PART VII.
The Temple.
My dear Dorothy,—It is perfectly astounding to me that people not absolutely devoid of common sense should be taken in by the so-called confidence trick, a device so transparent that it seems incredible that any sane man could be deceived by it. I am bound to say in justice to your sex that I have never heard of a case when a woman was a victim to the confidence trick. I suppose it does not appeal to them in the same way that it seems to do to some men.
Perhaps the true explanation of the gullibility of mankind was that given by a rogue who was had up and convicted at the Old Bailey. When asked what he wished to say, why he should not receive punishment for this offence, he replied that he ought to be treated as a great moral teacher, because the confidence trick could only succeed with people who were covetous and desirous of acquiring other people’s money without giving an equivalent for it, and that when they found that they had lost their money, it taught them to be more cautious and less grasping.
There was some truth in what this “great moral teacher” said, but unfortunately for him he had also a lesson to learn, and the Recorder gave him several months in which he might give it his careful consideration.
The “Free Portrait” scheme is a bait which allures a good many people. They cannot resist the temptation of getting something for nothing. A man calling himself A. Tanquerey or F. Schneider, and giving an address in Paris, is, I believe, the author of this ingenious system of extracting money from the unwilling pockets of the public. He professes in his circulars and advertisements to send you a crayon enlargement of any photograph you send him “absolutely free of charge.”
After you have sent him the photograph, which is generally one of special value to yourself, being, we will suppose, the only portrait you possess, of a deceased parent, friend or relation, you receive a letter stating that the portrait is ready and will be forwarded to you on the receipt of two or three guineas for the frame.
If you decline to purchase a frame, and write telling him to return your photograph, you receive no reply to your letter, and finally, to recover the photograph which you value, you send the money for the frame, and receive a fairly good crayon enlargement of your photograph in a frame which has cost you as many guineas as it is worth shillings.
There is a class of advertisement which may be seen in almost any weekly paper which just borders on the fraudulent. Even if they are genuine in themselves—and some undoubtedly are not—they open the door to fraud. I refer to those advertisements offering articles for sale in connection with monetary prizes to every purchaser and winner in a competition which can be guessed at a glance.
Every purchaser is told in the advertisement that he will be entitled to receive a prize of £10 if he guesses rightly; but when he has made his purchase and sent in his solution, he will find that either only the first letter opened gets the prize, or that every competitor having guessed correctly, he is only entitled to receive a halfpenny for his share of the money. In this last case, of course, the thing is a swindle because no one would have purchased the article and answered the competition if they thought the money was going to be divided amongst the winners.
I tried one of these competitions myself, not because I thought it was genuine, but because I wanted to see how it was worked. The task I had to accomplish was something like the following:
“Give the names of the fruits and flowers mentioned below—Soer, Reap, Liput, Cepah, Socruc, Ragone.”
Well, you can see at a glance they are rose, pear, tulip, peach, crocus, orange. I sent in my answer and a shilling and a penny stamp, and in due course received a puzzle worth about twopence.
Later on I received a letter stating that my solution of all the words was correct, and enclosing my share of the prize—a halfpenny stamp.
In a similar competition I saw it stated in the papers that 6,000 answers had been received, which shows that the game must be a very paying one for those who issue the advertisements.
What a number of young women there must be waiting to get married! In answer to an advertisement which appeared the other day in the Exchange and Mart, in which a lady, “disappointed in love, offered her trousseau at an enormous sacrifice,” over 1,400 replies were received.
But the lady “disappointed in love” disappointed also the 1,400 ladies who wanted a trousseau, for her advertisement was a bogus one, and was merely another trap to catch the unwary.
One has to be very sharp, but the sharpest of us are sometimes taken in, including even
Your affectionate cousin,
Bob Briefless.
[GIRLS AS I HAVE KNOWN THEM.]
By ELSA D’ESTERRE-KEELING, Author of “Old Maids and Young.”