18 
SWINDLING BY MAIL. 
Perhaps few of our honest hearted 
friends realize the baseness and trickery 
which is frequently practiced upon those 
who deal with a miscellaneous Public. We 
believe that as a whole our patrons are as 
honest and conscientious a class or set of 
men and women as was ever grouped 
together by real or imaginary bonds, still 
are sorry to say, we have to be on our 
guard or will occasionally get deceived. 
One of the meanest forms of swindling, 
with which we have to contend, is for a 
party t«* falsely claim to have sent money, 
and then ask and expect us to fill the or¬ 
der without renumeration.* Of course 
anyone who would do this would deliber¬ 
ately steal the goods if they could get into 
the store, but they perhaps think they 
would be more liable to get caught at that, 
as circumstantial evidence is all that can 
be brought to bear in the first mentioned 
plan of stealing. But circumstantial ev¬ 
idence is sometimes pretty strong, as in the 
following cases : One of the most indus¬ 
trious and untiring workers we know at 
this kind of business is a party who op¬ 
erates under various names at 
BIG CREEK, GEORGIA 
and vicinity. He succeeded in successfully 
working upon our credulity and benev¬ 
olence and getting several orders filled, 
without money and without price, before 
we suspected the true inwardness of the 
little game. We had however concluded 
that we did not care for more of the pat¬ 
ronage of Ross A. Bagley of Big Creek, 
Georgia, and refused to refill orders for 
him before we happened to run across the 
following in an old issue of the American 
Agriculturist, {July, 1874): 
SWINDLING BY MAIL. 
‘'The mail trade of seedsmen, florists, and the 
like is now verjHarge, and though from the nature 
of the case there is more or less delay and loss, yet 
it is on the whole a great convenience to dealers, and 
a great saving to purchasers. Among its disadvan¬ 
tages to the dealers is the fact that it allows of a con¬ 
siderable amount of small swindling, and there has 
grown up a set of knaves who systematically swindle 
them. Their mode of operation is generally to send 
an order, stating that the money is inclosed. The 
dealer finds no money, but the writer claims that he 
sent it, and it must have been lost, that he can ill 
afford to lose the sum, and appeals to the sympathy 
of the dealer, who, rather than have his customer 
suffer, usually sends the goods. These cases have 
happened so frequently, that the dealers have com¬ 
pared notes, and discover that the same parties 
play the same trick upon the prominent seed and 
plant dealers all over the country. The following, 
from a highly respectable seed firm in Rochester, 
gives an account of the operations of one of these 
correspondents, which will serve as a sample of the 
rest: 
“Our first experience with this class of ‘unfortu¬ 
nates’ was with a party who has bemoaned his mis¬ 
fortunes in losses of money by mail for several 
years, with the greatest steadiness and persistence, 
and is not yet disheartened; he has repeatedly been 
rewarded for his style, which is 1 ‘child-like and bland,’ 
by confiding seedsmen and is not yet satisfied—Mr. 
Ross A. Bagley, of Big Creek, Forsyth Co., Ga. His 
first letters to us claimed a loss of $10.80, which, 
being a man far removed from money-order offices, 
and unused to mercantile pursuits, he had sent us 
in all confidence; this also contained a proposition 
that we share his loss, as he was not able to bear it. 
We suppied promptly the full amount we authorize 
to be sent by mail at our risk, without registration, 
suggesting that his letter might have been registered 
at the post-office, and we could do no more. Again 
he pleaded, and again was refused; he closed the 
correspondence with an appeal, from which we 
quote: ‘Send the chromo any way, if you sym¬ 
pathize with a poor man, who wished and tried hard 
to be a customer. I should have remailed 3 'ou the 
money at the start, if I could have done so, but it is 
my misfortune to possess but few of this world’s 
goods, therefore I could not possibly afford it . 
It is not my intention to ask for more than is right. 
I do not think the fault lies with you, and if you can 
not send the chromos willingly, we will drop the 
subject.” Our suspicion was increased by the stud¬ 
ied air of modesty and confidence expressed in this 
note, and a gentlemen connected with our house 
remembered the name as one who figured in a tran¬ 
saction where a neighbor of ours in the same trade 
had suffered considei’ably from an attack of Bagley- 
ism. We found Mr. Jas. Vick possessing a file of pa¬ 
pers in the familiar chirography of Bagley, and that 
he had an experience similar to our own. Seeking 
further to know the probable extent of the business 
as done by this particular individual, we requested 
information from other houses in the same line, and 
the responses came promptly, and of similar tenor. 
Mr. Ross A. Bagley, say Messrs. B. K. Bliss & Sons, 
‘has favored us with his patronage,’ and proceed to 
give in detail a repetition of the familiar story of a 
loss by mail and a request for remuneration, Peter 
Henderson & Co., say that ‘in 1873 that accomplished 
rural rascal, Bagley, of Big Creek,’ had found them 
out, and bitten them, but not deeply, for which they 
are duly thankful. Jas. J. H. Gregory has a mat¬ 
ter of a few dollars, for furnishing Bagley with seeds 
the last fall and present month. We also learn from 
Reisig & Hexamer that he attempted to victimize 
them. It seemed to us that such frequency of mis¬ 
fortune should not be permitted to remain in ob- 
