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.