companies now paraded before the public in flaring advertisements in the daily papers, and through glittering prospectuses sent through the mails, are vicious swindles. Men who operate these frauds pretend to be honest and high-minded. By constant practice of their wiles upon others they develop self-deception and come to believe in their honesty to such an extent that when questioned, they assume a good counterfeit of honest indignation. Most of them do not own the furniture in the offices they occupy while swindling the public. It is a common practice for them to rent offices in national bank buildings and to furnish them with rich furniture bought on the installment plan, to make the necessary "front." They spend their cash capital for flaring advertisements, sell as much stock as they can induce the gullible public to buy, and then decamp, leaving unpaid bills for advertising, if they can get credit after their cash is exhausted, and their furniture bill unpaid. The absconding swindler is usually succeeded by an "agent" or "manager," who repudiates the bills against his rascally predecessor and continues the work of fleecing the gullible under some new title or by means of some new trick. KEEP LISTS OF SUCKERS. Every well-equipped fraudulent concern acquires the names and addresses of susceptible persons. Painstaking revisions of the lists made up of these names and addresses form an important part of the labor of the principals or employes. The lists grow as each advertisement brings inquiries from persons who, either through curiosity or desire to invest, write for particulars. Affiliated swindles operated in succession by a gang of "fakers" use the same list of "suckers." In affiliated swindles if the "sucker" does not succumb and remit his money on the inducements offered by one concern, his name is transferred to the lists of another, and he is then bombarded with different literature. Thus a man must pass through the ordeal of having dozens of tempting offers made him before he demonstrates that he is not a "sucker," or has not got the money. His name is then stricken from the list. There are so many "get-rich-quick" operators at present that competition between them has become strenuous. They are now infesting the entire country with local solicitors, who frequent saloons, hotels, and even residence districts, where victims are found in foreigners, ignorant servant girls and inexperienced widows. These solicitors get 50 per cent commission on all sales of stock. This fact in itself is evidence that the propositions are rank swindles. When the swindling operator finds things getting too hot he disappears from his office and bobs up in some new place with a new proposition. PECKSNIFFIAN TEARS DELUDE. A few attempts have been made to prosecute the swindlers, but for the most part the local officials have failed. In but few instances have the victims been able to give anything like intelligent statements of the representations made to them. Where the right sort of agents have been used the people who have lost their money have not awakened to the fraud passed upon them. A few Pecksniffian tears have deluded them into the belief that the swindlers as well as themselves were victims of some third party who is in another state and out of reach. Where cases have been brought to trial it has been a difficult matter for juries to understand how the persons aggrieved could have been caught with the sort of chaff thrown to them, and there has been little disposition to show charity for the victims. Then, too, the men hauled before the courts have always made it appear they were in the same boat with the complaining witness, and that the culprit was many, many miles away. So, usually, they have escaped. DIFFICULT TO CONVICT. Even in the most flagrant cases and where every advantage was taken of the ignorance, inexperience or trustfulness of the person deluded it has been difficult to bring the offense under the state statutes. It requires more than ordinary misrepresentation and lying to make out a criminal case, and under the rules of evidence which prevail it is almost impossible to overtake a cheat who has not put his misrepresentation into writing or made them in the presence of third parties. Where the swindlers have used the mails, however, it is not such a difficult matter to convict. The United States is scrupulously jealous of its postal service, and under its statutes every fellow who undertakes to utilize it for improper purposes can be brought to book. He can not hide behind some one in another state, for the federal jurisdiction is general and the other man can be brought in. Nor can he plead that the business was legally licensed in another state, or that its incorporation was regular. If it was a cheat and the mails were used in furtherance of its design, no corporate cloak thrown around it by any of the commonwealths can save the promoters. POWER OF UNCLE SAM. An example of the power of the federal authorities was given when Secretary of State Rose of Illinois was trying to keep the swindling investment companies out of the state. This was before the enactment of the present law regulating the licensing of corporations. A number of concerns had been formed in southern states, and they were insolently demanding licenses to do business in Illinois. The secretary of state was powerless under the Illinois statutes, but when the matter was called to the attention of the federal authorities they wiped out the whole lot of companies with a postal fraud order. WOOLDRIDGE FINDS SMOOTH SCHEME. Detective Wooldridge, in looking into many of these mining frauds, discovered one or two which proved quite a revelation even to the United States authorities. This was a system of "kiting" stocks, just as other fraud concerns have been known to kite checks. The method is very simple.