Omaha Daily Bee Newspaper, October 14, 1894, Page 16

THE OMAHA DAILY BEE: SUNDAY, OCTOBER 14, 1894, newest pattern, ¢ & S S ¢ S S S S S S S S > > > > > ° ~FOR THIS— RLOE Solid oak, P upholstered in rich tapestry no polish EASY TERMS, $10.00 worth of goods, §1.00 per mc * & & & S S o o o $1.50 week, or $6.00 per m $50.00 worth of goods S o $75.00 worth of goods 2.50 week or $10.00 per m $100 worth of goods, $2.00 week 0r§12.00 per m worth of goods, $1.00 week or $15.00 per m $200 4 OCRE plush; latest style and worth $10. L e e e e eI R IR I I S What Is Home Every nook and crany of our great building is chock full of brand new goods. Oil heaters, price, $10; now ... former .8 4.8 Oak hei price 8 former 115 now. ter Cannon stoves, former price $3.50, now. ... 175 Base burner former pric now stoves, 4-hole ranges, former Steel ranges, former price $40; now. 24, Parlor Cook Stoves, former price $17.50; now.. 8.60 finish, v or silk onth. onth $2.00 week, or $8.00 per month onth onth onth > AT T TR T eI I IR O Without I'urniture? * The variety is almost bewildering and every article is of the You can furnish your house from cellar to garret without leaving our store. See Our Goods and Get Our Prices. LOOK AT THIS ELEGANT PARLOR SUIT, This Parlor Suit for $19.50. Worth $50.00. Polished antique Dining Chairs 6-foot polished antique Extension Tabl Polished oak Side Boards Kitchen Safes. . Polished oak Center Tables Antique Folding Bed..... .. Combination Wardrobe Folding Bed . Polished antique Cheffonier...... 2 Polished antique Chamber Suit Lounges, polished oak frame Bed Lounges, polished oa Reed Rockers ... .. Decorated Toilet Scts Dinner Sets Send {0 cents to cover postage 03 big 94 catalogue W i \_‘" FURNITURE. ....Former price, es. . Former price, ..Former price, . Former price, Former price, Former price, Former price, _Former price, Former price, Former price, Former price, Former price, Former price, Former price, .Former price, 50.00; n k frame Write for Baby Carriage and Stove Catalogues, malled [ree. $1.00; now, 7.60; now, 28 00; now, 6.00; now, 2.50; now, 15.00; now, 15.00; now, 20.00; now, 9.00; now, 12.00; now, 3.00; now, 7.00; now, 12.00; now, 6.00; now, I Ingrain Wool ne Union ets, ot 1o Tapestry mor pr Velvet mer pr Body B price & Window mer pr Por Irish Pol tai 50¢c ow, DOHOANS 0!‘3‘-30 QGG Open Monday and BRSBTS former L 1 W)y Car- former price W former oW Fih Carpots, fo e & pric now 5% Car- pric russcls BOW e sy rpets, former 3 ey new Shad ico for 10w, former price $7 int 1 forme: The E This stove will burns less fuel and a It burns soit state Oak. hold fire three whole day. 1 gives out more heat than v other stove on the market, coal, hard coal or coke. A writt:n guaraniee given with every stove. s $2. ———————— EASY TERMS. 0.00 worth of goods, $1.00 week or $4.00 per worth of goods week or $6.00 per th of goods 2.00 week or $8.00 per worth of goods $2.50 week or $10.00 per gl month, month. month. 5.00 month. 4100 worth of goods Saturday Evenings, §3.00 week or $12.00 per month. $200 worth of goods $4.00 weck or $15.00 per month. EMPEROR OF CHINA The Young Tartar Monarch Little More Than a Royal Figurehead. UNDER THE EMPRESS DOWAGER'S THUMB The 01 Lady Selects His Wives and Limits | Their Number, REPLENISHI'G THE ROYAL HAREM | How Palace Ennnohs Steal from His Gracions Majesty's Stores, OLDEST NEWSPAPER IN THE WORLD The Old Empress Dowager and Her Twenty- Million-Dollar Birthday Celebration—Pic- tures Behind the Scenes of the Most Secluded Court of the World. (Copyrighted, 1884, Ly Frank G. Carpenter.) 1 will devote my letter this week to the emperor of China. He fs the most secluded monarch on the face of the globe and mo race lorse is guarded more carefully than he. His officials have him corralled in the center of the big Tartar city at Peking and you have 10 go through three sets of walls before you approach the building in which he Is kept, guarded by eunuchs. First, there are the fmmense walls of the great Tartar city, whiel are sixty feet thick and as tall as a four- story flat. These Inclose a large area filled up with the houses of Tartars and govern- ment buildings, which run around a space the center of which is known as the Imperial City. This has a high wall of gray bricks about six miles in length, and It includes the outside pulaces, the pleasure grounds and the temples of the Sacred City. The emperor is Kept in the third pen inside this and his ex- clusive quarters are known as the Purple Forbidden City. The walls of this last pen are rigidly guarded. They inclose the quarters of the emperor, his family, the ladies of the royal harem and the thousands of eunuchs who make up the servants. It has buildings in the center for court cere monies and there are small bulldings ar- ranged around on the two sides of a ridge of palaces, which runs from the morth to the south. The emperor himselt lives In the northwestern part of the pen and the em- press dowager has a palace near by, In another part of the inclosure is the hall of Mterary abyss, or the imperial library, and in this the cabinet oMcers hold {helr sessions, and it contains also a department of the royal treasury. No one outside of the forelgn legations has ever gotten into the palaces of the emperor of China and no foreigner is permitted to see him. Our minister has been granted an audience, but even the Ofjnese of Peking do not know how he 1ooks, and of the hundreds of millions who make up the empire I venture to say that there are nol 5000 men outside of his eunuchs who have ever set eyes on him, He knows absolutely nothing about the aptual condition of his people and capital When he goes out into the city matting is hung up in front of all the houses and strips | of cloth are strotohed across the alleys and side strcets through which the fmperial pro cesslon must pa Qur minlster warns all Americans not te go out at their peril, for the emperor is always accompanied by Soldiers, and (hs map who peeps arcund the | corner or lias his eye fastened to a hole in the matiing is liable to be blinded with a bullet or arrow. The streets are fixed up for the occasion. All the booths and | squatters are driven away and the roads are | covered with bright yellow clay. Yellow is the fmperial color, and I saw armies of half-naked coolies earrying such dirt into the city in wheelbarrows during my stay in Peking for one of the emperor's outings. It is the same when he goes into the country, 1 us some of his tours to worship at the ombs of his ancestors extend many miles | you will see that it costs something in the Way of clay hauling to give him a good track to move on. UNDER THE OLD LADY'S THUMB. It is not easy to get reliable gossip about | the emperor of China, and the only view I | bad of his palace was from the city walls, and during the time that I prowled around | the gate with my snap-shot camera and my Chinese photographer. Stll, T met a num- ber of oficials who were quite cloze to the throne, and 1 got good information from one or two eunuchs. I visited Peking six years {ago, at the time the empress dowager | pieked out his first wives, and some of the L will tell further on were given me {in a whisper, and if thelr authors were known they might lose (heir heds. The truth of the matter is that the young em- peror is by no means an angel, and the eu- nuehs tdld me that he hops up and down in his rage when anything goes against him. He is merely the tool of the old empress dowager, and he has been under this old lady's thumb since he was a baby. She | supervised his education. She picked out his wives for him, and she makes the ladles of his harem howl today if they don't walk | chalk in ber presence. ~ Of course, she took | her own friends when she seiected his | wives, and she has him so hemmed about with her officials and girls that if he had a will of his own he wouldn’t know how to use it. The emperor was 17 years old at the time of hs marriage six years ago, and he gave him three wives to start with. The selection was curious. Al the pretty Tar- tar girls of the empire, numbering many | thousands, ~ were gathered together and | sorted, and the best of them were sent on to | Peking. The selection was first made by | the governors of the provinces, and no girl was presented who was over 18 nor under 12 years of age. The choice lots were dressed in the finert of clothes, and were carted from all parts of the empire into Peking. of the old empress dowager, being brought | into her presence in lots of five. She passed upon them as fast as she could, and weeded out the poorest and dullest. Those who re- mained were taken out for the time and brought fu In new lots, and so the sorting went hundreds, the hundreds to scores, and the scores at last down to ffteen, PRETTY TARTAR GIRLS. These fifteen girls were put into training. Thelr paces were tested, and all sorts of ex- periments were made as to their tempers aud traits. After some months the old empress picked out the three girls she liked, and the eldest of these, who was 18 years old, became empress. The two others be came what are called secondary wives, or chicf concubines, and these two latter were sisters, one of whom was 13 and the other |16 r« old. The marriage of the em- | peror was celebrated on the day President Harrison was inaugurated, and you may have some idea of the occaslon when I tell you that it cost $10,000,000. In addition to his wives he has no end of concubines, and | the laws of Chiua provide that a sorting like yeurs teens, and that the most select of the lot must bo shipped into the palace. The em- peror is not restricted as to the number he | takes, and he picks out those he likes best. | He has a right to dismiss them at any time | that he pleases, but they usually remain 1l 25 years of ‘age, when, If they have had o children, they expect to be sent away from the palgce, They have no trouble, however, In gétling good husbands. The | whole Chinese court fs made up of in- | trigucs and intriguers, and thy nobles are glad to have their daughters in the royal {Darem. These Tartar girls bave n arbss of thelr own, and they wear long skirts in- stead of the silk pantaloons of their Chiness sisters. They do not bind up their feet, |and there are no squeezed feet inside the impei'al palace. Thoy are indeed the pret- tiest girla of the empire. Their faces ar | @ delicate cream verging on the bloom of & large yellow peach, and their black almond all the pretty Tartar girls in their | | eyes are soulful enough to stir the blood of the coldest Caucassian. No man with | such surroundings can devote much time o | a little matter like that of a war with Japas { and doing what his highest officials and the | old empress dowager direct, amusing himself in the meantime with his wives and his | eunuchs. He has, in fact, much the same place that the mikado had in Japan und the Shoguns. He is a sort of holy figur: | head, and his ofiicials know the more sacred they make him the more power will be | given tothem, and the more license for | their squeezing and stealing. ROYAL LAW-MADE MENU. Everything connected with the emperor is regulated by law. He has imperial physi- cians who watch over his health. The law provides just what he shall eat, and 1 am told that he squats on the floor at his meals and eats out of golden bowls with Ivory chopsticks. According to the old Chinese books there must be placed daily before him | thirty pounds of meat in a basin and seven | pounds boiled in soup. He has a daily allow- ance of about a pound of hog's fat and | butter, and he has the right to order two sheep, two fowls and two ducks, while his | arink for the day is restricted to the milk of eighty cows and the steeping of seventy-five parcels of tea. It is probable that his real diet is different, and I doubt not he is now taking bits of roast leopard and tiger-bone soup 1o keep up his courage, for the Chinese think that these things really make a man brave. If he desires anything that is not on the menu the board having charge of tha imperial table has to be consulted, so I am told, ‘before he is supplied. The emperor is by no means a physical glant, He s lean and unhealthy, and his features are long and unlike those of the typical Chinaman. His eyes are almost st-aight and he bears the marks of his pure Tartar blood. His life is by no means con- ducive to health. He does all his business at night and he sleeps fn the daytime, begins his work about midnight, just after his breakfast, and he receives his cabinet | ministers under the rays of the electric light. He has numerous audiences and the big officials have to cool their heels in the ante- T | often as they do in the white house at Wash- | Ington. When they are ushered into his presence they get down on their knees and bump their heads again and again on the | floor, and they have to remain on thelr knees while before him, Not long ago he took a They were here submitted to the inspection | NOtion to learn English and two students of ( the college at Peking were appointed as his | teachers. He recited his lessons at 1 o'clock in the morning and for some time these boys who acted as teachers had to remain on their knees while his majesty butchered the king's | English before them. He kept up his studi on until the thousands had dwindled to the | for some time, but I was told in Peking that | | he had given up the attempt. THE PEKING GAZETTE. The emperor of China Is, to a certain ex- |tent, the editor of the famous Peking Gazette, This is the oldest newspaper of the world and it has been published almost daily for 800 years. It was read by the Chinese centuries before America was discovered, and it was 600 years old when the first daily newspaper of our civilization began its pub- | Ncation, In 1615, 1t is nothing like our | newspapers, however. The copies, which are sent all over China, are more like the cheap- est of patent medicine almanacs than any- thing elsc. They are bound in yellow covers and are printed from blocks on the thinnest of rice paper. A page of the Peking | Gazette is about three inches wide and seven inches long, and thers are sixteen pages and upward in each issue. None of the issues that | described must be made every three | CONtain one-hundredth the amount of the | | materiai In a Sunday Bee. The newspaper begins at the back instead of at the front. | The lines run up and down instead of across | the top, and you read from right to left across the page instead of from left to right, as with us, It has no advertisements, no | editorials and no soclal gossip. The govern- ment allows no comments on its actions and it is a crime to add to or subtract from its ‘nmnur in its republication. The newspaper is made up of officlal acts and reports, and such of the reports as the emperor thinka | ought to be published are looked | over by bhim and he marks with |a red pencil his comments upon them | These are posted upon bill boards | outside of the palace, and the scribes copy them Iinto books, which are sent out each day. The first coples are the original is- sues of the Peking Gazette. They are beau- tifully engrossed, and they command a price about $100 a year. Private printing firms buy. lllmn. and e engravers make blocks, from He | chamber of the palace of Peking quite as | which the cheaper copies are printed. Some | editions go for 30 cents a month, and num- bers of Chinese families club together and buy theso cheaper editions, o that a man may pay perhaps gne-twentieth of a cent for reading a copy of the Peking Gazette. 1 have a bound volume of this paper, which has been translated into English, and 1 get transla- tions every week in the English newspapers which 1 recelve from China. Practically nothing is as yet given about the Chinese- Japanese war, except that in the issue of August 28 it Is stated that *the empress dowager has sent 4,000 boxes of cooling pills to the soldiers in Corea,” and the couriers probably bring the news in on horseback and reiall it to the people. There is no doubt that there is more lying done in the dissemination of official reports than can possibly be committed by American re- porters, and I learn from Peking that the people are kept in entire ignorance of what is going on in the war with Japan. BLISSFUL IGNORANCE. It is doubtful whether the emperor him- self understands the real situation. He has, I venture, gever reviewed his own army, and he knows nothing about military tactics. It is a common amusement with him to go out and shoot with a bow and arrow, and his only experience as to traveling by railroad has been in’a small train of cars which a French syndicate, who wanted to get rail- road concessions, presented to him. The train cost_them, 1 am told, something like $100,000. - The emperor refused to accept it as a gift, and sent them back the sum of $10,000 in order to relieve himself of any obligation. 1t s now six years since the present was made, and they have gotten no concessions. I saw these cars in Tien-Tsin some years ago, when they were on their | way to the emperor. They were carried into Peking by water, and his majesty hed a track laid in the palace grounds, and they were run for a short time with steam. This, however, was too fast for his majesty, and I understand that he now harnesses up his eumuchs to the engine and has them whipped right royally by the brakeman, as he rides through the grounds. The emperor knows nothing of modern civilization and modern | warfare. He does not even know his own countr; did he possess a great chara ter it would have been ruined long since by nis surroundings A POWERFUL BUNUCH. This is the man who I8 supposed to be at the head of the great Chinese empire, and who ought to be direeting the war with | Japan. He is, T am told, largely governed | by his eunuchs. They have been his closest assoclates throughouti his life, and different estimates state tuat b bas all the way from four to ter thousand iof these eunuchs in the palace. Our own minister, Colonel Denby, says that he has actual infor- | | mation that there are at least four thousand, | and when you remember that this immense colony is scattered ovem an area not much i | through larger than that of asfarm, you will see | that eunuchs are thloker than blackberries | in August. They are gzaded in different de- | partments, and eachi‘las his own duties, | | Those of ordinary zdnk receive from |to $12 a month, but they make for-| | tunes out of squecsing and stealing, and there is one eunuc the palace who Is sald to be worth miidio His name is PL Tsiau Li, and be: is the confidential servant of the old emppess dowager. He is a great office brokerssand I heard of i stances of his gettings $100,000 and up- | ward for single offices; and I"have no doubt | | he divides his profitsiwith the old empress. | Al of the officials of’ Peking are afraid of | him, and though he began life as the son of & shoemaker, he has more power than many of the princes. His father was a cobbler in the city of Tung Chow, about fif- | teen miles from Peking, but since his son bhas become $o powerfui the old man has | been elevated to a fat ofice, and he has & i(eullmr in his hat. I saw a number of in- stances myself in Peking which gave me an insight into the stealing of these eunuch | The finest of the silks and embroideries of | China are made for the emperor. Ho has | vast silk looms at Nanking, and he has great | porcelaln factories in different parts of China. | | Me receives his satin by the cartload, and | | one of his recent orders, as 1 see by the | | Peking Gazette, included 3,400 rolls of | silk gauze, 500 rolls of brocades, and seventy rolls of satin. He buys his | pencils by the thousand, and his paper is | carried to Peking for him by the shipload | He receive: , and he can't keep | track ot ons. The eunuchs | snealk goods cut of the paiace and band them juver to second hand peddiers, and 1 was | try . | H. | into possession of {he ring, was in command offered gowns which were probably made for the royal harem again and again during my stay in Peking, and you can buy fine pieces of “embroidery there with the five-clawed dragon upon them, which is the imperial coat-of-arms, for a song. Many a fine plece of porcelain is smuggled out of the palaces and sold, and the officials probably get a squeeze on all orders of goods that they make for the emperor. Just one word more about the eunuchs, The laws provide that none but those of royal blood shall heve the right to employ them, and princesses can have thirty eu- nuchs, while the nephews of the emperor are restricted to twenty. Bvery fifth year certain of the officials of China are re- aquired to* furnish for the use of the palace elght young eunuchs each, and these princes are paid $300 apiece for them. Even the priests who attend to the worship of the harem are eunuchs, and the emperor goes no place without them. There were several hundred guarding the roads when the for- elgn minister came into the audience, and the old empress dowager has quite a corps of them. RULED BY A WOMAN. The empress dowager will be 60 years old next month. She is said to be a most re- markable woman, and she has been prac- tically the ruler of China for the past gen- eration. She was the secondary wife or the first concubine of the Emperor Hien Fung, who died along about the time of the beginning of our ciyll war, and she has| been practically the boss of the harem and | the empire since then. She st the head of the cmpire during a greater part of the Kalping rebellion. She managed its | affairs during its war with France, and she | had a little taste of Russian diplomacy in | her fuss with the czar of some years ago. She is said to have a mind of her own, and all of the Chinese respect and fear her. She is a stickler as to form, and she in- sists that all business shall be done through the young emperor, though she really di- rects what he is to do. she Is very vain, | and she bad consented to the spending of | about §20,000,000 on the celebration of her | birthday 'this year, and this money was being collected for the purpose when the war | with Japan broke out. A large part of it| 18 to be applied to the war, and if the Japan- eso approach - Peking before the celebration | it is probable that the old empress will | really give the whole of it to the war, as she has promised to do, The empress dowager is even more secluded than the em- peror, and when she receives hep officials she sits bebind a screen and the cabinet ministers get down on their knees and talk it at her. She s said to look much like the ordmary Chinese woman. and I have a pieturo which looks, 1 am told, much like her, It represents a tall Chinese woman with a crown on her head and with a gorgeous silk gown decorated Wwith em- broldery covering her person. She sits as straight @s a poker, and looks as though she might be able to rule. The real photo- graphs of the empress dowager, the emperor of China, and of the empress have never | been taken, and if they were they would not | be allowed 'to go outslde of the palace. One of the biggest magazines of the coun- recently published pictures which it labeled as those of the emperor and em- | press. Any one who kas even a slight ao- | quaintance with China knows that the ob- taining of real photographs of this kind 1s | absolutely impossible, and I am surprised that the editors should have been so easily | deceived, QWQ l\o CW“!M e Gold Ring In » Sea Fish, Lieutenant James H. Miner of the police | force, says the Florida Times, was presented | with a gold ring yesterday by Captain Harry Haywood, who, at the time of coming of the Nova BScotla bark Alice. Captain Haywood says that while the bark Alice was on her way from New York to Havaoa he frequently passed the time in fishing, and on June i4, 1892, he caught a large bonito fish, which on being cut open was found to have a plain gold ring inside. It was the common bellef of the sailors on the bark that the fish had bitten off the hand nl‘ & man, who either fell overboard or went | down with his ship. Captain Haywood ha taken a great fancy to Lieutenant Minor, and gave him the ring as a token of his trieudship. | Central | family every alght in the ye WORKED THREE-BALL MEN Pemarkabls Career of Diamond Bob, Who Preyed en Morey Lenders, M*ZING SUCCESS OF HIS SCHEMES | His Most Skilifal nd Artlstic Swindles Ro- led by a Sleuth Who Tracked Him —Dogus \Wa Pa From a brief dispatch dated San Francisco recelved In New York several days ago, the police and others learned of the suicide of a famous character in criminal circles, known as “Diamond Bob.” His proper name was Robert Ashmead, and he spent all but twenty vears of his lite swindling pawnbrokers in the big cities of this country and Europe. So successful was he, strange as it may seem to those who have had dealings with the wily money lenders, that at one time he was reputed to be worth $200,000. During the thirty years he was engaged in his | operations he was arrested but once, and | then he was 'n custody only a few hours in this city. The pawnbroker who had been | swindled falled o prosecute “Diamond Bob,” for he believed it would injure him | it it became known he had been success- T fault but his own. ‘Dlamond Bob' saw fortune in this fellow, if he could only get him o do as he wished, and there was lit- | tle dificulty encountered, I assure you. The diamond cutter had got &0 far down he was ready to commit almost any crime to get rum. So, when he was well paid for * filling dlamond shells with opal, in an artistic - manner, ' he didn't ask any questions as to whother they were {0 be used in swindling. By taking the shells of diamonds left by the cutters in the big jewelry establishments, and deftly placing’ opal In the middle of them and ing the cavity with paste diamonds, mond Bob' had a gem, apparently of first water, that shone with wonderful He pawned this ‘fake’ diamond when it was in its highest state of brilliancy. The money lender could apply all of the tests, as the shell was the genuime article, It would cut glass the same a8 a good diamond. Well, ‘Diamond Bob' turned out hundreds of these bogus gems, and pawned them in all the pawnehops of the eastern cities for sums ranging from $2§ to §260, before the swindle was detected. As the stones cost him only a few dollars aplece, it can be readily seen how great was his profit. It is no exaggeration to say that he swindled the money lenders out of a cool $100,000 on this novel game, and when the other smart swindlers heard of it they chrise tened him ‘Diamond Bob." GOT $50,000 ON A WATCH SWINDLE. “It was ‘Diamond Bob® who took about 450,000 from the pawnbrokers of this country a few years ago on what. the police know ap the “watch swindle.” It was an exccedingly ingenious scheme 1o beat the money lender, It 5 pretty well known that a man can se- cure a loan of at least $150, and oftentimes as high as $300, on a cortain make of watches. A pawnbroker will take the watch the fully imposed upon in loaning money on diamonds. “Diamond Bob" was 50 when he shot himself in a San boarding house, for no known cause. all of his fortune, about to & brother living at ton, L. L He began inai career when onl and the money lenders of th ¥y, where Jiamond Bob" was born, were his first victims. The | police and those who knew him well, say that he was never known to victimize any one but | a pawnbroker. He is said to have sclected this fraternity to work his tricks upon for ! the reason that there were very few men | following a carecer of crime who would bother | with the money lenders, as their chances of successfully swindling this class of business | men were never good, 80 alert and well in- | formed on values are they. In searching about for some one who knew “Diamond Bob” well, the New York Heralo | found the very man who caused his arrest for the only time at the Vanderbilt hotel, | He was one of the central officers who keep a lookout for incoming crooks at the Grand | depot. He had known the m most hated by many pawnbrokers for year MENTIONED IN THEIR PRAYERS “So ‘Diamond Bob' is dead, you say detective sald, when the reporter broach the subject. “Well, of all the queer and peculiar criminals this land ever gave birth to that fellow Ashmead was the queerest and slickest. Peculiar cuss he was, too. Had a heart as big as an ox. What do you think? The man could | never get it through his head that he was committing erime by swindling pawnbrokers. No, sir, And he was honest in his belief, too. I don't believe he ever willfully wronged or stole from any one but a money lender. No, there was no sentiment counected with his' selecting and pursuing pawnbrokers, He was a smart crook, and belleved he was smarter than nine-tenths of the money lend- crs, and he proved it. There fsn't & pawn. broker In this country, or in any of the big cities of Europe, who doesn't know ‘Dia- mond Bob. He has been a sort of Nemesis to the money lenders for a quarter of a cen- | tury, at least. Pawnbrokers' associations have been after him for years, but they never caught him. and his name used to be rung | into the prayers of every guod pawunbroker's §: 5 Hunting- his erim “And the Well, w nitted suleide, | or fellow cou ! will re- | eh? How soms Jolc “How did he Bob? " was asked “Well, it was just like ago he put up one of swindles imaginable, on lenders of the eastern poor dfamond cutte get the name ‘Diamond | this the Some most years | artistic all the money cities. He met a one day who was in | | the hardest kind of luck, thugh nobody's | | ness. | ot | were 1o of such a make as quickly as he will take | dlamonds, the name that is on the works of the watch being the guaranty of its genuine- One of hese firms places its name on the inside of the coyer in letters that are cut into the case and enameled over n white, ‘Diamond Bob' secured the services o skilful watchmaker and set him to work. First they bought a number of the ches of genuine make. These can't be had for less than $400 a pilece. They then took out the movements, which can be sold back to the manufacturer for three-fourths of the value of the watch, or about $300. They returncd the works, only retaining one of them to copy from. Next they bought a lot of ordinary watch works that cost them about which were fitted Into the genuine c The name of the manus facturer was forged on the movements so that it couldn’t be told from the original. After this was done the doctored watches circulated among the money lenders, who took the bait without the least suspicion, Hundreds of these watches were pawned al- most simultaneously in all the big cities cast and west, ‘Diamond Bob' and his compani whom h had taken into copartnership, visite ing one money lender after the other as fast as they could travel. HOW THE 400 GOT HIS PAINTI) “One of the slickest swindles I ever heard though, was worked by ‘Diamond Bob* money lendere only a few years ago. mond Bob' hunted up in the French quarter an artist who had only recently landed from Paris. The artist could copy old masters and age them o that it was al- most impossiblo for the ordinary judge of paintings to el them from the originals, This Frenchmun turned out scores of thes coples of old masters, which ‘Diamond Bob pawned in pretty much every city in thig country. He found an aristocratic old fellow in the Bowery whom he coached to do the pawning. The painting was an hefr- loom, and the old fellow played his p 0 well that he would accdentally drop the palnting and become almost crazed throw fear of its being injured. By this time ‘Digs mond Bob' has become so well known to the pawnbrokers he couldn't do the pawning hime self. If he were to tuke the finest diamond | ever found to almost any pawnbroker in the country he would be politely leave ut once. No pawnbroker would take any chances with the fellow, even though they saw an opportunity of making money. 39 "Diamond Bob' did all hia pawning of the ‘fake’ paintings through this agent of b There are vory tew men who can judge pai ings correctly, and it is little wonder the money lenders were taken in, so skilifully was the work done. " “Thore are today many of ‘Diamond Pub's® bokus paintings hanging in the spleadid cofe lections gathered in the mansions of wall" requested to