As often happened, however, when a victim was "landed right" and ventured to Chicago from his distant rural retreat prepared to carry out in earnest the game that had been worked upon him in a spirit of mercenary recklessness, the methods of handling him were varied in respect to both finesse and effectiveness.
Any person familiar with the uses of the typewriter easily could have discovered that the "personal" letters received from time to time were nothing more than circulars printed by the thousands. So vast was the number of the gullible that seldom, if ever, was an actual, bona fide letter sent in reply to those from the victims.
Space was left at the top of the stock letters for the insertion of the name of the person to whom it was sent. In their haste the swindlers often begrudged the time necessary to change the "Dear Sir" to "Dear Miss" or "Dear Madam" when a woman was addressed on stationery intended for male clients.
Notice! She's engaged but engagements have been broken so hurry before the wedding bells have rung.... Going! Going! Third and Last Call!
No Trust Here.
The general uniformity of the literature was at first thought by me to indicate that the matrimonial agencies were banded together in a gigantic trust. But later I learned that as they increased in number the newcomers exhibited conscienceless audacity in copying the forms used by their predecessors. It was also found in some cases several matrimonial agencies were operated from one address and one or two men, or a man and his wife would represent half a dozen concerns by changing names and locations every thirty or sixty days. Because of these facts and the added fact that whoever compiled the original forms from which the others copied, realized, he was in an illegitimate business, the plagiarists were never prosecuted. Thus the buncombe administered to the suckers became uniform in phraseology.
If a person desired to make assurance doubly sure for gaining wealth and marital bliss and he applied to several agencies at the same time, the same mail would bring him letters from each matrimonial agency with which he communicated, worded identically. They would be mimeograph copies, and the only difference in their appearance would be in the printed heading indicating the name of the agency. The name of the recipient would often be written at the top in ink different in color from the body of the letter.