Commits Suicide.
These complaints and evidence were turned over to Colonel James Stuart, Chief Inspector of the Mails at the Chicago Postoffice, for further investigation. A fraud order was requested. On August 18, 1907, Mr. Harris committed suicide by blowing out his brains at 168 N. Hamlin avenue, Chicago, Illinois, after the mask had been pulled off and his methods exposed.
One is unable to state whether John H. Harris is opening a mail order house, paper and marriage agency in the other world. When he left he did not leave word where he would make his next stop, but if he went to the other world, we are not informed that wireless telegraph or balloon companies have as yet perfected the lines of transportation or communication.
Harris is a fairly representative and concrete expression of the regulation matrimonial agent. It was through such agencies as his that the great crimes eventually were pulled off.
Secondary Types.
But in the following letters we have an excellent example of the second type, the little grafter who wants anything you can give, from $5 to $100. From the text of the letters it will be observed that this man was operating as a minister, a lawyer and an employment agency at one and the same time, as the letters are all from one source.
In the case of the lawyer this scoundrel was trading upon the name of Edward H. Morris, one of the foremost colored attorneys of the United States, a man universally respected and admired by men in all walks of life. When the fact of this trading on his name was brought to the real attorney's attention he was furious, and he cheerfully gave all the assistance in his power to Detective Wooldridge.
This smooth one was afterward arrested in New Orleans, convicted and sent to prison for a term.
Here follows the text of the letters: