Evening Star Newspaper, January 2, 1921, Page 61

! the cases of fossil bones of peccaries - ® W ex: o e mivia 156 1511 by v ~ Purt 4—6 Pages inun FICTION - ‘MAGAZINE SECTION he Sunday Star. WASHINGTON, D. €., SUNDAY MORNIN leuths of the Post Office Department Are i Kept Busy With New Cases—The Cred- ulous Are Made Victims Until Fraud Order Stops a Certain Swindle. “Great Secrets™ S « sand—"Coon-c old ]Jy the Thou- ats~ That Sold as Fine Angoras. ECAUSE the United States pos- tal service is the most direct. personal and intimate ap- proach to every man, woman and child in the country, with the secrecy of the message most jealously guarded, the mails have for well over | ‘& century been a- favorite means of trade tricksters for swindling tbeir fellows. “Yet the Post Office Depart- ment of the United States is the most eftective agency en the world for the detection and prevention of crime and the apprehension of the criminal,” isa statement made by George B. Cortel- you, when he left the post of Fostmas- ter General to become Secretary of the Treasury. The zeal of the Post Office Depart- ment to protect the people through policing of the mails against advertis- ing and correspondence In further- \ance of schemes to defraud the credu- fous is best proved by the many thou- sands of fraud orders issued in re- sponse to more than 30,000 complaints annually. Love, far from being sacred from #ommercial profanation, has been a 10ail swindler's favorite hunting ground. Here is a typical advertise- ment: 1 “The Great Secret: How you can| make your lover or sweetheart love| you; they just must loye you; they! can’t help themselves. This secret is pased on scientitic principies and can- | Aot fail. Send 25 cents in_silver to; Prof. A. H. slank, McCook, Ariz." Evidently there were mapy thou-| sand persons “éager to learn the sclentitic secret of love enforcement, for there was &'yeritable fiood of let- ters weighted with silver quarters or | stamp equivalent before a fraud or- der was issued. In return for the fee the love-ambitioned received the following stereotyped reply: “Your letter of re¢ent date at hand, apd in reply will say that to win the; woman you love you must constantly think with your whole soul's intensity t#at you want her to love you; in ad-! Vition to that, you must not drink (1His was before the days of national pEohfbition). “Keep clean und neat in ur dress. Be polte and attentive to her. Be generous, for women hate| stinginess in men; but dearly love generosity. Be braye, for women hate cowards and Igve Bravery. ‘Be firm; womén hate triflers.” Walk with your head and shoulders well thrown back: (be dignified: us, and every inch & gent! tery goes a lomg Way to wis. g woman, but don't overdo it. Don't ashful, 2s women hate bashfulness en, but love bold men.” And-thert éame the sting st awakened ti lorn to the fact that he had played—for } | SCEXT discovery-mear Hyatts- lle, Md., of what is supposed 10 be the thizh-bone of one of the much varied species of dinosaurs, a reptile which lived during the Mesozoic age. probably more than 4.000,000 years ago. has ciused much spectulation among Washington scien- tists as to the exact type of reptiles and mammals that once inhabiied the territory in which Washington is lo- cated. While the capital is not regarged as Iying in a region rich in paleontolog- ical deposits. nor is the city bulit on strata regarded as pld ¢eohneally.i several interesting . finds- of ancient reptiles and fish have been made in | and. about the city.. To date, no fossil remains of (he vertebrate mammals gnown to bhave inhabited the United ; tates in comparatively. recent ages | have been found in_the immediate; neighborhood of Washington. Two | exceptions must be made, however, in | and wolyes. which were found sev- eral years ago mixed- tegether with fossil bones of prehistoric bears and animals of the deer tribe in a cave near Cumberland, Md. ! The most interesting find in the city proper is part of a legbone ori what_has been scientifically estab- Jished to be a dinosaur, probably of the genil Ceralosaurus or Megalo- | saurus. This bone section complete- ly fossilized. was found forty-five years ago on Capitol Hill by work- men excavating for a sewer on F wtreet between 1st and 3d streets foutheast. The specimen has been ascertained to have belonged to the Eenus of carnivorous or flesh-eating reptiles, which flourished in the Mesozoic period and reached the cli- max of their.development during the Jurassic age, probably 4,000,000 years ago. s 3 * % % % ‘The beast, which was a branch of the reptile family whose -members reached the greatest size yer known to have been attained by amy ‘sub- aqueous or wholly land living animal, probably measured thirty-five feet in length and would resch a height of | twelve feet at the choulder, when ! standing partially erect on its heavy | hind legs, holding the much smaller | ront legs tucked up under its great ody. & Quarries of red clay and sandstone or slate near Muirkirk, AMd. some cighteen miles north of Washington on the Baltimore-Washington road. Fave yielded rich finds in paleonto- logical research for the vigiting scien- “tiat. Bones of several specimens of the type of dinosaur kmown as pleuro- ceolus. a herbivorous or plant-eating animal, which reached a length of | xty-five feet, have been found in these quarries, mixed indiscriminately with impressions of the giant fauna :nd flora of those dark ages, at the awn of history. Teeth of a mon-| +irous animal. identified by comow:i- ! fon with others as the teeth of an rmored dinosaur of the species Stegosaurus Ungulatus have been found in the deposits at Muirkirk. Tihese animals grew to a length of ! thirty feet and stood fourteen feet ligh at the extreme highest point in = middle of the hack, where im-! ense horny plates. some measuring | ree feet across, served to pmtftll ‘s all but defenseless animal from xterlor attack. A feature of these monstrous brukes "ter and would advise you maehine. we said about giving away machine free. money away.’ This is good advice, ¥ou must admit. say in the advertisement—But take | vertisement a distinct proposition and- advantage of our generous proposi-|agreement as follows: . ens. Prof. A. H. Blank signed himself, | “Yours for Suckers.” * £ % % O\'E of the best examples of mail humbug is quoted by former Postmaster General Cortelyou, Frank Hitcheock, Assistant Attorney Edwin | W. Lawrence and others who had personal knowledge of some famous trauds: | A company of New York advertised to mive away “a new automatic ten sion sewing machine.” all charges prepaid, “to all persons who would sell thirty packages of washing blue [l | ) i | i | at 10 cents each and remit the $3| thus collected. The was illustrated with adyertisement a_picture of a | high-grade sewing machine. and the | readers. quite naturally, took for granted that it represented the m chine they would get. As a matter of fact, they received a toy machine. a small hand instrument to be fastened on the edge of a table, of ! no préctical value, but quite fittingl named, “The Soezy Sewing Machin Proof that the impostors had antici pated complaints and gainst any action to recover is found n a circular letter accompanying the as follows “Dear Madam: We have vour let- to keep cool and ndt make any rash state- before you are sure as to what you are saying. You seem to think | that we agreed to send you an up to-date, high-grade sewing machine, | with all the latest attachme 1f | you can show us in our advertise- ment where we made such agreement we will sand you such a sewing ma- chine. “We will refer you to our adver-| tisement. which evidently you did not | or you would not have ! just as if we were | that ; We | read carefull cried out ‘Fraud, some common, cheap _concern was trying to defraud people. cannot understand how a lady who | seems to possess the Intelligence that vou do could understand the adver- tisement in any other way than the wav it was intended. “You will notice the first word in the advertisement is °Free’ That | means that something is given away and anpears in the advertisement to attract the reader's attention sewing machine, with all the latest attachments, costs from $30 to $40.' You know very well that this ia| true in any store. no matten where | you want to buy it. To show you | the kind of a machine that would cost, you. the sum we have men- tioned we shpw'a picture of such a You see it thus far. do But not a word yet have you not? such a| Then | iwe say—'An up-to-date, hizh-grade | safeguarded | “We next say: ‘Don’t throw your s e then ®o on to that succeeded thé sharks~and sea living reptiles as masters’of the uni- terse. was the ludicrously small size | of the brain, whkich has beem found! to weigh approximately ten ounces. The average human br#in weighs two ! pounds. o inteiligence of thsc nre- | historic animals was not very high. In fact, scientists claim about all the brain of the animal could do was to enable it to realize it needed food or that it should fight an enemy. On the other hand. in all probability the sense of smell and the optical organs of these immense reptiles were ex- traordinarily well developed, enabling them to find food with comparaftiv- ease and at the same time detect the approach of an enemy. The dinosaurs represent the largest &roup of reptiles that ever trod the carth and were bigger than any known mammals except the whale. which is supposed to have evolved from a comparatively small mammal and finally become subaqueous. The smallest of the dinosaurs. brothers of the specimen found on Capitol Hill. which are dug up mear Muir- kirk. were little larger than chick- * % k% the thunder Brontosaurus. “beneath whose mighy tread the earth shook. and whose kindred | were from forty to sixty-five feet long and from ten to fourteen feet high. was the largest known quad- ruped in the history of the world: Stegosaurus, ‘whose bones have heen found near Muirkirl, was probably lizard, lor to bask what the proposition is. You wil) then find in the next words in the ad- INTERESTING FOSSILS OF PREHISTORIC ANIMALS FOUND AROUND THE DISTRICT MUIRIKIREK, MD. higher than the others and probably slightly heavier. Long betore primitive man in- habited the globe these monstrous reptiles dwelt on the shores of an ancient sea, and part of whose bordes lies where Washington now stands, according to sclentists. Capitol Hill in those times may have beéen a Spur or an island in the shallow prehis- toric sea, to which the dinosaurs swam or crawled in search of fishes in the shadowy sun of those dark days. gantic trées of strange shape grew all about the shores of the anclent sea. Comparative flatness of the southern part of Maryland ap- pears to indicate that all that part of the state was under the waters of this oozy sea, around the borders of which browsed and lived nu- merous species of the dinosaur and kindred beasts. The hills west-and north of Washington probably in- dicate the western boundary of that ancient ocean. Further west rose the mountains of the Appalachian range, and stll further West was an im- mense inland sea. also inhabited by the dinosfurs and their cotempo- raneous kindred beasts and reptile At that timé all the downtown part of what is now Washington was prob- | ably under water. Possibly the Mount Pleasant. section and the heights of 16th street were the western |boun- daries. Although no fossil remains have been found to indicate that these monstrous reptiles lived where Mount Pleasant now Is, the geologic possibility is tenable.\ Imagine the vast waters of a gray ‘It you- wish do excellent sewing, serd us your name and address at once, and agree to sell only thirty packages of/our blue at 10 cents a pakage.’ Then we strétching south and east over | where -gouthern Maryland now lies, clong whose sedgy, 0ozy banks grew the fern-toppcd trees of that perfod! In_the muddy, soft ooze of the odges 'nl sea lived and grew these dino- LE representatives of the racc’ of les that antedate man by mil lions of years. Occurrence of so many of the fossil ircmains of the pleuroceolus nea Muirkirk lcads sclence to the bellef that a number of thes animals must years ago by some cataclysmic up. tones are found was the mouth of an ancient river and that the bodies of these oxtinct animals were washed idownetream after death and deposited jon a sandbar at the mouth. { But even before the dinosaur the Distrfet of Columbia ‘or the waters an earlier form of vertebrate life. Teeth of immense sharks. which instances. grew o a feet—have been found on Good lope hill, near the District line in. Anacos- [tia.. The ,cocene and miocege sea iteemed with these sea monsters, whose tecth, with those of ancient long-nesed porpo!ses, have also been found in the chalk cliffs at Chesa- reake Beath. On Good Hope hill there haye been fonnd testh of whioch would dwarf into Inlfl‘nlfré eighty feet, according to the. scien- tists, have perished there some millions: of | heaval or that the quarry where their| which covered it were infested with! i 1 i I > S tion. and then you are ready fo 8e¢|to own a sewing machine that wis]say further—-When sold, send us the money, $3, and we will promptly for- ward to you our new automatic ten- sion sewing machine.’ “Now that is the only agreement we made, and we carried it out to the Jetter. We hope you will sit down and write us a letter and apologize for insinuating that our object was fraud. You have hurt our feelings very much. We did not ask you to pay us a cent.out of your own pocket. We only asked you to sell our blue, which you did, and we apprecite it. The money from the sale of the blue was ours, and you could do nothing else but return it to us as you did. The work you did was worth a com- mission of 25 per cent, or 75 cents. We sent you a premium that would cost you in any store $1.50. Many la- dies who_don't care for it selves give it to thelr nieces, or cousin or sister. “You don’t mean to sit down and tell us that you, with your good sense, would suppose that we, or any one else, could afford to give away a forty-dollar sewing machine for the simple little work of gelling $3 worth of goods for us. do you? “Furthermore, we would like to tell you that we are a large and reliable concern, and that we would not think of inserting an advertizement in any paper without first obtaining the best legal opinion that money could buy in the state of New York. Our ad- vertisemént is perfectly . honorable and plain to those who read it care- fully. We would advise you not to answer any advertisement again until you are absolutely sure that understand it. We are sorry you are disappointed, but you would not have been if you had read it carefully at first.” - A summary and- effect raud order” put.a &top to this scheme. A parallel case was where people were led to expect that they would receive a well-equipped bicycle in an adver- tisement which gave an elaborate de- scription of such a “wheel.” but who merely received a cheap-watch charm renresenting a bicyele. * % % K (@] NE particularly popular and much- credulously aughters, avaricious into sending gome small amount of real money for 'TED SKELETON OF DINOSAUR FROM COLORADO, VERY SIMILAR TO SPECIMENS FOUND Nnnil sample of goods for which an agen- cy is to be established. A company in Teginessee ent through the malls eln&orne circulars with this propo- #itibn: ‘We will send ‘one sample spring, charges prepaid, on receipt of $1. If you do not like the spring after see- ing it, you will 1o sccépt the’agency, as we do- noc want an agent that cannot recom | mend this spring above all others. We send only onme sample spring to a firm, and under no circumstances will we send two or more springs at this price.” This closing statement proved Quite true for no one was at all eager to send a second dollar after recei ing_ only a small coll of wire. The diamond contract hocus-pocus seems to have had a particularly profitable run on the Pacific coast in 1904, when a large number of fraud orders were issued. The nub of this contract was.that ome dollar a week should be paid, and when that partl viar contract . wps uhe audesi. ot- tanding it would . be redeemed for about twice what.had been paid .in. Some few. contracts were paid off antedate the dinosaurs by some, mil-1from two or more subsequent con- lions of years—sharks which, in somé ! length of eiehty | tracts, but as the number of new con- tracts' dwindled the number of liabil- ity contracts grew. The fact that the ize_of the disaster was in inverse atio to the magnitude of Its contracts. received moved Judge Kohlsaat to re- mark that this was “a literal dem- onstration of the old saying: ‘The devil takes the hindermost. Religious faith rather than a pro- size | tectfon and shield has quite too often [has been a favorite practice. ance | been a shining mark: for the rogue.|cern in New York offered 33 a day for the tceth of ‘even the “man-edter” of | About twenty years. ugo a_minisier |men to distribute circulars and tack today, apd there {s every indication|advertised in a number of religious |signs. that these fishreached a length of papers /that while on a' visit to the |$3 a day Holy Lands he had collected a number of seeds of the Bible-famed Jonah's , JANUARY 2, you! ‘worked dodge is to ipveigle the | /be under no obligation | 1921. gourd. He was anxious to distribute these among Bible students, but was forced to require that ome dollar be sent to cover his expenses. One of those who fell the hardest was a wom- an writer of great prominence, Who wrote that she was anxious to get a second seed as “despite extreme care her first seed had not germinated and she feared the weather had been too severe.” She received a second seed with a letter which said that true to description in the Bible the Jonzh pourd “cam- up in 0 o perished in a night,” The Post Office nspectors ferreted out that the min- ister's advertisement was shcerest chicanery, and that the seeds sold for a dollar were mere pumpkin seeds minating power was destroyed. A corotlary of thi~ fefch w- ot ad to the extent of at least $10,000, when “A Book for Gamblers—3$1.00” was ad- ivertised and an extremely cheap { Bible was sent to applicants. | “Steel engraving portrails of our 'Presidents have been advertised at al- jluringly small charge—ten cents to ione doilar—and when the money was paid a postage stamp would be sent in_return. ' Implements and _directions drawing a tooth without pain have ialso been offered to the public at the {merely nominal charge of 50 cents. The solicitor for the Post Office De- partment was induced to issue a fraud order when it was shown that all the people got in return for many a 50 cents sent in reply to these ad- vertisements was'a stub of lead pen- cil and a sheet of paper, with the in- structions to draw a picture of the tooth on tie paper. A lace company of New York is quoted by the postal authorities as one bad example of the home-work {and idle-hour earning scheme. The prospect of carning $15 a week in a fow spare moments s extolled. Many a poor woman received an order for $50 worih of medallions and was prevailed upon to send $2-for a sp i cial machine, which really cosis 3% {cents. The agreement was to pa 12 cents per medallion. and these poor { women found they could not possibly make more than three an hour. Ac- cording to the post office figure: 1.250 persons sent in $2 each. an: jonly $150 was paid back for finished medallions. _In the old days lotteries were san itioned by church and state. Money for the improvement of the streets of the National Capital was once se- jeured by means of a lottery sonc- t'oned by Congress. The law of 18 Brew out of a desire to protect the people against fraudulent lotteries, and that law then passed has been iin operation since, being widened in 1890 and again in 1895.. The last of the ta.n;ou]s lotteries was ‘the state cttery in Louisiana, wh v - hibited in 1593, £ Es Tro * 3 ¥ & DURING the last couple of years there has bepm = veritable orgy of big frauds in stock-selling hoaxes ! that have netted the perpetrators and promoters many millions of doilars | through misropresentations made in | communjeations sent through the | mails. The echief inspector of the { Post Office Department recently ordered & drive against these oil and general mining schéhes in New York. and about fifty. arfests were,made. More__than 'a ' generation ako the rosial service waged successful war- fare against green goods swindlers and_ imitators of the: discredited Louisiara’ lottery, . The present-day outcroppings of this sort are exclud ed from the privileges of the mails under the lottery section, 213, of the lpen.l code. This operates against jall games of chance, all schemes for award of prizes, the old voting con- tosts. etc. One of the developments of this sort of contests is to have people guess on the census returns, Advertisements offering employment A-con- [ This was before the war, when eant much more than now. But 31 had to be ment to:secure werk. All that was givem in return for the | | » wheh had been boiled until their ger- | for [ actually grown new eyes ning Down Schemers Who Use Uncle Sam’s Mails to Defraud The Case of the * High = grade Sewing Machine™ Which Was a Toy—An Inter- esting Letter to Victims—Religious Schemer—Wl\en $1 was a list of firms doing extensive advertising, who might want men. Cat sales and dog sales and the mar- keting of pets by mail are also profit- able for those so “inscrupulous that they do mot live up to the letter and spirit of their agreements. A fraud order was issued February 10, 1919, |against a concern operating in Maine. According to the reports on file in the | office of the solicitor of the Post Office Department, this concern advertised fine Angora cats for sale through the mails, whereas the cats actually shipped to purchasers consisted of the | so-called “coon cats” of Maine, a long- haired, bushy-tailed animal, somewhat resembling the genuine Angora cat, but in fact, nothing more than a very com- mon animal in that state. The postal authorities say that, furthremore, the concern did not in all cases ship cats of the age, sex and color ordered. The _{heavy hand of the postal police stopped the Schemer from getting fancy prices for “rough-neck” felines when the in- spectors put two and two advertise- ments together. One pair disclosed this concern offering to buy up any old kind of stray cats, and the other pair of advertisements showed the concern {dealing only in high-grade Angora cats {—and Tn Sam'’s sleuths were much interested in such a cat metamorphosis. The infirmities that human flesh is heir to and the natural desire of all men and women to have good health, with the inherent reluctance to have | physical weakness or organic “troubles known—has furnished fertile soil for the conscienceless quack. From the earliest days of the postal service the patent medicine and worthless rostrum dispensers have flooded the country with their purposely fallacious and misleading promises of help. The worst feature of this has been that it idelayed those who fell for the knavery from receiving prompt medical atten- tion that might have prevented their ailment from becoming chronic. An interesting example of the Thau- maturgi of the mails is found in the {reports that caused a fraud order t be issued in the case of a “heale: and self-styled “miracle m: He was caught operating principall about Pittaburgh, advestising a whole series of medicirles, which he repre- sented would cure every known dis- case, including black plague. His specialty was cancers. He sent pledges through the mails that his medicine would even grow an eye where one had been removed by oper- |ation. advertising his “fourteen sepa- {rate and distinct medicines,” sold for the uniform price $1.56 per six-and- two-thirds-ounce bottle. Examina- tion by the U. 8. bureau of chemistry disclosed that these “fourteen sepa- rate and distinct medicines” had as a common - basis one-quarter alcohol, one-quarter water and one-half olive oil, and differed only in the combi- pation of a few drops of flavoring extract, vanilla, clove, lemon, anise, wintergreen, juniper, etc. The vietim was to take the entire { bottle at one dose and a dose every week. This caused business to keep up. especially as one of the principal ingredients was alcohol. The “healer” told the postal authorities that “God instructed him to compound his vari- ous medicine: It was shown that between June 19 and August,3. 1920, | his receipts were $290.193.31. i * ¥ R % :Tss'r letter sent by the post office ' detectives brought some very jamusing correspondence. One said that “Mr. Soandso’s medicine No: has cured over 14,000 cancers.” An- other grew enthusiastic about the medicinal potentialities, saying: “Our medicine No. 13 will do the work. I presume you would think it ridiculous 'and absurd were I to tell you that [medicme has not duly restored sight to {the blind and returned health to the |afflicted eves of others, but persons having taken the medicine for some time {doses at $1.56 each) i heads where they had run out. In reply to a trap letter purport- ing to be in the interests of a .boy suffering from insanity the “healer” jor his manager wrote as regards ‘medicine No. 9": “Further. I would give the boy lots of nuts to eat. It will furnish oil required by the brain. { | T is doubtful if there is another city in the United States where | | sames of all kinds are played to a greater degree than in Wash- ington. This is especially true of outdoor games. Some.of these forms of diversion are older than the Ro- man empire. Tennis is pronounced the oldest of all the existing “ball games.” It Is impossible to give its origin, but it was played in Europe during the mid- dle ages, in the parks or “ditches” of Ithe feudal castles. It was at first the pastime of kings and nobles, but later it grew popular with all\classes. and the English from the French. been a favorite pastime in Persia,! Tartary and the frontiers of India from prehistoric times. The name of the game varies with the district, and the rules are not the same on minor points, -though they are substantially alike on the main issues. China and Japan also have a game closely re- sembling the Persian sport. Golf is popularly supposed to have had its origin in Scotland, but there seems to be good reason for believ- ing that it came from Holland. The name itself is undoubtedly of Ger- man or Dutch extraction, and an en- actprent of James I of England, bear- ing. date 1618, refers to a consider- able importation of golf balls from Holland, and at the same time places a restriction upon this extravagant use. in a foreign country, of the coin of the realm. " Chess always has been the subject of more dispute, 80’ far as its_origin is concerned, than any other game. It is probably the most ancient as well as the.most intellectual of games, and it is played ail over the world, The bellef which is most generally, accepted is that it came from the Hin- | doos, and the most conservative esti- mate places its age at one thousand | yedrs. Some persons, however, claim | an age of from four to five thousand years for it. Its basis is the art of war, 2nd the Hindoo mame for it, “chatu- | ranga;” means the four “angas” or members of an army’ which are giv. en in Hindoo writings as elephants, horses. chariots and foot soldiers. Base ball holds undisputed sway as the American national game. It was |Beginning of Popular Games | i |Crusaders, while others claim an Eng- { soon became a royal ame. Faith as a Shining Mark for One Steel Engravings of Presidents Turned Out to Be Postage Stamps. Also give him fried calbage and oysters, tripe and pigs feet to keen his lungs, kidneys and liver soft and flufry.” A’ parallel above is the one being right along. where the advertiser of- fers thoroughbred hunting dogs, weil trained, and then picks up any old kind of curs and yellow pups in the local community and ships them out at fancy prices. $50 to $100 So, also, is there a companion pic- ture to the medicinal Falstaff in the pseudo “faith healer.” One of the most famous of such cases that has vexed the postal authorities for many years was a woman in Florida, who was convicted upon an indictment found against her for fraudulent use of the mails. Extension of the fraud order was recently made in another historic ruse. This extension includes a society in Indiana. The scheme consisted in selling and advertising through the mails a treatment alleged to cure all diseases without the use of drugs, surgery or even seeing the patient. ‘The method of healing was by the so-called “silent” or “absent treatmen The originator and promoter of this imposition on confidence was sen- tencad first on October 23, 1909, to Leavenworth penitentiary for a year and a day. But it appears that the same man was again sentenced on November 12, 1914, for four yvears in the same institution and on June 25 1920, to a three-year term in the fed- eral penitentiary at Atlanta. 2 The endless chain scheme is one that spreads as the little wavelets when a pebble is dropped into still water. The general idea is to induce many persons to send in dimes under the bejief that they are to get a suit of clothes, a silk petticoat or other articles. One of these plans was for an individual to secure a coupon for 25 cents and sentl that in with a dollar, for which he would receive four more couponx. He would re- imburse himself for his dollar by selling the four coupons. When these four coupons with snother dollar each were sent in the original coupon pur- chaser would get his suit, or what- ever was offered. ‘Washington saw a netable illustra- tion of the chain letter cheat a coupl of years ago. The operator was Milwaukee or Minneapolis. Silk petti- coats worth $5 each were to be r ceived for 16 cents. Government workers and department store em- ployes sent in dimes as fast as they could address emvelopes, and write the letters. The proposal to send in 10 cents, make.10 copies of a letter and send tbese to tem friends, each of whom was to send in 10 cents and write ten more -letters. The fraud order was issued'so promptly and the promoter made his get-away so abmuptly that only comparatively few lost their dimes, but the evil of the endless chain was shown in the fact that the dead letter office was stacked high with the withheld letters, each containing a dime.. And so far did it spread that ‘letters are still being re- turned to the senders. Folks all over the country, in every city and town of any size, were caught in this chain letter progression. As many as 100 schemes and varia- tions patterned after this were start- ed, which the post office inspectors had to watch and suppress. attempted of the All of these frauds i through the agency of the mails a: | suppressed by fraud orders issued by | the solicitor of the Post Office De- partment, which prevents the trickster from collecting the profits from his wiles, and the letters containing his intended spoils are sent back to the addressees. The fraud order has been no less instrumental in protecting the guilible, ignorant, chedulous or avari cious tempted by the advertisements, than has been a conscientious volun- tary stand by the newspapers and magazines. which refused to accept any advertisements that are recognized as tricky or suspected of intent to cheat. It is as_impossible to estimate the amount of money that these crooks and nimble-wits have cost Uncle Sam in suppressing their sporadic oui- breaks and in returning to the sendels the waves of silver they let loose. as it is to estimate how many millionx of dollars have been ‘saved to the innocent and unwary by the enforce- ment of this beneficent law. i \founded on the old English game of roundgs. and for almost a century lit has been known in the eastern Istates in various forms Basket ball is unique. inasmuch as was the invention of one man. and was completed at & single sitting. In 1891, in the course of a lecture at the Young Men's Christian Association in Plainfield. Mass., the lecturer spoke [of the mental processes of invention. |and used 2 game, with its limitations and necessities. as an illustration. {James Naismith. who was a member {of the class, worked out basket ball |that same night as an ideal game to imeet the case. It was presented the [next day in the lecture room and put~ The French took it from the lullnnu,: i sequently Polo is of eastern origin, and has|general pu in practice with the aid of the mem-. bers of the gymnasium. From there it spread to other branches of the Young Men's Christian Association and sub- Lo athletic clubs and the Billiards is believed by some to have been brought from the east by the lish origin for it and find it allied to the game of bowls. Still others as- sert that the French developed from an ancient German game. i seems pretty certain that the first person to give form and rule to the game was an artist. named Henrique Devigne, who lived in the reign of Charles IX. One writer sees in bii- liards the ancient game of paille- maille played on a table instead of on the ground. and this is a reasonable assumption. Bowls. or bowling, is one of the most popular and ancient of English pastimes, its origin being traceable 1o the twelfth century. It was held in such disfavor for years that laws were enicted against it and it was an illegal pursuit. Alleys were built, however, as it could not be plaved out-of-doors during the winter and the game flourished in epite of oppo- sition. In the beginning of the eight- eenth century greens began to in- crease. while the alleys were Figor- ously and absolutely suppressed. Tt Checkers is sald by some to be a very old game, while others deelare it to be of comparatively medern origin. Whence it came is absolutely unknowy. The game is also calied draughts, and there are many wa- rieties of it—Chinese, English, PoMsh. Spanish, Jtalian and Turkish. 3t is" 50 found among the mative tribes of the interior of New Zealand. = '