The Right Way to Do Wrong (13 page)

Finally, Truth—or Bemis—found his money getting limited, because he could only “treat” a limited number a day. Then he had recourse to the absent treatment dodge.
He would tell his patients that he would give them an absent treatment at a certain hour, and at that time they were to retire to their rooms and think of him, and they would receive the healing influence! As the number of his dupes grew, he branched into a mail-order feature, until hundreds and thousands of people who had never seen the “healer” were sending him money by mail. He received hundreds of letters each day, until the post-office was forced to deliver them in great bags, and his income amounted to thousands of dollars a week! Truth lived in great style, drove about in his own carriage, had quite an office force of stenographers and clerks to handle the mail, and was getting rich, hand over fist, when the post-office authorities and the police put an end to his career.

Advertising mediums, clairvoyants, and astrologers have hosts of dupes, and some invite the methods of the confidence man, with mystical advice and fortune-telling. Not long ago, a certain Miss Ethel L, of Maiden, Mass., visited a so-called medium in Boston. As soon as she entered his inner sanctum she was surprised to have him caution her about a large sum of money which she was carrying. This “occult” knowledge so inspired her confidence, that she asked his advice about a suit she was interested in. He told her he would have to put her in a trance, which he did. When she came out of it, he cautioned her to go directly home, and to
hold her fingers crossed
until she reached her own room, where she must remain for two days. It was actually some hours before she realized that she had been robbed of $1,000 which she had in her pocket. Of course, the medium had disappeared.

I must say that with all its boasted culture and
learning, Boston seems to be a favorite city for all sorts of schemes of this kind; astrologers, mediums, clairvoyants, test-mediums, and the like abound in the Hub as in few other places it has been my good fortune to visit, and I have been all over the world. Chicago also has its share.

New Yorkers pride themselves in believing in nothing at all, and yet it was only a short time ago that a man named Ridgley, and calling himself the East Indian Mystery, victimized many people of wealth and fashion in that metropolis. This remarkable person combined the fakir of the East with the modern magnetic healer and the Voodoo doctor of French Louisiana. The man himself is 70 years old. He is small, spry, alert, and wonderfully shrewd. His beard is bushy and black, except where age has whitened the edges, and grows thick and curly at the sides. The nose is as flat as a negro's. He denies negro blood, however, and abhors the race. He claims to be from Hindoostan, and talks to others in the house in a strange tongue.

The eyes of the man are small, shrewd, and dark. The forehead, from each side of which grows gray, bushy hair that hides the ears, is high, receding, and intelligent.

“I knew you were coming,” says this wizard-like man, “and I determined to receive you though warned against you. Now you want to know what I am, what I do. Let us be honest with each other.”

He chooses big words as he proceeds to describe himself. They are used aptly, but mispronounced. The “th” becomes “d,” and there are other things not unfamiliar in the Southern negro. The East Indian proceeds to read your character and to tell you of your life. He does it well.

“I am not a fortune-teller,” he explains. “They are
frauds, and I am a physiognomist. I read from the apex of the nose to the top of the forehead. I don't predict; I tell you; and I don't ask you to say if I am right or wrong.”

It is said that among this man's patrons have been men and women whose names are a part of the life of New York.

It is also said that a recent marriage which astonished New York society came after the woman in the case had consulted this strange combination of charlatan and physician. She confided to him her desire, told him of her repeated failures to secure her wish, took the treatment, and in three months was married. Then followed, so the story goes, many presents, among them a tenement to the East Indian.

Spiritualism has many followers, and at one time I was almost a believer, but this was before I made a thorough investigation, which I have followed up even to the present day. I have never seen a materialization or a manifestation which I cannot fully explain. Of course, I cannot explain those that I “hear” about, as no two people see the same one thing alike.

Spiritualism is really a beautiful belief for those that are honest and believe in it; but as I have visited the greatest spiritualistic meetings in the world, I am sorry to say that no one has ever produced anything for me that would smack of the spiritual.

In Germany, spirit mediums are put in jail for obtaining money under false pretences. In England, Maskenlyne, of Maskenlyne & Cook, has done a great deal to keep the so-called fraud spiritualistic mediums out of England. In the future, I contemplate writing a book on spiritualistic methods, and how they do their
tricks. I do not mean genuine spiritualists who have no tricks, but those mediums who use their knowledge of magic to gain a living.

The Davenport Brothers, during their short but strenuous career, had a terrible time of it in their journeys abroad. They were driven out of England, but they made enough money to last them the rest of their lives.

BOGUS TREASURES

Never believe that a so-called antique piece of furniture or a painting by one of the old masters is genuine until its authenticity has been proven beyond a possible doubt. That is my advice, and if you, reader, could see some of the impositions practised upon wealthy collectors and curio hunters, you, too, would take that view.

The people who purchase this class of goods are usually new-made millionaires, ambitious to own an art gallery of old masters. It would give them little satisfaction to know that some of their priceless treasures are simply copies, and often poor ones at that. M. Felix Duquesnel, of Paris, famous as an art critic, says that certain galleries of ancient masters contain few pictures more than ten years old. Forged pictures are regularly included in sales of private collections in which they never belonged. Nor is a written and duly attested pedigree of the least value. I know of one case in London where a dealer in fake antiques sought out an impoverished nobleman whose only property besides his title was an ancient manor house that was heavily mortgaged. The
house was in a remote spot and had scarcely a stick of furniture left in it. The dealer bought it and sent out to it many vanloads of paintings, black oak furniture, arms, armour, moth-eaten tapestry, etc. In a few weeks he announced a sale of art treasures at the ancient home of the last of an ancient race. The sale actually lasted several weeks as though the very cellars had been packed with “art treasures.”

On the continent, to my certain knowledge, the case is even worse. One man that began life as a sculptor's assistant, but soon began the manufacture of imitations of “ancient” statues and “antique” furniture, now makes about $7,500 a year and employs several workmen.

His masterpieces are certain Greek heads “attributed to Phidias” but he also makes eighteenth century and Empire furniture. The opinion of such an authority is valuable. He says: “You can take it as a fact that even an art expert can no longer tell if a piece of furniture is a forgery. At least, yes, he can tell if he takes the furniture to pieces. But few will dare incur that responsibility because you spoil the piece.”

This cultivator of the artistic sense talks to his friends of one of the best-known Paris collectors, who bought at an enormous price an “eighteenth century” writing desk:

“He purchased with a written guarantee from a respectable dealer, who was in good faith. Well, this table comes from my own workroom, only if I told the owner he probably would not believe me.”

A dealer who lives not far from the church of the Madeline in Paris keeps the choicest “fakes” in his bedroom. He never shows his private collection, as he calls it, until the wealthy amateur tearfully begs to see it. The
gem of the collection is the dealer's own bed in Louis XVI style.

He has sold his bed five or six times, but still sleeps well, I suppose because he “lies so easy,” like a most honorable Frenchman.

At this moment, eighteenth-century engravings, including colored prints, are counterfeited on a vast scale.

Jewelry is made to look old by steeping in sulphuric acid for silver, or
aqua regia
for gold. The surface is worn with ground brick. The stones are then inserted and the whole is greased with tallow and rubbed in white soot.

Greek and Roman jewels, Renaissance enamels, Episcopal rings, and Benvenuto Cellini plate are “made in Germany.”

Vienna is specialized in counterfeiting sixteenth-century enamels.

Abbeville and Armiens make flint arrow-tops and hatchets for museums of geology.

Old pewters are manufactured at Roden. Etruscan pottery comes from Leeds.

In Holland, I met a student who was in demand as he could forge any of the old masters' signatures on oil paintings.

FAMOUS SWINDLES

For years it has been a constant wonder to me how barefaced swindling operations are carried on in almost open defiance of the laws of the land. There are a thousand-and-one-get-rich quick schemes that each find their
victims; it is needless to say that they bring wealth only to the promoter. There are more ways of swindling than with loaded dice and gold bricks.

Stock is sold in mining property where neither gold or silver ever existed, and the only metal about the proposition is the brazen cheek of the organizer of the company. Great promises of dividends are made, which are sometimes even paid out of the money received from the sale of the stock. Oil wells, gold mines, silver mines, and copper mines are exploited in this way to the great profit of the exploiter. A species of swindle that has been perpetrated times without number all over this country is the old gold-brick game. It does seem as though this had been exposed so frequently that the most ignorant country man would know enough to keep away from any one who offers to sell an ingot or “brick” of pure gold at a sacrifice; but still there are pigeons to be plucked. The usual method is to meet a likely person and with great show of secrecy unfold the story of the poor Mexican miner who has a lump of pure gold valued at $5,000, which he will sell for $500 down! The pigeon comes fluttering, drawn by the tempting bait; meets the miner, sees the glittering brick, handles it, even tests it with acid, and, finally, is induced to put down his good money. With great show of secrecy and caution the brick is handed over and the victim departs only to learn later that “all is not gold that glitters” and that he is out his $500!

Much ingenuity is exercised in fixing up the “brick” so it will stand inspection. Sometimes even wedges of good gold are inserted in the cheap metal, and the operator saws or files into this wedge to take out gold for the victim to test. In these enlightened days, I do not need
to tell you that all such stories, no matter how plausible, should be questioned and rejected at once.

The greengoods swindle is an elaborate game which begins with some very adroit correspondence in which the writer claims to be in possession of some old and discarded steel plates used in printing United States money, and for that reason he is able to produce actual greenbacks which will pass anywhere. The letter usually begins something like this:

The letter goes on to explain the necessity of a personal interview, offers to guarantee travelling expenses, and quotes prices usually as follows: $300 real money buys $3,000; $1,000 buys $30,000, etc. The pigeon is given a password and number with which he must sign all telegrams. Finally, not to go into too many details, the green goods operator and the victim meet with great secrecy—a package of real money is produced for inspection, the purchase money is paid over, and the package which has been deftly exchanged for another package containing worthless paper is given to the purchaser, who departs to learn his loss as soon as he opens his bundle.

Of course, there is no redress possible. The whole
game is a swindle. Never but once to the best of my knowledge have actual original plates been stolen from the government, and that was when Langdon W. Moore was able to use his influence with a gang of counterfeiters and secure the return of the 5–20 bond plate in the early 80s as described in Chapter XV of his autobiography. Even if the plates were stolen as the green goods man pretends, the bills printed from them by unauthorized persons would be counterfeit in the eyes of the law.

Keep just as far away from any such scheme as you can.

THE FAIR CRIMINAL

There have arisen in every country, and in every age, celebrated women criminals whose daring deeds have become part of history.

From Lucrezia Borgia of the fifteenth century to Cassie Chadwick of the present day, the list is a long one, and yet police officials and prosecuting officers will no doubt agree with me, when I say that there are vastly fewer women criminals than men who lead dishonest lives.

The truth seems to be that when lovely woman stoops to crime, she usually goes to the greatest lengths of iniquity, and the comparatively few women who have perpetrated great crimes are made more conspicuous and more talked about by reason of their sex. In the United States, authorities claim that only one-tenth of persons accused of crime are women; while in France, Statistician Tarde declares that one-sixth is the usual
proportion. Women criminals are certain to end their careers in wretchedness, if not in prison. Mothers of wayward girls are often much to blame for the beginning of careers of vice. A good home is the best protection, and upon every fair reader I urge the wisdom not only of choosing for herself the better way, but of safeguarding her sisters everywhere.