Читать книгу Twenty Years a Detective in the Wickedest City in the World - Clifton R. Wooldridge - Страница 60

In their investigation of this sort of swindle the police discovered that almost invariably the victims were bed-ridden persons or women in straitened circumstances who were in frantic search of some means of keeping the wolf from the door. Many instances were found where some unfortunate had taken up a collection in the neighborhood in order to raise the necessary dollar to send for the "outfit." Persons were found who were actually starving and who had pawned their last possession to get the money that was to start them on the road to affluence.

Of all the offices raided Detective Wooldridge did not find record of one instance where a victim had been able to keep the requirements of the swindlers. The supposed letter sent to be copied was generally about 800 words in length, full of words difficult to spell, of rude and complicated rhetorical construction and punctuated in a most eccentric manner. The task imposed was practically a life-time job, and even if anyone had fulfilled it there were a hundred loop-holes whereby the thieves could escape payment by declaring their specifications had not been heeded to the letter.

The "outfit" consisted of a cheap penholder, a pen and a box of fake pills.

Imagine the joyous anticipation with which a starving cripple would await the arrival of the "outfit" that was to give him the opportunity of prolonging existence! The bright hopes of the work-worn widow who expected by this genteel means to keep her little ones in bread!

Think of the despair of both upon discovering they had paid out money so sadly needed—money which probably had been begged or borrowed—only to discover that they had been victimized instead of benefited!