1911 . 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
691 
OTHER PEOPLE’S MONEY. 
Any publisher who sells inflated stocks or 
bonds or certificates of his own company 
to his subscribers is a fraud. A publisher 
naturally wins the confidence of the sub¬ 
scriber through the paper, and any at¬ 
tempt to profit by that confidence through 
the sale of securities of doubtful value, is 
a breach of trust. We ought to have a law 
to prevent it. official. 
Washington, D. C. 
During the past year volumes have 
been printed on the second-class postage 
matter. During the last session of Con¬ 
gress President Taft and Secretary 
Hitchcock introduced a hill to increase 
the postage rate on periodicals. The 
bill was defeated, and President Taft ap¬ 
pointed a committee to investigate the 
whole subject. The discussion has been 
voluminous, but the real cause of the 
trouble has been either overlooked or 
avoided. 
To encourage the dissemination of in¬ 
formation and knowledge Congress has 
established a rate of one cent a pound 
for the postage on legitimate publica¬ 
tions. The rate for circulars and gen¬ 
eral printed matter is one-half cent an 
ounce or eight cents per pound. The 
law provides that to be entitled to the 
one-cent-a-pound rate the publication: 
* * * must be originated and pub¬ 
lished for the dissemination of information 
of a public character, or devoted to lit¬ 
erature, the sciences, arts, or some special 
industry, and having a legitimate list of 
subscribers: Provided, however, That noth¬ 
ing herein contained shall be so 'con¬ 
strued as to admit to the second-class 
rate regular publications designed primar¬ 
ily for advertising purposes, or for free 
circulation, or for circulation at nominal 
rates. 
The publisher is required to make an 
application for entry and the Third As¬ 
sistant Postmaster General is charged 
with the duty of passing on the applica¬ 
tion. Under the present law much is 
left to his discretion, and consequently 
political pressure is often invoked to 
secure the admission of a paper the qual¬ 
ification of which is in doubt. 
For some time after the one-cent-a- 
pound rate for publications was estab¬ 
lished the law was construed liberally 
and practically everything in the shape 
of a periodical published regularly as 
often as four times a year was admitted 
to the mails at this rate. Instead of 
publishing a catalogue to sell goods and 
paying eight cents a pound postage, house 
organs were devised and published week¬ 
ly, monthly or quarterly, in the form of 
a legitimate publication, and sent through 
the mails at the one-cent rate. Some 
houses made a business of publishing 
books and reprints of old novels in pa¬ 
per covers. They were numbered seri¬ 
ally, and got through at the cent rate, 
while the regular book rate is eight 
cents. Then there came up the so-called 
mail order paper. These papers were 
intended solely for advertising pur¬ 
poses. They were sent out gratuitously 
by the millions of copies. The paper 
and ink used was the cheapest, and the 
printed matter sensational and often 
vicious. A pretense was made of tak¬ 
ing subscriptions, but this was inci¬ 
dental. The object was to get out big 
editions. The publisher relied on the 
advertising for his revenue; and any 
story or write-up demanded by the ad¬ 
vertiser was published without ques¬ 
tion. The publisher depended exclu¬ 
sively on the advertiser for revenue; 
and consequently owed every considera¬ 
tion to him. Having practically no sub¬ 
scribers, he owed them no fealty, and 
readily consented to exploit the reader 
for the benefit of the advertiser. The 
advertising was largely of patent nos¬ 
trums of quacks, and fakes of high and 
low degree. The proprietor could pay 
liberally for the advertising because the 
remittances that he received were prac¬ 
tically all profit, and he was willing to 
divide with his accomplice—the pub¬ 
lisher—in the deception or fraud prac¬ 
ticed on the reader. The reading col¬ 
umns were usually depraved and vic¬ 
ious, and the advertisements often in¬ 
decent. No parent would be justified in 
permitting these papers to fall into the 
hands of children. We would no sooner 
allow one to remain on the library table 
than we would permit a poisoned apple 
to be used as a nursery plaything. From 
an ethical as well as from an eco¬ 
nomical standpoint, such papers were a 
menace to the family. The post office 
would be justified in refusing them the 
use of the mails for this reason. But the 
Government had a grievance of its own. 
These cheap papers, house organs, and 
old book editions fairly flooded the 
mails. It was estimated that it cost the 
Government nine cents a pound to carry 
them through the mails, with an evident 
loss to the Government of eight cents 
per pound. The postal deficit grew each 
year with the increase of this kind of 
matter. Hence an attempt was made to 
enforce the law as originally established 
by Congress. The old book editions 
were completely excluded. The house 
organs were practically eliminated. 
Many of the mail order papers discon¬ 
tinued ; but others set about to avoid 
the law. This has been effected in vari¬ 
ous ways. A subscriber is secured at a 
nominal price and then continued indefi¬ 
nitely. A premium is offered in excess 
of the value of the subscription price. 
Advertising space is donated to a firm 
■who will pay for a number of subscrip¬ 
tions for his prospective customers. In 
the famous E. G. Lewis case we have 
seen how a scheme was devised to or¬ 
ganize a League to furnish subscriptions. 
The membership fee was $52, and each 
member was allowed to send $52 worth 
of subscriptions to the Lewis papers, 
afterwards extended to a larger list. 
The member was promised inducements 
greatly in excess of the whole $52, with¬ 
out regard to the subscriptions, and 
Lewis admitted that more than 70 per 
cent of the subscriptions were sent in 
as gifts to the people who received the 
papers. That was the Lewis way of 
avoiding the postal regulation. In the 
Myrick case recently under discussion, 
and we believe yet under investigation, 
a paper purchased at a nominal price and 
with no large accredited circulation 
suddenly announced a 100,000 circula¬ 
tion. It is said that agents were sent 
out to get these names, and that in some 
cases the agent gets the full amount of 
the collections, making it possible for 
the agent, when required to keep up a 
definite quota of returns, to send in sub¬ 
scriptions at nominal rates or even en¬ 
tirely free. To this the Department is 
said to object, but it has been announced 
that Mr. Myrick has succeeded in over¬ 
coming the objection of the Department 
through the protests of Senators who 
came to his aid. If so it seems like an 
effective way of avoiding the regulation, 
and opens the way to all the old abuses. 
But new conditions exist; and this 
brings us hack to the statement at the 
head of this article. The people are 
getting wiser. Fake advertising doesn’t 
pay as well as it did, because people will 
not patronize it. Honest advertising 
pays better than ever before, because 
honest houses have established a high 
and uniform standard for their goods 
through newspaper advertising. This 
reputation acquired for their goods is a 
most valuable asset, and they find ad¬ 
vertising space in good papers a paying 
investment. But they will not allow 
their advertisements on the same page 
with nostrums or fakes. Hente the 
mail order publisher is embarrassed on 
one hand with a declining number of 
his old fake advertisers, and on the other 
by the objections of honest advertisers 
to the few he is yet able to get. Hav¬ 
ing little or no subscription revenue, he 
has been dependent entirely on the. ad¬ 
vertiser. This condition has driven him 
to the expediency of working the reader 
on the. stock or bond scheme. If the 
man or woman who gets a paper free 
refuses to pay for the subscription, and 
will not patronize the fake advertisers, 
he or she might buy stock or bonds, or 
debentures or certificates, provided the 
inducements are colored high enough to 
attract attention. And so we have pub¬ 
lishers telling you of the great profits in 
the publishing business, and naming three 
or four conspicuous instances; hut caie- 
fully refraining from the mention of 
scores of equally conspicuous failures. 
They give you no definite table of assets 
or liabilities. The details of earning and 
expenses of the past are omitted; but 
the prospects of the future are related in 
great detail, and actually made to ap¬ 
pear as a present condition. Some of 
these publishers have abandoned the 
mail order type entirely, and attempt 
quite respectable looking publications. 
You find merit in them. What is said 
appeals to you. They are smart enough; 
they take up subjects of public interest, 
and pose as defenders of yourself and 
the public. They get your confidence in 
that way. Then they get your money on 
the scheme. We hold them the meanest 
set of rogues, because they betray the 
confidence of the people they affect to 
befriend. 
The above quotation is sweeping, but 
it is none too strong. We indorse every 
word of it. We think it is up to Con¬ 
gress to define just what qualifications 
will entitle a publication to the second- 
class mail privileges. Our Federal Gov¬ 
ernment should not encourage publica¬ 
tions that prey on the confidence of the 
people. Whatever the rate of postage 
established for legitimate publications, 
and whatever other restrictions may be 
imposed on all classes, this privilege of 
selling watered stock and bonds of the 
company through the paper should be 
eliminated. It is a violation of trust to 
the subscriber; it is a scandal in the pub¬ 
lishing business, and it makes the Post 
Office Department an accomplice in a 
fraud. 
EVENTS OF THE WEEK. 
DOMESTIC.—April 26, ,T. B. McNamara, 
one of the suspects in the Los Angeles 
Times dynamiting case, was identified at 
Pasadena as the man who had boarded in 
San Francisco under the name of Bryce or 
Bryson. Bryce, with two other men, 
bought 500 pounds of dynamite at Giant, 
Cal., early in September, took it away from 
the powder works in a launch, stored a 
large part of it in a vacant building in 
South San Francisco and brought the re¬ 
mainder to Los Angeles. Part of this was 
used in wrecking the Times building, and 
the remainder, it is asserted, in making 
the infernal machines placed at the homes 
of Gen. Harrison Gray Otis, owner of the 
Times, and F. .T. X. Zeehandelaar, secre¬ 
tary of the Merchants’ and Manufacturers’ 
Association. 
Indictments against Dan R. Ilanna, Rob¬ 
ert L. Ireland, of the M. A. Hanna Com¬ 
pany, and D. T. McCabe, fourth vice-presi¬ 
dent of the Pennsylvania Railroad, and 
17 indictments against the Lake Shore, 
Pennsylvania, Bessemer and Lake Erie and 
Nickel Plate Railroads were returned at 
Cleveland, O., April 26, by the Federal 
Grand Jury, which has been investigating 
charges of rebating against railroads and 
ore shippers in that region. Conspiracy 
on the part of the railroads, ore shippers 
and dock companies in granting rebates is 
charged. No arrests have been made. The 
three individuals are charged in the indict¬ 
ments with conspiring to violate the Elkins 
law. A maximum penalty of two years in 
the penitentiary and a .$10,000 line is pro¬ 
vided. 
The plant of the New York Piano Key 
Company, at Middletown, N. Y., was en¬ 
tirely destroyed by fire April 26, with a 
loss of about $125,000. Falling walls 
broke down electric wires and the city 
lighting company was temporarily put out 
of business. 
Special agents of the Treasury have re¬ 
cently discovered a scheme by which those 
persons who formerly sought to defraud 
the Government out of customs dues by 
means of the “sleeper-trunk” method are 
now working through the medium of ex¬ 
press companies and consular invoices. The 
invoices show under-valuations ranging 
from 10 to 20 per cent of the real value 
of the goods imported. Under the new plan 
of smuggling by means of under-valuations, 
the goods are turned over to the express 
companies abroad, accompanied by the 
necessary consular invoice. The express 
companies do not know the actual values, 
and have no means of ascertaining them. 
The seller of the goods then mails to the 
consignee a secret invoice setting forth the 
actual value of the goods upon which pay¬ 
ment is made to him. By using the me¬ 
dium of the express companies, those en¬ 
gaged in the new fraud are said to have 
sought to avoid direct responsibility, and it 
is admitted that a maze of technicalities 
will have to be cleared up by the Govern¬ 
ment before the exact responsibility can be 
placed. Confiscation of the goods, however, 
has been and will continue to be one form 
of redress on the part of the Government. 
The five-story building of the Buffalo 
Glass Company, No. 96-98 Seneca street, 
Buffalo, was burned April 27. Owing to 
large quantities of turpentine stored in 
the building, the blaze was a difficult one 
to control. Explosions were frequent and 
many firemen were temporarily overcome. 
The loss is estimated as about $250,000. 
The Hotel Wahnetah, at Glen Onoko, Pa., 
built by the Lehigh Valley Railroad Com¬ 
pany a quarter of a century ago at a cost 
of $60,000, was destroyed by a mountain 
fire April 27. The hotel was well knovyn 
to Summer tourists, and preparations were 
under way to reopen for the coming season. 
James .T. Farmer, president of the 
Anglo-American Authors’ Association, at 
225 Fifth avenue, New York, was arrested 
April 28 at the request of the Philadelphia 
police, who wired that an indictment for 
grand larceny had been brought against 
him in Philadelphia. Farmer has been in 
trouble before. The warrant on which 
Farmer was arrested charges him with the 
larceny of $3,700 through the sale of books 
he said were rare and charged for accord¬ 
ingly. The complainant is Alexander Sel¬ 
lers, said to be a millionaire resident of 
Philadelphia. Sellers, in the affidavit, states 
that Farmer got $2,000 from him for a set 
of Disraeli which could be bought in the 
open market for $120. For a Vanderbilt 
collection he gave $400, although it was 
only worth $20. Other similar sales brought 
the total out of which Mr. Sellers thinks* 
he was defrauded up to $3,700. Farmer 
was arrested last June in a civil suit 
brought by Elizabeth Laidlaw, of Hemp¬ 
stead, to recover more than $3,000. lie 
was released on bail and the action is still 
pending. Recently in a suit for $8,500 
brought against a man who was said to be 
Farmer’s agent in handling “do luxe” 
books, and which was lost, William Mc- 
Cue, a clerk in Farmer’s office, said that 
he had written letters to Sellers on foreign 
hotel letter paper. At that time a steno¬ 
grapher in Farmer’s office told how Farmer 
used to rehearse his salesmen in the de¬ 
tails of a story of a Minneapolis million¬ 
aire who was hurrying home from Europe 
to pay twice for the books what the victims 
of the trick paid. 
Fire broke out April 27 in the plant of 
the Canadian Car and Foundry Co., at 
Amherst, Nova Scotia. It originated in 
the blacksmith shop, and burned out forgo 
shops and other departments. Loss $200,- 
000; 400 men were made idle. 
A Lackawanna excursion train carrying 
150 members of the Utica Teachers’ Asso¬ 
ciation and IS friends to Washington for 
a holiday week of sight seeing swerved 
from the track half a mile south of Mar¬ 
tin’s Creek, N. .T., April 29. Four of the 
five coaches rolled into a gully to the east 
of the track, caught fire from the acetylene 
gas tanks, and were destroyed in half an 
hour. Eleven lives wore lost, eight teach¬ 
ers and three of the train crew. The fire 
was so rapid that it seems remarkable 
there were no more fatalities The passen¬ 
gers crawled through the windows with 
hair and clothes afire, and many were 
shockingly burned. It is said that a re¬ 
markable feature of the wreck was the 
calmness and presence of mind of the 
teachers under such terrifying conditions. 
One-third of the city of Bangor, Me., 
is in ruins, thousands of persons are home¬ 
less and a property loss estimated at $3,- 
000.000 was sustained as the result of a 
conflagration which raged for hours April 
30. Starting in a hay shed in Broad street, 
the lire swept along Broad and Exchange 
streets through the heart of the city, leav¬ 
ing homes, churches, schools, business 
blocks and all the public buildings, with 
the exception of the City Hall, a mass of 
smoking ashes. Approximately 285 houses, 
chiefly of the better class, about 100 busi¬ 
ness buildings and seven churches were 
destroyed. Two lives are known to have 
been lost. For many hours the firemen of 
Bangor, assisted by men and apparatus 
from other Maine cities, battled against 
the blaze before they conquered it. Dy¬ 
namite proved of little avail. Buildings 
were blown up,- but the flames easily leaped 
the chasms thus made, and it was not un¬ 
til the wind, which had been blowing al¬ 
most a gale during the night, shifted and 
a light rain fell, that there was any indica¬ 
tion that the firemen would win. 
From the Manhattan Bridge, April 28, an 
immense crowd watched flames eating up 
the interior of one of the refineries of the 
great Arbuckle sugar and coffee plant on 
the Brooklyn side of the East River. An 
explosion of sugar dust caused the fire, it 
was supposed. Nearly 200 men employed 
on the night shift in the refinery escaped. 
Before the fire was extinguished it caused 
a loss of $400,000, according to the police 
and some of the Arbuckle officials. On 
Christmas Day, 1902, three firemen lost 
their lives at a fire in the same building. 
Charles H. Hyde, Chamberlain of the 
City of New York, was indicted May 1 by 
the special grand jury which has been in¬ 
vestigating the affairs of the Carnegie 
Trust Company. The indictment was found 
under Section 372 of the Penal law, which 
makes it a criminal offence for any person 
who executes any of the functions of $ 
public office to ask, receive or agree to re¬ 
ceive a bribe. The evidence on which the 
indictment is based, it is reported, was 
sufficient to carry the conviction that there 
had been an illegal arrangement between 
Hyde and the officials of the Carnegie 
Trust Company, and Hyde profited by that 
arrangement. Joseph G. Robin’s story of 
the $130,000 loan he made through the 
Northern Bank to the Carnegie Trust Com¬ 
pany under what Robin described as the 
coercion of Hyde is known to be one of 
the basic facts brought out in the evidence 
on which the indictment was found, and 
the loans to John V. Smith, C. S. Eaton 
and Charles 1’. Norcross, which were 
found by the State Banking Department in 
the paper assets of the Carnegie Trust Com¬ 
pany, are put down as the means by which 
the arrangement was carried out. Early 
in December of last year the Carnegie 
Trust Company drew cashier’s checks on 
the National City Bank to the order of 
John V. Smith for $14,000. John V. Smith 
is Hyde's private secretary. He deposited 
these checks in his own account in tjje 
Northern Bank. Within a short time Smith 
drew four checks, aggregating $13,800 ; two 
in favor of “Cash,” and two to the order 
of Charles II. Hyde. The two checks 
drawn to “Cash” bore Smith's indorsement, 
and beneath that the indorsement of 
Charles II. Hyde. Those two were cashed 
in the Northern Bank. The two to the 
order of Charles II. Hyde were presented 
to the Northern Bank with a request foif 
cashier’s checks of like amount, and those 
cashier’s checks were deposited by Hyde 
in his own accounts in other banks. The 
indictment was followed by Hyde’s resig¬ 
nation. 
FARM AND GARDEN.—A dispatch from 
Frankfort, Germany, April 27, announced 
that an agreement has been reached be¬ 
tween the independent potash interests in 
the United States and the German syndi¬ 
cate through which the independents will 
cut loose frm the American combined in¬ 
terests and negotiate directly with the 
German syndicate. The negotiations will 
be opened at Hamburg on May 10. 
CROP NOTES. 
We are having a cold wet Spring, hardly 
any plowing done for corn ; acreage of oats 
will be short. Fruit in good shape, promise 
of a big peach crop. Pastures are fine, 
meadows look promising for a full crop of 
hay. Very few potatoes planted yet. 
Hamilton Co., O. L. e. s. 
'Fruit prospects are splendid here, and we 
are trying to do our part. We have 
manured all of our bearing orchards with 
steer manure reinforced with acid phos¬ 
phate, and have sprayed all with lime and 
sulphur and pruned them all, and either 
plowed and harrowed or mulched. We also 
have 500 oil heaters ready to use, and then 
we will trust to Providence for the rest 
till time to spray again. w. w. f. 
Waterville. Ohio. 
The fruit crop in the Yakima Valley has 
gone through a severe cold spell during the 
early part of April. After a close inspec¬ 
tion of the different districts in the valley, 
covering a radius of about 100 miles, I find 
the following conditions: Annie crop will 
be about 75 per cent; pears, 65 per cent; 
peaches, late, 40 per cent: cherries, 25 per 
cent. This is to me a good showing in 
view of the fact that much of the fruit 
trees were out considerable in bud. Smudge 
pots were used extensively In the lower 
valleys. pact. g. kruger. 
Washington. 
Fruit trees of all varieties are very well 
budded and prospects for a good crop of 
fruit is excellent. Even the shy-bearing 
varieties of peaches seem as well-budded 
as any. Many power sprayers have been 
purchased this Spring, and very thorough 
work is being done in spraying. San Jose 
scale has been discovered in many of the 
orchards, and early spraying has been neces¬ 
sary. Quite a bit of Spring planting has 
been done. Mason County has the reputa¬ 
tion of being the largest peach producing 
county in Michigan, as well as a reputa¬ 
tion for honest packages. R. .T. Fitch, one 
of the largest growers, ships direct to the 
trade. One individual account last year 
amounted to $1,500. In this case lie not 
only produced the fruit, but also named the 
price. If more growers would adopt this 
method of selling they would not only get 
more out of the dollar, but they would 
lower the cost to the consumer, and also 
avoid the glutting of the terminals, which 
means low prices to the producer, and by 
tin' tinie it gets to the consumer, fruit of 
poor quality and at a high price, e. v. a. 
Mason Co., Mich. 
