outstanding of this fund $11.05, of which $5 has since been paid, leaving $6.05 unpaid.”
The work of the Lodging House for seventeen years is thus summed up by the same authority:
“The Lodging House has existed seventeen years. During that time we have lodged 82,519 different boys, restored 6178 lost and missing boys to their friends, provided 6008 with homes and employment, furnished 523,488 lodgings, and 373,366 meals. The expense of all this has been $109,325.26, of which amount the boys have contributed $28,956.67, leaving actual expenses over and above the receipts from the boys $80,368.59, being about $1 to each boy.”
The other institutions of the Children’s Aid Society are conducted with similar liberality and success. We have not the space to devote to them here, and pass them by with regret.
It is not claimed that the Society has revolutionized the character of the street children of New York. It will never do that. But it has saved many of them from sin and vagrancy, and has put them in paths of respectability and virtue. It has done a great work among them, and it deserves to be encouraged by all. It is sadly in need of funds during the present winter, and will at all times make the best use of moneys contributed towards its support.
It employs an agent to conduct its children to homes in other parts of the country, principally in the West, as soon as it is deemed expedient to send them away from its institutions. It takes care that all so placed in homes are also placed under proper Christian influences.
LXIX. SWINDLERS.
There are a large number of persons in New York who make considerable sums of money by conducting “Gift Enterprises,” and similar schemes. These usually open an office in some prominent part of the city, and flood the country with circulars and handbills of their schemes. They sometimes advertise that the affair is for the benefit of some school, or library, or charitable association. In a few instances they announce that the scheme is merely a means of disposing quickly of an extensive estate, or a building. Whatever may be the pretext, the object is always to wring money out of the credulous, and the plan is substantially the same. Generally, in order to evade the law against lotteries, a concert is announced, and the tickets are sold ostensibly as admissions to that amusement. Buyers are told that the result will be announced at this concert. The tickets are sold at prices varying from one to five dollars. Directories of other cities are obtained, and the mailing clerks of the city newspapers are paid for copies of the subscription lists of those journals. Circulars are mailed to parties in other parts of the country, whose names are thus obtained. There is scarcely a town or village in the United States but is reached in this way, and as there are many simpletons in every community, responses of the character desired by the swindlers come in rapidly. Each person to whom a circular is sent is requested to act as an agent for the scheme, and is promised a prize in the distribution if he will use his influence to sell tickets, and he is requested to say nothing of the inducements offered to him, as such knowledge would make others dissatisfied. The prize is represented as of great value. The person receiving the circular is usually
flattered by being selected as the agent of a New York house, and is also tempted by the liberal offer made to him. He sets to work at once, sells a number of tickets, and forwards the proceeds to his principals in New York. The money is simply thrown away. No concert is ever held, no drawing is ever made. The scoundrels in charge of the swindle continue the sale as long as there is a demand for the tickets, and pocket all the receipts. When there is danger of interference by the police, they close their office and disappear. In a short while, they resume operations under a new name with an entirely new scheme, and repeat the same trick from year to year.
