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$1,000,000 Secured by These Get-Rich-Quick Schemers Discovered by Detective Clifton R. Wooldridge, Chicago's Famous Police Detective.

 125 matrimonial agencies in Chicago raided and closed in the last five years.

 4,500,000 matrimonial letters seized and destroyed.

 1,500,000 matrimonial agencies' stock letters seized and destroyed.

 1,400,000 matrimonial stock photographs seized and destroyed.

 500,000 photographs sent to the matrimonial agencies by men and women who were seeking their affinities seized and destroyed.

 40 wagon loads of matrimonial literature seized and destroyed.

One of the most insidious forms of crime is the Matrimonial Agency. Seemingly harmless, or at most merely foolish, is the Matrimonial Agency at its inception.

But step by step within the past few years we have seen the Matrimonial Agency turned into a volcano belching forth fraud, swindling, bigamy, desertion, and finally ghastly wholesale murder.

We have seen the Matrimonial Agency sweep the whole range of the world of crime from the petty thieving of a Carson to the almost unbelievable horrors of the Gunness Farm.

THE SORROWS OF CUPID

"He Does Not See All the Rocks Ahead When He Brings Two Young People Together"—Beatrice Fairfax.

And this monster is hydra-headed. Stamp it out in one place and it immediately reappears in another. Send a "manager" to prison once, twice, ten times, and the minute the prison doors are open he is back at the old stand doing business.

Something of the tremendous efforts being put forth to stamp out this evil may be gained from the headlines of this story, where the strenuous work of Detective Wooldridge of Chicago is summarized.

Chicago has been and is today infested by a formidable community of matrimonial agencies who invade all ranks of life. They promote many specious schemes to lure the elusive dollar from the pockets of unwary victims. These operatives are sharp, smooth and unscrupulous—the most dangerous of criminal perverts.

Were the census enumerators of the United States to compile a list of the "sucker" public the gullible ones would aggregate tens of millions. There is not a township in this great nation that does not contain its portion of confiding persons who are ready to believe anything, from the rankest catch-penny advertisement to a fallacy in theological dogma.

They are willing to open up their hearts to unknown matrimonially inclined correspondents; to accept as gospel the incredible statements of impostors and to pay out money gained by hard toil for something which the reason of a child should tell them it is beyond the power of man to provide.

They are easy prey alike to religious and political impostors and unscrupulous adventurers. Investigations for years past into the innermost secrets of swindlers, and the observations incidental to official experience disclosing how victims are drawn into the net of the grafter, impel the belief that the faith of many persons passes beyond the bounds of credulity into the domain of imbecility.

Men and women who are engaged in promoting matrimonial agencies are guilty of crime. It is opposed to the fundamental principles of society. Such a practice should under no circumstances be tolerated. It is inconsistent with the highest ideals of what should constitute the proper marriage relations.