406 
JUNE 48 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
A WARNING TO INNOCENTS. 
JAS. W. DREW. 
D URING the spring vacation of the pres¬ 
ent year, the writer of this, in com¬ 
pany with several other students of Cornell 
University, took a trip to New York City. 
It was my first visit to the city, and, of 
course, there were many new and interesting 
things to be seen. Two of us who were par¬ 
ticularly interested in agricultural affairs 
separated ourselves from the others, and, be¬ 
sides visiting the main points of interest 
which all must see who visit New York, we 
spent some time in visiting milking stable3, 
sales stables, veterinary colleges and other 
similar places. In finding these places we 
were materially aided by the kindness of the 
Editors of the Rural, the Assistant Dairy 
Commissioner and one of his agents. If there 
are any Rural readers who drink milk or 
eat beef that are produced in the stables above 
alluded to, they ought to know just what we 
saw during the forenoon that we spent in 
hunting up and looking through 16 of these 
dens of filth on Long Island; but I defer an 
account of these for some future time. My 
purpos 9 in writing this is to tell, exactly as it 
happened, how I was “taken in” by a sharp¬ 
er, and how, if I had not read just how such 
scoundrels fleece innocents, I might have 
easily parted with what money I had with me. 
My friend spent the second night of our 
visit.with friends up town and agreed to meet 
me at the hotel at an early hour the follow¬ 
ing morning. At the appointed time he came, 
but had not yet eaten breakfast, while I had; 
so he went to a restaurant, agreeing to meet 
me again in 20 minutes. In the meantime I 
sauntered about the street watching the 
sights and studying the people who were go¬ 
ing to their work. While thus occupied, I 
was asked by an honest-looking stranger if 
the station about a block down the street was 
the Bridge station ? I replied that it was, and 
then remembering how, the day previous, my 
friend and I had made the mistake of climb¬ 
ing up on the wrong side, I walked along 
with him and put him right. Just after part¬ 
ing with him and turning to go back to the 
hotel, I was accosted by a man who held out 
his hand, and said: “Isn’t this Mr. Drew from 
Winona ?” My first impulse was either to turn 
on my heel or call a policeman; then, on sec¬ 
ond thought, I rememDered that I had regis¬ 
tered at the hotel as from Ithaca, and not 
from Winona and this must be some one who 
had known me in the latter place. 
I told him; that I did not recognize him 
Then he said his name was Cummings and 
that he was born and brought up in Winona, 
and that his father once ran a foundry there, 
naming the street. I remembered nearing of 
the.family, and knew that there were several 
boys, none of whom I had known personally. 
I asked him how he recognized me, and he 
answered that he had known me by sight all 
his life—that he used to see me going to and 
from school in Winona. He then said that 
he had not visited Winona for five years, and 
began asking questions about many of the 
people of the place. He showed an intimate 
knowledge of the city and of events which 
had happened several years ago; but he knew 
almost nothing of what had occurred lately. 
He said he was traveling for a firm in Phil¬ 
adelphia and would have to start for that 
city in less than an hour. In the meantime 
he wanted me to go with him about a block 
to a ticket offi.-e where he had left his grip, 
as he wanted to show me a few samples of a 
new kind of cloth which was being manu¬ 
factured by the firm he was representing. I 
told him of my engagement at the hotel, and 
he said that we would be back in time for me 
to meet it, so we walked on, talking all the 
time about Winona people. So busy were 
we that we must have walked at least five or 
six blocks when I suddenly remembered my 
engagement, and said we must have passed 
the place he had spoken of. He looked up at 
the building we were passing and said: 
“ Sure enough we have been so long talking 
that we have come a long ways out of our 
way.” We'then turned about and started 
back. Just then we met a villainous-looking 
fellow who spoke to my companion and they 
had a few words together which I did not 
hear distinctly. Then we went on. I was in 
a hurry to get back to the hotel, but my com¬ 
panion evidently was in no haste. He still 
plied me with questions about the people of 
Winona and particularly about an old school¬ 
mate of his, whom we will call Charlie Brown. 
We had gone but a short distance from the 
place where we had met the villainous-look¬ 
ing fellow referrrd to, when my companion 
stopped at a stand on the corner, and, asking 
if I smoked, bought some cigars. As I an¬ 
swered that I did not, he ordered a glass of 
lemonade for me, while he lighted a cigar. 
When we turned from the stand I noticed 
that we were not going in the same direction 
as before, but knowing how easily a person 
becomes confused in regard to the points of 
the compass, I said nothing but went along 
with my companion, still thinking and talk¬ 
ing about the people we both had known in 
Winona. We soon came to the “ticket- 
office," and my companion, after taking a look 
thi ough the partially open door, pushed it 
open and walked in. There was a young 
man there who gave Mr. Cummings his grip 
when he asked for it, and we sat down at a 
table together and began looking over the 
samples of cloth which the grip contained. 
While we were thus engaged and while Mr. 
Cummings was asking me to pick out a sample 
piece of cloth which would, in my opinion, 
make a good suit of clothes for the aforesaid 
Charlie Brown, a man came into the room 
and asked the young man at the desk for a 
ticket to Joplin, Mo. He was a fat, good-na¬ 
tured-looking man of about 40, and wore a 
good suit of clothes, a large Western hat, a 
pair of blue glasses or goggles aud a “hickory” 
shirt. The young man took him to a map 
which hung on the wall and showed him what 
roads he would pass over and told him the 
price of a ticket to Joplin. The Joplin man 
then asxed him if a ticket for a “nigger” 
would cost the same. After some conversa¬ 
tion about a second-class ticket for a “nigger,” 
the young man said he would step out and 
find the boss who had gone out a few minutes 
before. While he was gone the Westerner 
sat down on the opposite side of the table 
from us, and fell into conversation with Mr. 
Cummings. 
“Say," said he, “I don’t want to act green 
nor to have you laugh at me; but a funny 
thing happened to me this mornin’and I don’t 
see through it exactly. I went into a dime 
museum, and a feller in there come a little 
trick on me with some cards and before I got 
away I lost 100 toadskins.” 
“Toadskins!” said Mr. Cummings, “what 
do you mean by that term?” 
“Don’tyou know what toadskins is?” said 
the Westerner, pulling out a roll of bills; 
“These here are toadskins;” and pulling out 
a gold piece, “This here is a yaller-jacket. 
That’s what we call ’em in Missoury.” 
“You are very careless to carry money in 
that way,” said Mr. Cummings. “You should 
buy a draft, then there would be no danger 
of any one stealing it from you.” 
“ Well, maybe I had better,” said the 
stranger. “ I am a sort of greenhand in this 
business. I brought a lot of cattle from Mis¬ 
soury, and then I went over into Connecticut 
to visit a sister that I hadn’t seen since the 
war, when she run off with a Yankee soldier. 
There was a kind of coolness between her and 
the old man after she ran away, but when 
he died a while ago he left her a lot of toad¬ 
skins, and I have been over to carry ’em to 
her. But I was goin’ to tell you how the 
feller got my money. He had four cards 
with pictures of base-ball men on one side of 
’em; three was blue and one was red He 
handled them cards most awful slick and I 
thought 1 could see where the red was; but 
when I bet I lost ’most every time; but I 
grabbed the cards when I came a way and I’ve 
got ’em here.” 
Hereupon he pulled out a bandanna hand¬ 
kerchief and unwrapped the four cards he had 
been speaking of. 
“Now,” said he, addressing Mr. Cummings, 
“I can’t haudle these cards as slick as that 
feller did; but I’ll bet you can’t tell which the 
red one is,” and he laid them down one at a 
time on the table,purposely allowing us,as he 
did so,to see which was the red one. Mr.Cum¬ 
mings bet the cigars with him, and of course 
won. Justat this juncture the fact that I was 
in a den of thieves flashed across my mind,and 
I arose from the table and started for the door. 
I more than half expected to find it locked, 
and was never before In a place where I real¬ 
ly thought I needed a revolver, but I was 
happily disappointed, and as I stood in the 
doorway I told Mr. Cummings (?) who was of 
course trying to get me to come back, that if 
he wanted anything more of me he could 
come around to the hotel at noon and I 
wouldn’t be there. 
Right at this point I made a great mistake. 
I should have made a note of the street and 
■umber; but I was ?o glad to get out into free 
air again, and so afraid that my friend would 
tire of waiting for me and be gone, that I 
thought only of reaching the hotel as soon as 
possible. 
As I walked along, I tried to study out how 
this man who called himself Cummings and 
who had such an intimate knowledge of Wi¬ 
nona and its people, had found out that I 
came from it. It was not till after I had re¬ 
tired that night that I remembered that dur¬ 
ing my walk early that morning with the 
man who wanted to find the Bridge station, I 
learned that he was from a place near Wino¬ 
na, and had told him that I was from Winona 
and had always attended school there. 
Of course, this Cummings (?) had followed 
me from the hotel where he had learned my 
name from the register and had been very 
fortunate in hearing me tell the stranger that 
I was from Winona. That he had once lived 
in Winona I have not the slightest doubt, for 
he knew all about the early history of the city 
and its people; but whether his name was 
Cummings or Smith is a matter of question. 
He certainly is a confidence man who ought 
to be handed over to the police, and it is a 
matter of regret to me that I could not have 
helped to do it. 
R. N.-Y. This is a favorite game of con¬ 
fidence men and one that in a majority of 
cases succeeds. The first man that you talked 
with was undoubtedly a friend of “Cum¬ 
mings.” It was a simple matter for the two 
rogues to communicate with each other be¬ 
fore “Cummings” introduced himself to you. 
The buyers’ union, a swindling concern, 
one bran h of which was broken up in this 
city the other day, still has flourishing 
branches in Philadelphia, Cincinnati and Chi¬ 
cago,and perhaps elsewhere also. There is no 
doubt that several other concerns of the same 
character are swindling the public to a very 
profitable extent in various parts of the coun¬ 
try, and a caution against one should serve as 
a warning against all. The “Union” propos¬ 
ed to give subscribers the privilege, for 10 
years, of buying books at wholesale prices. 
It pretended to have $50,000 paid-up capital 
besides property in New York, Chicago and 
Philadelphia, consisting of an opera* house 
and five stores, besides a farm in Michigan. 
All these claims turn out to have been false. 
A fellow called Ernest G. Loomis, the “pro¬ 
moter” of the scheme, is said to have obtain¬ 
ed $1,000 each from 80 to 100 subscribers 
who were anxious to represent the Union in 
their respective States, and the officers in this 
city invested from $1,000 to $5,000 each in the 
business, all of which found its way into the 
pockets of Loomis. In addition to these large 
gains, the concern secured a number of small 
ones from ordinary subscribers who were de¬ 
sirous of obtaining the cheap rates on books 
promised by the Union. As in other concerns 
of the kind, each subscriber sent in from $5 to 
$10 as a kind of initiation fee, entitling him 
to the benefits of the organizatioa. 
In all such schemes, at the outset, the books 
ordered are sent apparently as per agree¬ 
ment; but in realitv the concern makes a 
clear profit on every order. So long as sub¬ 
scriptions come steadily in, an appearance of 
doing a square business is industriouly kept 
up; but when “business” becomes dull or that 
particular section has been worked “for all it 
is worth,” the schemers usually pocket all the 
money that comes to them, failing to send any 
goods in return, and after a short time, the con¬ 
cern collapses. Sometimes the manager or gen¬ 
eral-factotum disappears with the “boodle;” 
but frequently he remains and poses as an un¬ 
fortunate philanthropist whose ambition to 
benefit the “dear” but inappreeiative public 
has led him to rum his own fortune. In such 
cases, however, the fellow soon manages to 
start again in the same or some other business 
with much larger resources. Where did they 
come from? Pshaw! Can’t you guess? 
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