6e« 
THK RURAL, NEW-YORKEH 
May 13, 
PUBLISHER’S DESK 
During April we received 59 doubtful 
accounts for collection from subscribers, 
amounting to $2,063.19. We collected or 
settled 46 accounts amounting to $1,- 
256.79. There were 135 inquiries for 
ratings. If The R. N.-Y. ever accepted 
any commission for collecting such 
claims we suggest that such subscriber 
write the facts to E. G. Lewis, St. Louis, 
Mo. We think he would like to have 
the information, and from other experi¬ 
ence we judge he might be willing to 
pay for it. We do not hear of anything 
else that he does pay for. 
There are two or three “skyrocket” pub¬ 
lishers of agricultural papers, with an out¬ 
rageously inflated capitalization, working 
farmers to take stock in their enterprises. 
We deem it our duty to say to our sub¬ 
scribers that they will surely be very sorry 
if they are misled into any of these in¬ 
vestments. No standard, reliable publica¬ 
tions are resorting to such nefarious meth¬ 
ods to maintain their business. 
OHIO FARMER, 
Wc are glad to see the editors of 
standard farm papers tolling the truth 
about inflated investment schemes. 
Do you know, anything about the World 
Home ’.Supply Co., of New York t'ity, said 
to be organized by one W. II. Shrader? 
New York. reader. 
No, we don’t. They do not seem 
anxious that we should, as they give no 
street address on the printed matter that 
reaches us. They seem to want you to 
send them $10 for the privilege of send¬ 
ing them orders and money. For your 
information we would say that some 
real good houses of this city would be 
glad to have your money for orders of 
goods without the formality of a $10 
introduction. All the houses that we 
have previously known to sell member¬ 
ship certificates in purchasing schemes 
have been pure and unadulterated fakes. 
A young man and a woman called here 
to-da.v and said they were sent by “the col¬ 
lege to take a census of the eye,” and there 
would be no charge, but ended up by try¬ 
ing to sell a pair of glasses for $4. I ques¬ 
tioned him rather more than he liked, and 
he loft. When I asked him the name of the 
college he said the “Spencer Optical Col¬ 
lege', 401 Tenth Aye.. New York City.” I 
should like to have you tell me if there is 
any such place, and what you think of the 
gentleman? This man gave the name of 
•T. Wudruff. I have written to “the col¬ 
lege.” H. E. 
Connecticut. 
We know no such college at this ad¬ 
dress. The Spencer Optical Co. is lo¬ 
cated in Maiden Lane, but it is an old 
and responsible house, and never sends 
out any agents. Fakers going through 
the country often assume the name of 
responsible houses slightly changed to 
deceive the public. “To take census of 
the eye” sounds better than “to take $4 
for a probable 25-cent pair of glasses.” 
I will say that it was the Publisher’s 
Desk which determined me to continue my 
subscription to your paper. 1 had taken 
it for 10 weeks on a 10-cent trial subscrip¬ 
tion, and as my editorial position demands 
my reading a great many other journals, I 
had hesitated about continuing Tiie It. 
N.-Y’., but 1 made up my mind that along 
with the other many excellencies of the 
paper itself, you deserve to be backed up 
in your warfare against shams and fakes of 
all sorts and in your efforts to have jus¬ 
tice done between the pool- man and the 
strong interests by which he is so often 
oppressed. I am glad therefore to express 
m.v appreciation of the paper in general, 
and particularly of this feature of it. which 
appreciation I have shown already by ex¬ 
tending my subscription to April, 1912. 
Y r irginia. r. a. e. 
The above assurance came in response 
to our intimation that we have at times 
felt the resentment of fakers and rogues 
who are attacked is more prompt than 
the support of honest people who ap¬ 
prove. In definite specific cases we think 
that is true. Give a man a special or 
unlawful privilege for a time and he will 
fight harder to retain it than any one 
honest man is likely to fight to deprive 
him of it. But after all the majority of 
the people of this country are honest, 
and their sympathies and influence are 
always on the side of integrity and 
decency. 
I have never bitten on any get-rich-quick 
schemes, so do not know why my name 
should be on a sucker list. But I inclose a 
letter and circular from E. W. Smith, man¬ 
ager, the Bankers’ Finance Co., Denver, 
Col., received through the mail, and I find 
my neighbors are getting the same thing. 
New Y’ork. C. h. d. 
This is the old fake scheme whereby 
you get a lot free; but you send a re¬ 
mittance for some purpose on the side- 
in this case $5 for a deed. We don’t 
know anything about this particular 
place described in the circular as the 
famous Ute Pass region of the Rocky 
Mountain resorts. The fame has not 
reached us, but we have never known 
these real estate chaps to take much 
pains to look one up and pay postage 
on letters for the privilege of giving 
something for nothing. In similar pro¬ 
positions that we have looked up at va¬ 
rious times, we found the land under 
water, swamps, or barren inaccessible 
lands which cost about $3 per acre—20 
to 30 cents per lot, and the title in 
doubt at that. In many cases the pro¬ 
moter had no title to the land at all. 
He secured an option and sold the lots 
on the strength of the privilege to buy. 
In two such cases on Long Island the 
Post Office Department recently prose¬ 
cuted the promoters for fraud, and they 
are now receiving free board at a Fed¬ 
eral institution. 
The enclosed circular of the United States 
Publishing Company was presented to me 
to-day. It is being put before the farmers 
as the greatest investment nut. I notice 
there is not a single signature to it. and it 
appears like a money- catcher to me. What 
do you think of it? C. J. 
Ohio. 
The headquarters of this concern-to-be 
are at Cincinnati, O., and it is organized 
by Josiah Kirby, who styles himself 
chief promoter, with offices at Cleveland, 
O. The capital authorized is $10,000, 
which he says will be increased to $300,- 
000. He admits that he has no money 
himself, and no means and no business, 
but that he is going to erect a plant and 
start a publishing business. Suppose a 
farmer told you he had no money arid 
no farm, but that he was going to buy 
land and put up buildings and equip a 
farm; how much stock would-you take 
in his company? Yet, if such-a'farm 
was stocked only for the value of farm 
and equipment it would be a thousand 
times better risk than the stock of such 
a publishing company. 
I would like you to give me advice as to 
the reliability of the Western and South¬ 
ern Life Insurance Co., of Cincinnati, Olfu>.“ 
W. ,T. Williams is secretary, Frank Caldwell 
president. I had my little trirl Until' in¬ 
sured at five years; it is going bin; two 
years now that she has been insured-at- 10 
cents a week. Will you let me know if,'this 
is a good investment? R. ' 
Maryland. 
This seems to refer to industrial in¬ 
surance. Our advice is to drop the in¬ 
surance. These industrial insurance 
policies are little less than legalized rob¬ 
bery of poor people. Only a small per¬ 
centage of the amount of money paid 
in on these insurances has ever re¬ 
turned to the insured. The great ma¬ 
jority of them are dropped after being 
carried a while, either as we are sug¬ 
gesting to you to do or for some other 
reason later on, and then the whole 
amount is lost, and even in States where 
there is a little value to the premium 
after a number of years’ payment, it is 
so small as to amount to nothing. 
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One may jeer at the “female sucker list.” 
yet regardless of the broader and wider op¬ 
portunity which man constantly enjoys, 
coupled with business training, both theo¬ 
retical and practical, which is seldom made 
part of the education of woman, I am cer¬ 
tain that, if you were to read all the corre¬ 
spondence which comes to me in this Lewis 
case, you would be forced to acknowledge 
that for lack of logic and want of good 
“horse sense” man takes the cake. 
Nebraska. e. a. w. 
The above came in a personal letter, 
but it is good enough to print. Lewis 
caught the usually prudent women off 
their guard, and some of them were so 
helplessly mesmerized we bad to be a 
little brutal in frankness to wake them 
out of their trance. But the masculine 
side of the family has nothing to brag 
about. Last week we scratched the sur¬ 
face of a gold brick. A reader of 35 
years standing came in with fire in his 
eye and demanded an explanation. He 
had bought the “brick” against his wife’s 
protest, and she now had The R. N.-Y. 
to confirm her judgment. It is my honest 
conviction that if men took their wives’ 
advice on promotion schemes, faking 
would not be as profitable as it now is. 
But few of us are in a position to throw 
stones at the “come-ons,” and none of 
us is immune to the “sucker lists.” With 
all my reputation of facing fakers with 
a chip on my shoulder, I am oh at least 
a half dozen of them, and receive the 
sucker bait regularly. And more annoy¬ 
ing, my wife and daughter are on sev¬ 
eral lists at our home address. In The 
R. N.-Y. office we have a dozen mature 
men in important positions; not a single 
one of them hut has got caught some 
time in his life with a fake of some sort 
or another; and I frankly admit that 
the first $1,000 I ever invested went to a 
watered stock promotion, and was later 
charged to experience. That is not all. 
I am frequently approached yet with 
hard luck stories and requests for small 
temporary loans which are seldom if 
ever repaid. I try to defend myself with 
the argument that this is more of a 
charity than an investment. So it is. 
But the recipients are for the most part 
petty grafters. So that after all the 
members of the first female “sucker list” 
are distinguished only in that they have 
for the first time allowed Lewis’s allure¬ 
ments to overcome their natural instinct 
and better judgment. j. j. d. 
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