FLEECING INVALIDS AND CRIPPLES.
This is a story of the most despicable graft extant. For, although it has been broken up in Chicago, it still flourishes in nearly every other large city in the country. It is not only despicable but it is heinous, fiendish, unspeakable. It is the sort of a thing that causes the blood of an honest man or of a manly rogue to boil, and long for a chance to clutch its inventor by the throat. It is the letter-copying scheme. Real criminals take chances on death, or the penitentiary, and on personal encounters with those whose money they unlawfully seek to acquire, but the vultures behind the "ads." promising lucrative work at home content themselves with mulcting helpless invalids, aged and infirm persons who seek to contribute to their own support and persons whom poverty has driven to desperation, and who see in the gilded promises of the cormorant an avenue of escape.
The public is familiar with the advertisements which constantly are seen in the newspapers offering employment that will not necessitate canvassing, or peddling, and which can be done in the home with great profit. Occasionally the "ads." explain that the work is that of copying letters.
AN ATTEMPT TO CATCH YOUR EYE
Write Smooth Letters.
The victim answers the "ad." and in reply receives this stereotyped letter—the form is the same in every instance:
Esteemed Friend:
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."