Читать книгу Twenty Years a Detective in the Wickedest City in the World - Clifton R. Wooldridge - Страница 109

To describe adequately the technicalities of the marriage agencies and bureau swindlers' methods would be impossible without presenting actual copies of documents necessary to the system. Early in the investigations the discovery was made that the scores of matrimonial agencies, "introduction bureaux" and "marriage clubs" were using practically the same literature. Few departed from the stereotyped plan for "pulling the suckers on." For the most part the prospectuses and "follow-up" letters were identical.

As often happened, however, when a victim was "landed right" and ventured to Chicago from his distant rural retreat prepared to carry out in earnest the game that had been worked upon him in a spirit of mercenary recklessness, the methods of handling him were varied in respect to both finesse and effectiveness.

Any person familiar with the uses of the typewriter easily could have discovered that the "personal" letters received from time to time were nothing more than circulars printed by the thousands. So vast was the number of the gullible that seldom, if ever, was an actual, bona fide letter sent in reply to those from the victims.

Space was left at the top of the stock letters for the insertion of the name of the person to whom it was sent. In their haste the swindlers often begrudged the time necessary to change the "Dear Sir" to "Dear Miss" or "Dear Madam" when a woman was addressed on stationery intended for male clients.

Notice! She's engaged but engagements have been broken so hurry before the wedding bells have rung.... Going! Going! Third and Last Call!