140 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
FEB §8 
against Milton G-eorge, proprietor of the West- 
era Rnral all ou account of publications in the 
aforesaid papers showing up the nature of the 
Farming World. The Tribune says: “These 
are three as impudent suits as ever were 
brought. Some time ago this so-called Farm¬ 
ing World began publishing flaming adver¬ 
tisements in the country papers in reference to 
what it called its “art premium,” which it 
said was “a collection of fine engravings, re¬ 
productions of famous paintings, printed on 
richly toned, cream-laid, plate paper, with 
protecting tissue facing each engraving, the 
whole protected with heavy ornamented 
covers, holding the pages with rich silk cord 
binding. When you receive it it is complete 
(no frames to buy as with other picture prem¬ 
iums) and your center table or library is em¬ 
bellished iu a manner that a millionaire 
would respect and admire. This sumptuous 
portfolio of rare and costly engravings will be 
sent to all subscription applicants who send 48 
cents.” Whoever sent for a portfolio was to 
get a “cash premium, 1 ' the largest being $5,000 
and the smallest $3. Everybody was to get 
at least $2 in the form of a cash premium. 
There were no blanks and no charge for 
tickets. The paper with 100,000 circulation 
expected, it is stated, to get from advertising, 
etc;., $438,S00, with a net profit of $381,600. 
Three-quarters of this would come out of ad 
vertising. The bigger the circulation the 
greater the advertising. Every subscriber 
was worth to a paper of 100,000 circulation 
$3 81. The Farming World proposed to keep 
the 81 cents and give the subscribers the #3. 
The advertisement stated in conclusion that a 
cash-premium order for from $3 to $5,000 
went with every portfolio. These cash prem¬ 
iums were to be paid through any bank, post, 
or express office. “You run no risk, except 
of being benefited. Then don’t wait, but take 
advantage of this opportunity now, to-day. 
Telegraph instantly, acknowledging receipt, 
when a cash premium order of $500 or more 
is received.” 
“First these advertisements were dissemin¬ 
ated, and then came the rush of orders for 
portfolios. These portfolios, for which 48 
cents are charged, are worth about ten cents 
or something less than that, apiece. The 
money began pouring in for them and the 
Farming World began sending out its ‘cash 
premium orders, 1 which are now pouring in 
upon the banks here and upon the correspond¬ 
ents of country people with a request that 
they be cashed. While the person who read 
the advertisement fancied that the cash pre¬ 
mium order meant that he was to get the 
cash when he sent it in, he now finds, upon 
reading the premium orders in question, that 
they are to be paid out of a fund of $300,000, 
which is to be secured by increased adverti¬ 
sing, and that there is therefore no certainty 
when the aforesaid premiums will be paid. 
It is stated payment will be made as fast as 
the fund, out of which they are to be paid, 
accumulates; but inquiry at the office failed 
to ascertain whether any fund was accumu¬ 
lating, or whether any of them will be paid. 
“It is unnecessary, however, to go any fur¬ 
ther into the subject. The advertisement 
speaks for itself. A concern which gives 
papers for nothing, and which, out of its pro¬ 
fits of $381,000 a year, proposes to give away 
$300,000, ought to be looked on with some¬ 
thing more than suspicion by the country 
people, whom the managers of this concern 
are trying to induce to send them in niey.” 
Several other journalistic “enterprises,” 
mostly of an agricultural nature, are appeal¬ 
ing for public patronage on grounds similar to 
those put forth by the Farming World. 
Among journalists and all acquainted with 
journalism, there is no doubt that the prom¬ 
ises of these “speculators” will never be full- 
filled, if for no other reasoD, because the 
amount they profess to expect from advertise¬ 
ments will never be realized. No sane, honest, 
busiuess man, in our opinion, could expect 
such results; nor would aBy such man make 
such promises based on such preposterous 
notions. We don’t think these suits will ever 
be brought to trial, and if they are, we have 
no doubt they will oe decided in favor of our 
esteemed contemporaries, who merely wished 
to protect the public from what they consider¬ 
ed fraudulent pretentions. 
Within a year, we have warned our friends 
three times to have nothing to do with the 
“Bohemian Oats” humbug. For the last six 
years at least, and, if we remember correctly, 
for the lass eight, we have ha I occasion to 
caution our readers against the sharpers who 
have been trying to induce them to pay a 
large price (usually $10 a bushel) for these 
oats, the sellers agreeing to buy the entire 
produce back at from $5 to $10 a bushel, for 
the terms vary in different sections in accord¬ 
ance with the tricksters’ notion of tbegullibil- 
ity of the inhabitants. The oats have no 
special merit either in yield or quality; ami 
we have yet to learn of a single instance in 
which the produce has beeu bought at the 
stipulated price from outside parties, though 
we have seen “testimonials” to that effect, 
but investigation showed that, these were 
furnished by parties“interested ’in the swindle. 
We have had,however,a number of complaints 
from those who have been gulled. “Asso¬ 
ciations,” usually consisting oF a single person, 
though often of a considerable number, have 
been formed to “work”’ this fraud, and during 
the last few years, hundreds of farmers have 
been bamboozled by them The “Hulless Oats” 
hoax is worked in the same way; but is funny 
only to the sharpers. 
A similar fraud, or rather a worse one, but in 
the same line, has just been started by the 
“Cotton Belt,” a paper that claims to be pub¬ 
lished in Memphis, Tenn , though we cannot 
find its name in the mercantile directories or 
the advertising agents’ newspaper lists—and 
these contaiu the name of every daily, bi¬ 
weekly, weekly, semi-monthly, monthly and 
quarterly published regularly in the United 
States. This concern offers the “Mammoth 
Cuban Corn” “worth $3 a sack,” for 60 cents 
a sack to each of its “2,053 representatives,” 
there being only one such “representative” iu 
each county, and that chosen “represeutive” 
is appointed by the “Cotton Belt,” which also 
agrees to furnish him with itself twice a month 
for a year, for the small sum of 40 cents, 
though the regular price is $3! Thus each 
“representative” will get a $8 sack of corn for 
60 cents, and a $2 paper for 40 ceuts, or $5 
worth of goods for the merely nominal sum of 
$1. Moreover, it agrees to pay $5 a peck for 
all the corn raised in 1885, from the seed of 
its Mammoth Cuban! Furthermore, it offers 
a liberal premium for the largest yield. 
Have jou ever heard of “capping the cli¬ 
max?" Well, this offer “caps the climax” of 
all the other grain frauds. What sublime faith 
m the gullibility of agriculturists! What— 
but to assume that the slightest hint at the 
nature of this proposal would be needed, 
would be to insult the intelligence of the most 
stupid among our readers ,—not among our 
subscribers , mind you, for among these, of 
course, there are no “stupids.” 
The Culverwell Medical Company which ad¬ 
vertises quite extensively from this city, is a 
picayune affair with a highfalutin name. It is 
in a base business followed only by fellows who 
think they are meting out justice by fleecing 
their victims as closely as the miserable wretch¬ 
es will endure. There isn’t an honorable con¬ 
cern in this business in North Ameriea.ioclud- 
ing Mexico, Canada and Alaska. “Dr.” T. 
Williams, Milwaukee, is in the same category. 
To Many Inquirers —If your questions 
are not answered “by return mail," as some 
of you ask; or “in the next issue,” as many of 
you request, pray don’t jump to the hasty con¬ 
clusion that the “Eye-opener” is asleep, or lazy, 
or negligent, or indifferent to your wishes. 
That would be doing the Eye-opener an injus¬ 
tice more monstrous than any the swiudlers 
about wbom you are inquisitive, are trying to 
do you. The Eye-opener has eyes constantly 
wide-open in search of eye-opening informa¬ 
tion; but so multitudinous are the cheats, 
swindlers, humbugs, and rascals who are try¬ 
ing to prey on the gullibility an 1 greed of the 
public, and especially of the rural part of it, 
and so multifarious are their tricks and dis¬ 
guises, that to keep track of all of them is im¬ 
possible, and to investigate many of them 
takes time and trouble. Wait with some 
Christian patience, therefore, until your curi¬ 
osity is satisfied, and have no dealings what¬ 
ever with the party inquired about until your 
question is answered, philosophically remem¬ 
bering that, even if the answer never comes, 
and you never deal with the party, you will 
never be swindled, as would very likely be your 
lot were you to disregard this bit of advice. 
for lb o nun. 
CONDUCTED BY MIS?. RAY CLARK. 
A PLEA FOR THE FRANKLIN SQUARE 
LIBRARY. 
We are great admirers of Aunie L, Jack in 
this household. We swear by her writiugs, as 
the old saying is, but I must dissent in part 
from what she has to say iu the Rural on 
“The Franklin Square” and other cheap libra¬ 
ries. I know to one poor mortal they have 
proved an inestimable blessing; let me give a 
bit from my own experience. 
I was reared in a bustling New England vil¬ 
lage, where all classes aud ages of society con¬ 
sidered it almost a disgrace not to read, 
think, and study. Our clothes might be shab¬ 
by and old-fasbioued, but we tried to keep 
our minds bright and keen. Two courses of 
cheap lectures every Winter, when we heurd 
Gough, Beecher, aud such women as Anna 
Dickinson and Grace Greenwood; two large 
hook clubs and ufuir circulating library, with 
all our spuro cash invested in the lead¬ 
ing mugaziues and newspapers, gave plenty 
of intellectual food of all sorts aud kinds, aud 
there was no danger of the mind starving. 
To-day, transplanted from a pushing, energet¬ 
ic village to a lonely farm far from my New 
England home, arnoug a different people, who 
consider money spent on books wasted, time 
spent in reading as idleness, I am thankful 
every day of my life for “The Franklin 
Square” and other cheap libraries. I might, 
spend time and money on a grand supper for 
my neighbors trying to have a few more 
kinds of cake, pickles, meats, etc., than the 
last lady who gave a tea party had, and if I 
came out ahead I would be a model wife and 
housekeeper. But let that time and money be 
spent on books, and the remarks made about 
me would not be at all pleasant. Of course I 
cannot borrow books in this neighborhood, 
except in one or two reading families; there 
is no library, and few newspapers, and often 
I have felt as hungry for a good book as ever 
a starving man did for a good dinner. 1 have 
no money to buy books,dearly as 1 love them— 
and Annie L. Jack herself cannot prize good 
books more than I do, cannot feel more as if 
they were living personal friends,—but 1 can 
use 50 or 60 cents a couple of times a year and 
invest in “Franklin Square,” or other cheap 
books, and what a boon they have been to me! 
I never can tell how many lonely evenings 
they have peopled with the best of society of 
all lands and ages. How many dreary Sun¬ 
days, kept from church by my little ones, 
have Farrar’s “Life of Christ," Smiles’s 
“Duty,” Hughes’s “Manliness of Christ," 
though only in the cheapest of dress, preached 
me the most wonderful of sermons aud helped 
me to a nobler, higher life as surely as if 
bound in plush and lettered with gold. If I 
had the money, in the choicest of bindings 
these books should stand upon uiy shelves, hut 
as 1 have not, I am thankful for the despised 
paper-covered edition. 1 say to the young, 
with Annie L Jack, don't, fill your minds with 
trash, and I add there never was a time when 
there was less need of reading trash than to¬ 
day. Cultivate a taste for history, poetry, 
travels, biography, and if you cannot have an 
“edition de hare," never mind: better have a 
mind that craves good, pure food, and only a 
“Franklin Square” to gratify your taste for 
reading, than a library filled with choice edi¬ 
tions bound iu Russia aud morocco and calf, 
with no mind to enjoy the contents of your 
beautiful volumes. Are you fond of history? 
there is Green's “History of England,” Mc¬ 
Carthy’s “History of Our Own Time,” and 
many other's. Farrar, and Geike, and Hughes, 
aud Smiles, whose religious works cannot be 
surpassed, for those who crave something to 
help them on their Christian course. Bicker- 
stetb and Arnold for the poetical. Are you a 
novel reader? again, I say don’t read trash 
when for the price of a dime novel you may 
commune with such minds as George Eliot, 
George MacDonald, Scott, Thackeray, 
Dickens, aud hosts of other pure aud brilliant 
writers. * m. c. b. 
A WORD HERE AND THERE. 
I have just been reading, in one of our 
weeklies, an article written by Prof. Louis 
Harel, on the habit of eating snow, which 
children practice to more or less extent; that 
it is a most injurious practice and has pro¬ 
duced throat and stomach diseases. He fur¬ 
ther says: “Aside from the sudden change of 
temperature, there is another very important 
factor to be considered. Snow is not at all as 
pure as could be expected from its splendid 
white color; it contains, on the contrary, all 
the impurities of the air, such as smoke, coal 
dust aud dust from other sources, which is a 
mixture of organic and inorganic substances. 
Another equally as bad a habit is that of 
drinking ice water. The ice we use is gener¬ 
ally frozen river water, which contains quite 
an amount of impurities, mineral as well as 
vegetable; the vegetable substances of the 
water are the most dangerous, and it has 
been proved by chemical and physiological 
investigation, that they are the actual cause 
of quite a number of diseases: by dissolving 
ice iu water we drink all these impurities, 
aud thus expos© ourselves to a danger of 
which people usually have but little idea.” 
Surely here is something worth considering. 
* * * It was new to me that an absolute 
diet of skim-milk would invariably cure 
Bright's disease, when a friend iuformed me 
of this cure on excellent authority. * * * 
To any one having occasion to dress a blister, 
I would say that a salve made of bdetmax, 
with about four times the quantity of fresh 
lard, will prove cooling uud healing, spread 
thinly on a piece of soft cotton and laid over 
the raw flesh. * * * How much the 
physical exerts an influence over the mind 
and actions! Thomas Carlyle—poor dyspeptic 
that we are told he was—might have been a 
far different man hud his health been perfect, 
and many a rankling word should doubtless 
be attributed to bodily discomfort rather than 
to a cruel deliberation. Aud yet we are ready 
to censure all humanity, which wo have uo 
more right to do than to enter a* neighbor's 
house and order him about according to our 
own, perhaps narrow, ideas of right or duty. 
* * * My house plants are thriving. I give 
them a bountiful showering once or twice a 
week; petunia budded full, but as a friend 
said, “I do not like them, they have no en¬ 
ergy of character whatever, lopping around." 
My Jacob’s ladder is l>.;j yard in length. * * * 
I see Anthony Trollope, George Bancroft, 
Uljver W. Holmes, Schiller and others ranged 
along the music rack of the nielodeon: I 
wonder if they ever thought of figuring ou 
“Authors’ ” cards, or of being set up iu music, 
to be rendered by little fingers. * * * It is 
not a very romantic subject, but if the sisters 
want their hens to lay, t believe I can tell 
them how. They want, a great variety of food. 
I give hot corn mornings; at noon, or there¬ 
abouts, a mush consisting of tnasbed, boiled 
potatoes, chopped greeu food, cabbage, tur¬ 
nips, beets, half decayed apples, onions, etc., 
scraps from the table, all the egg shell*, a 
teaspoonful each of salt and pepper once a 
week, the same of sulphur; add hot water to 
this mixture and mix thick with meal. 
We have buckwheat atul barley on hand all 
the time, and the refuse coal ashes are thrown 
in a heap where they reside. A good deal of 
work? Yes, but the many dozens of eggs I 
have sold have fully repaid me. * * * I 
hope we all appreciate the great addition to 
the mauy good “tialts” of the Rural, that we 
have, in finding it all ready to read, no cutting 
or sewing now to be done. * * * In a 
paper printed at Appleton, Wis , a copy of 
which was recently sent me by a friend of 
Anld Lang Syne, occurs the following item: 
“A roller skating rink has been established at 
Sbiocton in the old Thespian Hall. Eben E. 
Rexford, the poet, flies through space with 
frantic, gestures, forcibly reminding one of 
Darius Green and bis flying machine.” Hav¬ 
ing once had a personal acquaintance with 
Mr. Rexford, and knowing his love for a good 
joke, I am inclined to think he inserted this 
item himself. When 1 knew Sbiocton, it was 
a very primitive village indeed. Now it has 
railroads and all the modern improvements. 
EVA AMES. 
“OVER THE HILLS TO THE POOR 
HOUSE.” 
In reading the Rural of Nov. 29lh, I no¬ 
ticed the piece referring to the poem of Will 
Carleton‘s,“Over the Hills to the Poor House, 1 ' 
and the good influence it had exerted. I was 
reminded of a little thing which came under 
my own observation, showing the power of 
the poem to touch both old and young. It 
was several years ago, when it was first pub 
$U$wUaiwott.$ gttU'Crti£itt0. 
To thoroughly 
cleanse and purify 
garments without 
c> 
injury, they must 
be boiled to dis¬ 
solve the oily ex¬ 
udations of the 
skin, and loosen 
the dirt, when 
both can easily be 
removed by using 
a mild but effective 
soap, like the 
“Ivory” (99iVo% 
pure). Washing 
Compounds and 
Soap recommend¬ 
ed to be used in 
cold water, to save 
labor, fuel, etc., are 
highly chemical- 
led, and are so 
strong that they 
attack and destroy 
any fabric they are 
used on. 
