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.