782 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
NOV 28 
Cam, 
“Every Man is presumed to know the 
Law. Nine-tenths of all Litigation arises 
from Ignorance of Law.” 
DESCENT OF PROPERTY IN ARKANSAS. 
L. A. M., Lawrence County, Ark.—A 
died intestate lately in this neighborhood, 
leaving a large farm and considerable wild 
land in another part of the State. He also 
left a mother and sister and also three 
children of a half-sister. Can the half- 
sister’s children inherit any of the property? 
Ans. —By the law of descent and distri¬ 
bution in Arkansas, relatives of the half 
blood inherit equally with those of the 
whole blood in the same degree. To this 
rule there is one exception : if the property 
in question came to the deceased by gift, 
descent or devise, then those persons not of 
the blood of the ancestor from whom it 
came are excluded from the succession. In 
the case put by our correspondent, we are 
not told whether A was male or female. 
We assume that the intestate died without 
leaving wife or husband, descendants or 
father. That being the case, if the estate 
in question came to the deceased from his 
or her father, it will revert to the father’s 
heirs: if it came from the mother, it will 
revert to her and her heirs: but if the es¬ 
tate is a new acquisition, it will go to the 
mother during her life-time and then de¬ 
scend to the collateral kindred. On the 
completion of the mother’s life estate, the 
children of the half-sister will together be 
entitled to a share equal to that of the 
sister of the deceased. 
LONG LEASES IN OHIO. 
L. M ., Morgan County, Ohio. —A leased 
a farm to B for 10 years; and after the 
lapse of one year and seven months sold the 
property to C who wants to obtain posses¬ 
sion on or before next New Year’s Day. 
Can he do so to A’s loss? 
Ans.— In Ohio all leases for a longer term 
than three years must be in writing and 
signed by the parties concerned, in the 
presence of two witnesses, who shall sub¬ 
scribe their names as witnesses, and such 
signatures shall be acknowledged before 
some officer having authority to acknowl¬ 
edge deeds, and the acknowledgment 
thereof shall be in all respects the same as 
the acknowledgment of deeds. The lease 
must be recorded in the office of the Re¬ 
corder of the county in which the premises 
are situated, and unless so recorded or filed 
for record, the same shall be denned fraud¬ 
ulent so far as relates to a bona-fide pur¬ 
chaser of the property, having, at the time 
of the purchase, no knowledge of the exis¬ 
tence of such an instrument. If A went 
through the above formalities w T ith his 
lease of the property, he can hold it against 
C by performing the terms of the lease ; if 
he failed to do so, C can legally obtain 
possession of the farm, if he did not know 
of the lease when he bought it. 
A WIDOW’S RIGHT OF “ QUARANTINE ” IN 
NEW YORK STATE. 
“ An Old Subscriber,” Oneida County, 
N. Y.—A man dies at home on his farm in 
this State without leaving a will. His 
mother and several brothers and sisters are 
therefore interested in his estate as well as 
his wife. Does the latter as a tenant in 
common have a right to live on the home¬ 
stead without paying rent, and, if so, has 
she a right to the whole house or only 
rights with the others ? At the time of the 
man’s death and since, none of his relatives 
have lived in the house, except the widow, 
and he left no children. 
Ans. —By the statutes of this State the 
widow has the right to “ tarry in the chief 
house of her husband” 40 days after his 
death without being liable for any rent, 
and in the meantime is entitled to her sus¬ 
tenance out of the estate. At the expira¬ 
tion of the 40 days she may be expelled by 
the heirs if she cannot make an agreement 
to rent the premises. If the whole house 
was necessary for her accommodation, she 
could retain possession of it all during 
the “ quarantine,” and this is usually al¬ 
lowed. 
RECOVERY OF STOLEN PROPERTY. 
L. N. T., Williamsport, Pa.— Several 
months ago a valuable horse was stolen 
from A, -a neighbor of mine. The other 
day he discovered him in the possession of 
B living nearly 100 miles away. B is known 
as an honest man, and declares he bought 
the horse of C, who also has a fair reputa¬ 
tion. C says he bought him from a travel¬ 
ing dealer who had several other horses for 
sale. Can A recover the horse from B 
without tracing him through the various 
hands through which he may have passed ? 
ANS.—Yes ; if he can prove the identity of 
the animal. A stolen or mortgaged horse 
may pass through the hands of 50 men, 
each of them acting in good faith and pay¬ 
ing full value for him, without in the least 
impairing the right of the owner or mort¬ 
gagee to take the animal whenever and 
wherever he can find him. Under such cir¬ 
cumstances the purchaser has no better 
title than the thief had. 
A. P., Norden, Neb.— G put two mares 
to a stallion. He was not, to pay for the 
services of the stallion unless they proved 
to be with foal. Before this could be proved 
G’s barn was burnt and with it both mares. 
Must G pay for the services of the stalliou? 
Ans.—U nder the rather peculiar circum¬ 
stances we should say decidedly not. Of 
course, it is not to be presumed for a mo¬ 
ment that the burning of the barn and its 
valuable contents was due to any fault on 
his part. As the owner of the stallion can¬ 
not prove that the services his horse was 
guaranteed to perform, had actually been 
performed, he has no legal means of forc¬ 
ing payment therefor. 
A Precious Trio of Swindlers.— The 
Cromo Printing and Publishing Company 
of Cincinnati, Ohio, was one of the hum¬ 
bugs, or rather swindles, most strougly de¬ 
nounced by the Eye-Opener half a dozen 
years ago. Back of it were a trio of rascals 
who, after a long career of successful fraud, 
have been checked by the strong arm of the 
law, at least temporarily. Their real names 
or aliases are Algernon Granville, Frank 
Gerrish and E. Harmon Clark. All three 
were arrested the other day, at Chicago, 
by the Post-office authorities for sending 
fraudulent matter through the United 
States mails. The Eye-Opener's knowledge 
of the fellows began away back when 
under the guise of the Cromo Printing and 
Publishing Company, they published a 
catchpenny affair called The People’s 
Safeguard. This was promptly denounced 
in this department. It offered prizes 
amounting to $15,000 to the persons who 
would first guess the number of links in a 
watch chain a cut of which was given in 
the paper. Each guesser was required 
to forward a small sum of money 
with his estimate of the number of 
links. This neat little scheme netted 
the rascals $8,000 to $10,000. before 
the Post-office authorities discovered itsna- 
ture, and arrested Granville, who posed as 
the editor of the Safeguard. Over 300,000 let¬ 
ters received by the concern from its dupes in 
allpartsofthe country were captured,many 
bitterly complaining of the frauds prac¬ 
ticed by it on the public. Though hundreds 
of persons guessed the correct number, not 
a single prize was ever paid. Swindling of 
this sort is, of course, an almost invariable 
characteristic of the concerns who make 
offers of that sort. Granville was soon re¬ 
leased under $1,500 bail, and has never been 
tried. For the next few years the rascals 
practiced different kinds of confidence 
games in various parts of the country, and, 
finally, about two years ago, settled down in 
Chicago where they organized the Imperial 
Printing and Publishing Company. Soon 
afterwards this was stigmatized as a fraud 
by the Eye-Opener. The firm from the out¬ 
set worked the “green goods” game on a 
new r plan. 
They decided to dispense with the publi¬ 
cation of a paper and depend entirely on 
weekly publications with a big circulation. 
It is deplorable that many of these, whether 
exclusively weekly prints or weekly editions 
of dailies, are ready to admit into their 
columns all sorts of advertisements, how¬ 
ever doubtful or fraudulent they may be on 
their face, provided payment to themselves 
is assured. What could bear on its face 
more plainly its fraudulent character than 
the following'advertisement which this 
bogus concern found no difficulty in get¬ 
ting inserted in scores of papers all over the 
country. 
Wastkd— A slick man In every county to handle our 
excellent goods; one that is willing to take risks for 
large gains . goods done up in packages of Is. 5*, and 
l"s. Address, by express only at our expense, 
Imperial Engraving Company, 2MJ South Clark 
Street, Chicago, Ill. 
Of course many inquiries were received in 
answer to such advertisements from all 
parts of the country. In reply the rascals 
sent carefully worded notes telling of the 
nature of the “goods” or “engravings” in 
which they were dealing and giving the 
prices. As a sample of the engraving a $1 
bank note was inclosed in each letter. As 
fast as the remittances poured in, the or¬ 
ders for the “ engravings ” were’flued by 
forwarding needles done up in “ packages 
of ones, fives and tens.” Of course the 
dupes were in no position to cause a scan¬ 
dal, being self-implicated swindlers. Nu¬ 
merous swindles of the above kinds are 
still flourishing rankly in various parts of 
the country, and this exposure of those that 
have “come to grief” should serve as a 
warning against others of the same stripe 
which have as yet escaped the clutches of 
the law. 
Live Stock Insurance Risks.— The re¬ 
cent failure of the Standard Mutual Live 
Stock Insurance Company of Reading, Pa., 
against which the Eye-Opener warned 
readers of the R. N.-Y. over a year ago, well 
illustrates a form of fraud to which farm¬ 
ers are frequently exposed under the most 
plausible appearances. The company had 
issued over 8,000 policies on horses alone, 
and a large amount of money is still due to 
.owners whose animals have died. Although 
started in Reading, the concern’s principal 
business offices were in Philadelphia and 
the heaviest proportion of the fraudulent 
losses were incurred there and in the 
neighboring districts. There is little doubt 
that at the outset it was intended to do an 
honest business, but when temptation to 
fraud came at a period of financial strin¬ 
gency, the moral forces of the managers 
were not strong enough to resist. Horses 
that were almost worthless were insured 
by the agents for large amounts, and in 
nearly every instance the horses died in a 
suspiciously short time after they had been 
insured. 
It is now charged by the company that 
the insurance paid on such animals was in¬ 
variably divided by the policy-holders with 
the agents who made the insurance. Of 
course in such frauds the honegt policy¬ 
holders who were assessed for the payment 
of the fraudulent policies suffered heavily. 
Culpable carelessness on the part of the 
managers and flagrant fraud on the part of 
the agents naturally rendered the company 
slow in meeting the claims of its policy¬ 
holders, and some of those whose claims 
had been long outstanding brought suits 
against the company for the amount of 
their policies. With the ventilation of its 
methods of conducting the business came 
the collapse of the company, and the honest 
policy-holders who had for a long time been 
paying assessments to meet fraudulent and 
other losses, in addition to heavy expenses 
incurred by the officers, were left in the 
lurch. Several other similar companies in 
Pennsylvania are said to be in as bad a 
plight as the Standard was before its real 
condition was ventilated in court. 
The most vexatious and dangerous feature 
of this and of all similar mutual assess¬ 
ment benefit or insurance associations in 
all parts of the country, is that every mem¬ 
ber is considered, in law, as part of the 
partnership. The opinion widely prevails 
among the members of such societies that 
if any of them does not desire to pay his 
assessment he need not do so, and that that 
will be the end of his membership in the 
society. Practically that is the w r ay in 
which such schemes are worked, as the offi¬ 
cers seldom force the members to pay their 
dues; but should any of the societies ever 
get into financial trouble the members 
would find that its creditors could sue all 
and every one of the policy-holders for 
assessments enough to pay their claims. 
All participate in the profits and are held 
liable for a share of the debts, if any exist. 
Resignations from the association would 
not avail, and persons who supposed that 
their membership had lapsed from non-pay¬ 
ment of assessments, would realize, on the 
subpoena of a constable, that they were 
still active members, liable for their share 
of the just debts of the society. 
BOOK REVIEWS. 
R EADY FOR BUSINESS or Choosing 
an Occupation, is the title of a 
small book by George J. Manson. which is 
intended, as its name indicates, for a guide 
or help to young men in the selection of 
their life-work. It points out the require¬ 
ments and possibilities of various occupa¬ 
tions, mechanical, mercantile and profes¬ 
sional, and indicates the steps necessary to 
enter any apprenticeship. The occupation 
that engages the attention of more men 
than any other in this country, the one 
which is the foundation of all others, is— 
perhaps inadvertently—omitted. The book 
is very evidently written by a New Yorker, 
and it is possible that he never heard of the 
science and profession of Agriculture. 
There never was a time when specialists 
were in such demand, and received such re¬ 
turns for their skill as the present. The 
man who can do one thing extremely well 
is the successful man, and it behooves 
every young man to learn his capabilities, 
and choose well the occupation for which 
he is best adapted. Cloth; five by 6 X A 
inches; 108 pages; 75 cents; Fowler & 
Wells Company, New York. 
-- 
E very-day biography is, as its 
name indicates, a volume intended 
for every-day reading. Several very brief 
sketches of prominent Americans, as well 
as of some English and European celebri¬ 
ties are given for each day; the arrange¬ 
ment being made according to the birth¬ 
days of the subjects noticed c. g., October 
30; in addition to several others, “Andrew 
Jackson Downing, an American landscape 
gardener and author, born in Newburg, 
N. Y., October 30, 1815. He was lost on the 
Henry Clay, a North River steamboat, 
July 28. 1852. He was editor of the Horti¬ 
culturist. forsix years previous to hisdeath : 
and his ' Fruits and Fruit-Trees of Amer¬ 
ica,’ has passed through several editions. 
He probably had few superiors as a land¬ 
scape gardener, even in Europe.” The list 
of subjects includes all classes of society, 
but the majority, we are glad to note, are 
Americans. An alphabetical index is givt n 
of all persons noticed, so that one may 
readily refer to any desired name. It is a 
most excellent book for a busy man or 
woman. Cloth : five by inches; 378 
pages; $1.50; Fowler & Wells Co., New 
York. 
P ENS AND TYPES is a small volume 
by Benjamin Drew which is intended, 
so the author says, as hints and helps for 
those who write, print, read, teach or learn 
and this should include nearly every body. 
It treats of writing for the press, proof¬ 
reading, style, punctuation, orthography, 
capitalization, etc. There is a great deal of 
valuable information for all students. In 
writing of typographical errors the author 
expresses the opinion that many, if not 
most, of them are due to illegible penman¬ 
ship, and we are inclined to think from our 
own experience that he is m< re than half 
right. This book, thoroughly read, would 
tend to do away with much of this, and 
might avert the strained relations that 
sometimes exist between editors and con¬ 
tributors. It is a helpful book. Cloth; 
five by t>34 inches; 204 pages, revised 
edition ; $1.25. Lee and Shepard, Boston. 
O SBORNE OF ARROCHAR by Aman¬ 
da M. Douglas, is a good example of 
fiction for its own sweet sake. There is no 
lurking “purpose” to disturb the even 
flow of events ; there is not even a villain ; 
the beauties are extremely beautiful; the 
lovers are models, and there are enough to 
go around. The moral tone is good, and if 
numerous tricks of manner and circum¬ 
stance seem oddly familiar to readers of 
Miss Douglas’s earlier works, still the 
book is very pleasant reading. Cloth ; six 
by eight inches; 449 pages ; $1.50. Lee and 
Shepard, Boston. 
&tti,orcUancou.$ ^Mvcftteing. 
O. D.Cook, of Woonsocket, R. 
I..says: Dr.Seth Arnold s Cough 
Killer cured me of a very severe 
cough lu a snort time. 1 heart¬ 
ily reeommend It for all it 
claims to do. 
IT 18 INVALUABLE 
to all who would preserve their 
health. 'i!i c , 50c. mid 91 
per bottle. 
ALL DEALERS Hell It. 
L OW-DOWN WAGON on high wheels— only 
Practical. Common Sense Furm Wagou lu 
the world. Send for 2S reasons whv. 
GAKDI'ER IRON WAGON CO., 
Muilica HUI. N. J 
