1884 .] 
AMEEIO^ AGEIOULTUEIST, 
179 
The XBogfus Ag:ricultiiral Journals. 
All persons who in a foolish moment have been per¬ 
suaded to purchase tickets in the bogus lottery schemes 
of bogus Agricultural Journals, and who have now become 
satisfied that they liave been duped, will please send their 
tickets, their circulars and full particulars to this Hum¬ 
bug Department. The Editor proposes to fully ventilate 
this latest dodge for defrauding farmers, and desires the 
co-operation of those who have been victimized. We 
are assured of the aid of the Post-oflice Department. The 
scamps will not be able to employ the mails much longer, 
as the bill shutting them out has already passed the 
House and will be through the Senate probably this 
week. President Arthur, who has already taken such 
decided ground against all lottery schemes, will of course 
immediately sign this bill, which bars the bogus Agricul- 
ttiral journals out of the Government mails. 
Mr. Gaylord, so long the efiicient and popular Assist¬ 
ant Postmaster at New York, informs us that the “ sam¬ 
ple copy” business is to be suppressed. Spurious jour¬ 
nals will no longer be able to send out to the rural dis¬ 
tricts through the mails as third class matter “sample 
copies” with displayed descriptions of lottery drawings 
or worthless ■ wares for sale. The act before Congress 
goes a step further, and says these spurious sheets can¬ 
not go through the mails in any shape, 
- i 
Scoundrels to the Back-hone 
H. M. Stump, TJnion City, Ind.—J. Goldsmith & Co., 
who propose to distribute two hundred, and sixty-six 
thousand dollars cash, in a lottery drawing March 3l8t, 
1884, are scoundrels to the back-bone. Turn to yoiir file 
of the American Agriculturist for 1883, page 205, and you 
will find a detailed exposure we then made of these chaps 
who advertised a similar colossal drawing for March 15th, 
1883. Continue to send to us all such circulars you receive 
from the professional rascals who prey upou the farming 
community. 
Justice on Xheir Track. 
The Canadian Parliament has now taken hold of the 
St. Stephen, N. B., Lottery rascals, whose circulars have 
been sent to so many of our subscribers, and whose op¬ 
erations have so often been shown up in our Humbug 
Columns. An Ottawa dispatch informs us that the At¬ 
torney General of the Province will deal with the pffen- 
ders as they deserve. It adds, “No prizes have ever been 
distributed, and the affair is a gigantic swindle,” all of 
which has been repeatedly said for months by the Ameri- 
ican Agriculturist. These St.Stephen’s swindlers having 
been driven by our exposures from the United States 
resumed operations in Canada. 
Tke Counterteit money Fiend. 
That dispenser of the “ queer,” whose career we^ have 
traced and recorded for so many years, and who has been, 
until now, a peculiarly American institution, haS also 
gone across the border with all his confidential let¬ 
ters, and detailed introductions for the fly to meet tlje spi¬ 
der at the hotel. The same thousand dollars in bogus 
money for a hundred in good bills ; the same news¬ 
paper slips, showing that the counterfeit can not tie de¬ 
tected even by experts, all have gone. The Dominion 
papers give accounts of the introduction of this nuisance 
that are amusing reading to those of us who have kept 
the run of this miserable swindle. If we may laugh at 
the excitement the man with the “queer” has caused, 
this thing is to be said in favor of the Canadians; the 
very first “ counterfeit money ” chap who went over 
there and set his little trap, instead of catching any vic¬ 
tim, was caught himself, and at last accounts was in jail 
awaiting trial, thanks to the shrewdness of a reporter of 
the “ Toronto Spectator.” 
IVhat the Chief of Police Says. 
Under various names, the art of coloring photographs 
is advertised as a “ nice light work for ladies add young 
men at their own homes.” One of our subscribers, be¬ 
fore he answered the advertisement of a concern in Bos- 
■ ■ toffi took the precaution to make inquiry of the 
Chief, pi Police of that City. The note came back in¬ 
dorsed by that ofllcial: “ Should not advise sending any 
money.” If nil who are tempted to invest in doubtful 
enterprises would be equally cautious, we should have 
fewer complaints from the victims of swindles. 
*‘The matrimonial Bureaa of Ill.** 
A subscriber in Lafayette Co., Ark., sends ns the 
“prospectus ” of the above named “ Bureau,” and asks: 
“ What can you say of its reliability ? ” We only know 
of the “ Bureau,” by what it says of itself. It says it 
was established to “ supply a want long felt in the com¬ 
munity.”—Such things always say that. It adds: “ its 
power for good is simply inexpressible.”—but not a 
word about its power for evil, though when we are told 
that its founders are citizens of “ transcendent respec¬ 
tability,” we ought not to think of evil. This Bureau 
proposes to fit out men with wives, and women with 
husbands. All can secure the services of this “Bureau,” 
by enclosing an entrance fee of five dollars. Enclose 
a photograph, together with a three-cent stamp for re¬ 
turn answer, and “an answer to the following ques¬ 
tions.”—The questions are, name, nationality, and a 
long string of others, including the important one of 
“means.” If one would procure a wife as he would buy 
a horse or a cow, probably this Bureau might help him. 
We are so old-fashioned in our notions as to think that 
love, altogether Ignored in this prospectus, should have 
something to do with marriage. This “ Bureau ’’puts the 
whole thing down on a trade basis—money down, five 
dollars. “ Compensation for final services to be deter¬ 
mined by amount of services rendered, and other 
considerations germane to the transaction.” That 
last shows, that even in Bureau matrimony, one has, 
so to speak, “to go it blind,” and never toows what 
it will cost him. The whole thing is too absurd for 
serious consideration. Those who look upon mar¬ 
riage as a lottery, may take their chances in such a 
scheme. Those who take a higher view of it, will recoil 
from any such machinery. 
An Old Tune 'witli New Tnrlntions. 
We have often alluded to the offers to sell counterfeit 
money as the oldest of swindles. This appeared soon 
after the first issues of Greenbacks, and has been kept 
up in one or another form ever since. The latest mani¬ 
festations of this antiquated swindle, shows an amount 
of ingenuity that entitles it to a brief mention. A slip 
with every appearance of having been cut from a news¬ 
paper, bears on one side an item from Washington, show¬ 
ing the “ Deficits in Uncle Sam’s Cash Box,” in which 
is the item: Counterfeit notes received in Redemp¬ 
tion Division, $129,340,00, and losses of packages stolen, 
etc., to which is added a note that counterfeiting “ is 
reduced to an art,” and that “our Treasury officials fail 
to detect counterfeits from the genuine, the resemblance 
isso close.” On the other side of the slip is a long letter 
from Washington, setting forth the loose management in 
the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, charging that 
counterfeiters are in collusion with the Bureau, and in¬ 
timating that duplicate plates from which the notes are 
printed, have been allowed to go in the possession of 
counterfeiters, and making serious charges against the 
whole management of this department of the Treasury. 
This newspaper slip has every appearance of being gen¬ 
uine. The cutting is carelessly made, showing parts of 
columns each side of the column containing the items. 
At the heading, or top of the page, is the running title, 
“Thursday, June 1, 1882,” and on the reverse is the 
same, “Thursday, June 1,1882.” This shows the thing 
to be a fraud. Take any New York daily, or other pa¬ 
per that uses these “running headings” at the top of 
the page^ indeed, take this very page. American Agii- 
culturist on this page, is, on the next page reversed— 
that is, Amencan on this page, is backed by Agriculturist 
on the opposite page, as may be seen by holding it up to 
the light. A very ingenious trick, but spoiled by trying 
to make it too nice. This clipping was sent to a long¬ 
time reader, now in Iowa, with the following note, which 
is such an improvement on the long roundabout letter 
sheets of former times, .that we give it in full: 
“Dear Sib. —Can you use such goods? 1 will sup¬ 
ply you with them if you can. If I have made a mistake 
in asking the question, say nothing about it, but let the 
matter drop. 1 am a friend to a friend, and mean noth¬ 
ing wrong. Don’t sign your name to letters, always use 
No. 1, I will know who it is from. Be sure to return 
this letter and strip, for Twill answer nothing unless they 
are returned. Yours truly,” 
Well James, as we do not advertise in these pages, we 
will withhold the rest. This pretended secrecy is very 
amusing. 
THB STRANGEST OP ALL IS THIS. 
Here is a partner in a large business bouse in a flour¬ 
ishing Iowa town, to whom this oldest of swindles is en¬ 
tirely new. He in all sincerity asks us to call the atten¬ 
tion of the Post Master of New York City to the mat¬ 
ter, that the sender may be apprehended, and adds: “If I 
can be of any service to yon or the Department, please 
command me,” and he does not say, “ please don’t use 
my name.” Our friend would be less in earnest if he 
knew there was no counterfeit money in the case, but it 
is a trap for those who think there is, and are willing 
to buy and circulate counterfeit greenbacks. 
New BenefUctors of* tlie Human 
Bace. 
For several months there has been an unusual dullness, 
an entire lack of novelty, in the medical line. At pres¬ 
ent there are indications of a revival, and we may look 
for, in nostrums, as in dress goods, new styles suited to 
the season, 
rNNHAN HAS RIVALS. 
For these twenty years or more the Rev. Innman has 
had an almost entire monopoly of the free recipe busi¬ 
ness. His few competitors have been of short duration, 
and Innman has been left undisturbed to send out his 
bogus recipe written in a burlesque Latin, and pocketed 
the dollars for the stuff which could not be procured with 
the recipe, and which it was never intended should be, 
THEBE IS NOW A NEW-COMER 
in the recipe business; his name it is Laurence, hishome 
it is Brooklyn, and the peculiar infirmity he wrestles 
with is. Catarrh. The benevolent Laurence quite out¬ 
does Innman, who only sends one recipe; he offers two, 
and both free of charge. The sufferer, or victim, having 
-received the recipes takes them to the apothecary to have 
the healing stuff prepared, and is told 
THE SAME OLD STORY. 
The drugs upon which the invalid had based his hopes 
of relief, if not of cure, are not to be had. As Betsey 
Prigg said of Salry Gamp’s Mrs. Harris, “ There ain’t no 
sich pusson.” The names have no meaning, save to the 
inventor—they stand for nothing known to science, in 
fact are made use of “the same with intent to deceive.” 
There are two of these Catarrh prescriptions, one for 
stuff to be applied to the nose, as a douche, the other to 
be administered internally. We have room for but the 
last named, but the other is equally absurd. The recipe is: 
Extract Arabiau CallaRoot..oz. 
Comp. Tine. Arabian Red Lava Flower... 2 oz. 
Ferro Citrate Calcium.1 drm. 
Bisulphate Quineeia...4 drms. 
Fotassi Iodide.1 drm. 
Phosphic Salicylate..1 drm. 
Glycerine..2 oz. 
Yerium Ferri.1. S, Flat 0.1. 
The educated apothecary or chemist will find much 
amusement in this attempt to appear scientific. 
Of course the maker of that precious prescription 
knew that it could not be prepared, and the usual sequel 
follows. He would not have people suffer from Catarrh 
just because druggists are unable to prepare his prescrip¬ 
tions, so he goes and does it himself, and he informs 
those who have sent for his free prescriptions that the 
stuff can be had of him in a box.—“ Free, like the pre¬ 
scription ?” will be asked. Well, not quite free. A mere 
trifle of $6,00 is asked, to cover cost, etc., that’s all. It 
is easy to say that one who has sent to an unknown ad¬ 
vertiser expeeting to get in return something of value 
for nothing, deserved little sympathy if he was disap¬ 
pointed. But an invalid will catch at any straw that 
promises relief, and it is upon this weakness that the 
quacks trade. One of our correspondents suggests that 
this free prescription business is open to the charge of 
obtaining money under false pretences. It does look 
that way. The offer to send a prescription free, is only 
a bait to induce people to buy the bottled stuff. The 
public have had more than twenty years of this nonsense 
with Innman and still they are ready to run after any 
new-comers who play the same old trick. Another chap 
has started in Brooklyn with his 
“ CONSUMPTION CURED,” 
and cured on the same free prescription plan. He is an 
old physician and he had “ some stuff placed in his 
hands by an East Indian Missionary.” It is always a 
missionary, and he always hails from the East Indies. 
He “ feels it his duty”—they all do—“ to make it known 
to his fellow sufferers.” Then follows the offer of a free 
prescription. It is safe to predict that whoever sends 
for this, will receive a senseless jargon of made up 
names, and that an offer to furnish the medicine ready 
made, at a round price, will follow. 
Cautionary Signals. 
Bogus Ts. 4iSenuine Fiire lusurauce. 
Inquiries are made of us concerning a “ Mutual Aid 
Society” in a Western city. Speietie* called “Mutual 
Benevolent” or “ Mutual Aid” are- common in cities, its 
