1911. 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
847 
OTHER PEOPLE'S MONEY. 
When we show up one after another 
of the Lewis schemes, he answers all 
with the same argument. “Lies,” he 
says. Now let us prove him a knave 
out of his own mouth. 
In the April, 1908, number of the 
Woman’s Magazine he said it had a cir¬ 
culation of 600,000 copies, and Woman’s 
Farm Journal 200,000. In January, 1909, 
page 14 of same magazine, he said he 
had the richest and most profitable pub¬ 
lishing business in the world, issuing 
200 per cent dividends. One-third of its 
stock was to be given to the women, 
insuring them an annual income of 
from $20 to $30 for life; that in 10 
days after announcement of a scheme 
the subscriptions increased 500 per cent. 
On page 19 of same issue a string of 
daily papers costing $16,000,000 was to 
be bought, and $6,000,000 left in the 
treasury, after paying $3,500,000 in divi¬ 
dends. February, 1909, page 19, he says 
publishing plant is becoming the largest 
and richest and most profitable in the 
world. March, 1909, page 11, he said 
the new printing plant had a capacity of 
20 million copies monthly, and was pro¬ 
ducing better publications at less cost 
than any competitor. April, 1909, page 
11, Beautiful Homes, he said, was get¬ 
ting bigger than its parent, Woman’s 
Magazine was growing with leaps and 
bounds, and taxing the 20 million press 
capacity to produce it. This, remem¬ 
ber, all appeared in advertisements for 
the sale of subscriptions and stocks, 
and bonds, and memberships in various 
schemes all to bring money to Lewis. 
Now turn to page 4 of “National 
Daily” of October 15, 1910. Read this v 
Tlie magazines published to-dav by the 
Lewis Publishing Comimny have increased 
in cost of production through the increase 
in quality of the paper stock on which they 
are printed, and of the mechanical and edi¬ 
torial processes that enter into them, nearly 
a thousaud per cent. In the meantime it 
had been impossible to increase their selling 
price more than 200 per cent, or to increase 
their advertising rate charge practically at 
all in proportion. We are therefore laboring 
under and facing conditions which necessi¬ 
tated the constant expenditure of enormous 
sums of money to be invested in the pro¬ 
duction of these magazines, while they were 
being built up to a large volume of produc¬ 
tion and re-established in their circulation 
and advertising patronage, while at the 
same time the cost of that production was 
constantly doubling without any correspond¬ 
ingly rapid increase in their selling price 
or advertising revenue. Unquestionably the 
Lewis Publishing Company had a case of 
appendicitis. I could not see it clearly 
before but 1 see it now, as big as a house; 
and taking the advice of the doctor, I pro¬ 
ceeded to “cut it out.” “Why didn’t you 
cut out that appendix three years ago?” 
My only reply is that I didn’t know I had 
it until the stomach ache became so bad 
I could no longer stand it. 
The magazines were consequently 
discontinued, because, as stated, they 
were not earning enough to pay the ex¬ 
pense of producing them. The state¬ 
ment was that the operating expense 
was $8,000 a day with the magazines, 
and after disposing of them the ex¬ 
pense would be only about $1600 a day, 
while the revenue would remain prac¬ 
tically the same, assuring a profit of 
$1,000 to $5,000 per day to the Publish¬ 
ing Company; that this meant the pay¬ 
ment of all debt; the resumption of all 
dividends; the publication of the great¬ 
est newspaper in America. He em¬ 
phasized the fact that the Curtis Pub¬ 
lishing Company had so increased its 
facilities and the quality of its publi¬ 
cations, at the same time reducing the 
price, that it had become practically im¬ 
possible for any other magazine to com¬ 
pete with them, and said he thought 
there were not as many as five maga¬ 
zines in the country doing a profitable 
business. Since that time the Publish¬ 
ing Company has been declared insol¬ 
vent, with a strong suspicion that it was 
insolvent at the time of the operation 
for appendicitis. 
Now come to the Woman’s National 
Weekly of August, 1911, and we find 
that with all of his old companies and 
schemes bankrupt and in the hands of 
a receiver, and himself indicted by the 
Federal Grand Jury on charges of 
fraud, he proposed the organization of 
a brand new company called the Re¬ 
gents’ Publishing and Mercantile Cor¬ 
poration, and among the many purposes 
of this company he starts off with the 
following: 
First, the purchase or lease of the great 
publishing plant of the Lewis Publishing 
Company and their equipment; the re-estab¬ 
lishing of the Woman’s Magazine, the 
Woman’s Farm Journal, Beautiful Homes 
and a line of magazines and periodicals, 
each to be of the highest grade and to be 
sold at a price that will net a profit on 
the subscription alone, and these publica¬ 
tions to be the property of the Regents’ 
Corporation. 
After the above record taken from 
Lewis’ own paper is it possible that 
anv sane man or woman will accept 
this as a sincere purpose to establish 
a new company and new business? If 
with a plant already under his control, 
completely equipped and organized, 
with a circulation for one magazine of 
about 400,000 and another of about 200,- 
000, and a third in a most flourishing 
condition, and subscriptions increasing 
at the rate of 500%, he was unable to 
conduct a paying business, but on the 
contrary found that these magazines 
were losing several thousand dollars a 
day, how can he hope now without a 
dollar of his own to borrow money 
from women to start a new business 
without any circulation or business of 
any kind to begin with? Under the 
conditions as he defined them no sane 
man would undertake to put his own 
money into the development of a busi¬ 
ness of the kind, and the only con¬ 
clusion is that Lewis is willing to invest 
other people’s money where business 
prudence would forbid the investment 
of his own, if it really is his intention 
to invest this money at all. 
The number of enterprises and 
schemes that Mr. Lewis has organized 
are variously estimated in the neighbor¬ 
hood of 50. He has set himself up as 
a steward of other people's money and 
has received an amount estimated at 
eight million dollars from country peo¬ 
ple to be invested in these enterprises. 
Practically every one of them has be¬ 
come bankrupt and over a series of 
nearly 10 years, little if any of the 
money has ever been returned to the 
people who entrusted it to him. Most 
of the money has been lost. Yet as 
one of the victims has pointed out, 
Lewis alleges he is “happy and care 
free” and wants to continue the privi¬ 
lege of handling other people’s money. 
With this consistent record of failures 
and bankruptcy, if Mr. Lewis had any 
sincere regard for these women, isn’t 
it plain that he would admit his failure 
and cease to solicit the savings of poor 
country people? Even if the losses 
were due to causes not his own, he 
would not be justified in the face of 
his record to continue to hazard the 
savings that poor people have accumu¬ 
lated in a lifetime, but Lewis has no 
scruples. He collects his money from 
poor people widely distributed because 
these victims are not in a position to 
seek redress. Since the indictment on 
criminal charges by the Grand Jury lie 
has modified his schemes, now making 
no definite promises but brazenly mak¬ 
ing appeals for money for which he 
even promises no accounting. 
This new proposition, the Regents’ 
Corporation, has one remarkable fea¬ 
ture—he claims it is receiver-proof. In 
other words you pay in your money 
and you have no redress for any griev¬ 
ance or any claim or any right. If it 
owes you money you can’t collect it. 
Lewis evidently gave this out as an 
inducement for investment in it. Scarce¬ 
ly a stronger reason could be given 
for staying out of it unless it may be 
the above record in which Lewis most 
conclusively proves his own insincerity 
in proposing to establish a business on 
the lines that have already proved a 
failure. A company immune to court 
proceedings on behalf of its creditors 
and stockholders would certainly be a 
bonanza for Lewis. While he can go 
on collecting money, paying nothing and 
accounting for nothing, he prospers; but 
when awakened victims and unsympa¬ 
thetic courts demand an accounting, 
bankruptcy is the only recourse. 
EVENTS OF THE WEEK. 
DOMESTIC.—At the instance of Harry 
I’. Cassidy, special agent of the Pure Food 
Department of Pennsylvania, George F. 
Baer, president of the Reading Railroad 
Company, at Philadelphia, was served with 
a summons September 7 to appear before a 
magistrate and answer a charge of causing 
the sale of bad eggs. A summons is usually 
served when an arrest is not desired. The 
State Pure Food Department alleges that 
the railroad company sells putrid eggs left 
on its hands by consignees. A test case 
was decided upon- and the summons for Mr. 
Baer was secured. 
Eugene Christian, “food naturalist and 
expert writer on harmonious dishes,” was 
examined September 8 at New York before 
trial in a suit tiled against him by Mrs. 
Mollie F. Pearce, widow of a banker form¬ 
erly of Covington. Ky.. in which Mrs. Pearce 
seeks to recover $4,180. with interest, 
which she says she paid to Christian for 
310 shares of stock in the Christian Nat¬ 
ural Food Company. Mrs. Pearce in her 
complaint says that recently she learned 
that Christian had misrepresented to her 
the value of the stock, the business pros¬ 
pects of the company and had falsely stated 
to her that “Louis II. Vories. general man¬ 
ager of the Uneeda Biscuit Company.” was 
vice-president of the Christian Natural 
Food Company and was about to take “an 
active interest” in booming the Christian 
concern and its products along. Mrs. Pearce 
says that she paid $2,495 in April, 1908. 8285 
in November of the same year and $950 in 
January, 1909, to Christian for stock which 
she now charges was Christian's own "pro¬ 
motion stock.” In Mrs. Pearce’s complaint 
she also says that she was led to invest in 
the stock because Christian had told her 
that the company owned large interests in 
a company in England, and that the com¬ 
pany also had just obtained a factory at 
Kenilworth, N. J., for $79,430.56 and owned 
factory equipment, etc., to the value of 
$70,000. Mrs. Pearce says she has since 
learned that the company was not inter¬ 
ested in an English plant, that Louis H. 
Vories had had no connection with the 
Christian Company, at least up to four 
months previous to the time Christian told 
her Vories was with his company, and that 
the Christian company didn't own a fac¬ 
tory at Kenilworth but had only “an equity 
In the factory of no value whatever” and 
did not own factory equipment exceeding 
$5,000. In answer to the present suit 
Christian makes a general denial oi Mrs. 
Pearce’s charges. 
Nineteen persons were injured, one of 
them probably fatally, when two cars on 
the Grand Rapids and Grand Haven inter- 
urban railway met in a rear end collision 
one mile east of Fruitport, Mich., Septem¬ 
ber 10. There was a heavy fog and it is 
believed that the motorman was unable to 
see the first car had stopped to let off pas¬ 
sengers. 
The New Jersey State Health Depart¬ 
ment made September 9 another seizure of 
rotten eggs stored presumably for food pur¬ 
poses. The raid was conducted by William 
G. Tice, assistant chief of the Department 
of Food and Drugs of the State Board, and 
Dr. Isaac II. Shaw, and it resulted in the 
seizure of 10,000 bad eggs in shell that 
were stored in the Merchants’ Refrigerat¬ 
ing Company’s plant in Jersey City, it was 
said, by Joseph Kolb of New York City. 
Kolb claims the eggs were intended for 
tanners’ use and not for food, but the 
department believes they were hurried to 
storage to prevent their being found by 
inspectors now working among bakeshops. 
Juan Morales, a Spanish farmer, living 
seven miles out of Brownsville, Texas, with 
a jackknife as his only weapon, killed a 
mountain lion which had killed one of his 
children in their home, bound up his arm, 
which the lion had lacerated and crushed 
in the fight, and walked into town. He 
will lose his arm. Morales’s three-year-old 
boy, thinking the lion was a dog, had 
called it into the house and started to pet 
it. when the animal attacked the children. 
Their screams brought their father from 
the field, but the babe, which had attempt¬ 
ed to pet the beast, had been killed before 
Morales arrived. 
Dr. John Grant Lyman, promoter of the 
Panama Development Company, who is ac¬ 
cused of having used the mails l’or fraud¬ 
ulent purposes, is under arrest in San 
Francisco. He was caught as he was pre¬ 
paring to leave for Portland, Ore. It is 
believed that he made from $25,000 to $50,- 
000 out of the Panama scheme. He offered 
lauds in Panama at $5 an acre. The com¬ 
pany's office effects have been attached. 
Lyman is said to have operated in the 
East and in Goldfield, Nev., in the days 
when the gold camp was booming. 
FARM AND GARDEN.—The manage¬ 
ment of the Americah Land and Irrigation 
Exposition, to be held at Madison Square 
Garden, New York, November 3 to 12. has 
appointed Putnam A. Bates, a consulting 
engineer who has specialized in these sub¬ 
jects, to direct the exhibits of the exposi¬ 
tion. Mr. Bates intends to bring out the 
importance of close relationship between 
engineering and agriculture. He hopes not 
only to demonstrate this to the farmer but 
to awaken engineers to the opportunities 
open to them in agricultural lines. 
Producer and consumer met on common 
ground at Fort Worth, Texas, September 12, 
to wage war against high living prices. In 
the conference were representatives from 
labor unions and farmers’ organizations, 
from boards of trade and the Cattle Rais¬ 
ers’ Association of Texas. Several plans 
for the amelioration of conditions now bur¬ 
dening the housewife and the man who 
pays the bills were discussed. One plan 
contemplates the establishment of a State 
selling agency. Another includes the or¬ 
ganization of an association from bodies of 
consumers and producers to operate an in¬ 
dependent packing plant. 
The National Farmers’ Union in session 
at Si.awnee, Okla., September 6, by a unani¬ 
mous vote agreed on 14 cents as' the price 
at which the farmer should sell his cotton 
during September and October and 15 cents 
thereafter. The action was taken in the 
adoption of the report of a special com¬ 
mittee on minimum prices. 
An investigation into alleged unreason¬ 
able rates on shipments of wools and hides 
from western points to eastern markets was 
begun at Chicago September 6 by United 
States Interstate Commerce Commissioner 
I'routy. A score or more of witnesses have 
been summoned to testify, after which Com¬ 
missioner I’routy will hold similar sessions 
at Denver, Albuquerque, N. M., Salt Lake 
City, Phoenix, Ariz., and Portland, Ore. It 
is the contention of the wool shippers that 
the freight rates have been advanced 33 1-3 
per cent since the passage of the Hepburn 
rate law four years ago, and that the pres¬ 
ent tariff is exorbitant in comparison with 
rates charged for other commodities. R. II. 
Thompson, secretary of the National Wool 
Warehouse and Storage Company, testified 
that the average movement of wood was 94 
miles in 24 hours. He said his company 
had handled 16.000,000 pounds of wool in 
1910. John A. Muuroe, freight traffic man¬ 
ager of the Union Pacific, testified that his 
road had handled 64,026,480 pounds of wool 
in 1910. F. J. Johnston, of Blackfoot, 
Idaho, a member of the Idaho Legislature, 
said he thought rates were too high. He 
said he owned 12,000 sheep. 
DIARY OF FARM WORK. 
A Day on an Illinois Farm. 
Thursday evening. August 31.—I own and 
operate a farm of 260 acres, 145 of which 
furnishes hay and pasture and a portion 
of which is woodland. 100 acres devoted 
to corn, wheat and other grain, and the 
remaining portion is occupied by buildings, 
family orchard, garden, etc. I own six 
work teams, 20 dairy cows, besides a bunch 
of other cattle, good flock of Shropshires, 
about 160 head of hogs of different sizes 
and ages, and a nice flock of about 180 
purebred Plymouth Rock chickens. I keep 
four hired hands the year around, besides 
receiving the help of my two sons. During 
busy times sufficient other help is employed 
We arose at 4 a. m„ started for the barn 
soon after and fed the horses grain and 
hay, also groomed them nicely, which is 
practiced regularly morning and evening. 
The cows were called up from pasture and 
given their morning diet of a mixture of 
cornmeal and bran and a bunch of good, 
bright clover hay. We then returned to the 
house and consumed a hearty breakfast, 
after which the cows were milked, the milk 
separated and the skim-milk, with other 
feeds, was fed the hogs, calves and chick¬ 
ens. One of the boys, after the cows were 
milked, returned them to pasture. I have 
a four horse-power gasoline engine which 
runs the cream separator, churn, washing 
machine, etc., and we churned to-day, the 
butter being pressed in one-pound prints, 
wrapped in parchment paper and prepared 
for shipment. Of course, it is needless to 
say that we exercise the utmost cleanliness 
in all things and at all times in the hand¬ 
ling of milk and butter from start to finish. 
Everyone knows that too much stress can¬ 
not be laid upon the matter of cleanliness. 
After we were through handling the morn¬ 
ing’s milk and churning, all the utensils, 
including the separator, churn and butter- 
worker, were thoroughly cleaned, aired and 
sunned until ready for use again. 
As the pastures ate good I am not now 
feeding my cattle and sheep, but I went 
over the pastures this morning and sup¬ 
plied them with salt and saw that all 
were getting along well. I found all of 
them all right, as usual, as it is very 
seldom that I have an animal out of con¬ 
dition, exercising at all times to keep them 
in the best possible health. I have a very 
large, purebred Holstein bull that heads 
my dairy herd, and while he seems to be 
“as harmless as a lamb,” still I didn't 
want to run any risk any longer, so I put a 
ring in his nose today and shall hereafter 
have him handled in a different manner 
than heretofore. In returning to the house 
I stopped at the tank, which is made of 
concrete, and filled it with water for the 
cows, as the pasture in which I have them 
now has no water in it supplied by natural 
brooks, which the other pastures have. 
Two of the hired men have been breaking 
wheat ground today, using large gang plows 
with which they can turn a good deal of 
soil. Another has been following with the 
roller. They inform me that tomorrow at 
noon the job will be completed, after which 
I shall have no more done to the land 
until I get ready to sow. I shall then disk 
it thoroughly, follow the disk with a spike- 
tooth harrow and the harrow with a plank- 
er. This always puts my ground In good 
shape for the reception of the seed. I 
have about all of my farm fenced with 
barbed and woven wire, but there is about 
half a mile of old-fashioned rail fence on 
the place which one of the hired hands 
and the boys have been removing today, 
and setting posts, as I expect to begin 
putting up woven wire along there tomor¬ 
row. 
We all enjoyed a hearty dinner. For 
the first time in a great while the hands 
were late getting to dinner, failing to come 
in till nearly one o’clock, although the bell 
had been rung for them at the usual time. 
After an hour’s rest after dinner, which I 
have always allowed my hired hands, boys 
and myself, except when work was extreme¬ 
ly pushing, the men all returned to their 
work, and I stepped down to the hog lot, 
in which I had placed three brood sows due 
to farrow flic day before. One of the sows 
had nine husky youngsters. Not one of 
them can be classed as a runt. Late this 
afternoon another sow farrowed, bringing 
II pigs, but one of them was so weak it 
could not get to the teat. I brought it to 
the house and gave it some warm cow’s 
milk, and it is getting along nicely. I have 
been cutting weeds and briars, which have 
grown up along the roadside which runs in 
front of the barns and dwelling, and alter 
I had come in and sat down on the front 
porch and looked up the road I could 
readily see that the appearance of the place 
had been very much helped. There are 
seven of us in family—two boys, three girls, 
wife and myself. The women folks feed the 
chickens, gather the eggs, attend to most of 
the garden, and do considerable other light 
work around the place. But I guard their 
strength carefully, except in very busy 
times, as haying, when every bit of help I 
can get may be needed—then the girls are 
equal to what Maud Muller is claimed to 
have been. The older one, who is 19, has 
been mowing the lawn to-day, as well as 
cleaning out the back portion of the yard, 
replacing some vines on the veranda,' and 
other such things; my wife and the other 
two girls have utilized the major portion of 
the day in canning peaches and tomatoes. 
My wife is a great lover of chickens, and 
I believe we have as fine a flock of the 
breed as it is possible to produce. Plenty 
of suitable quarters and yards are provided 
for the fowls, and they are certainly profit¬ 
able. „ . 
The men came in from the field in time, 
as usual, to assist in the evening chores. 
The horses were let loose in the lot to tum¬ 
ble and roll for a while, after which they 
went to the trough and partook of all the 
water they wished. Then they were put 
in the barn for the night. In an hour or 
so they were given their evening ration of 
hay and grain. The hogs were given a good 
mess of corn and swill, which they receive 
twice a day in addition to pasture. The 
cows were brought up from pasture, fed, 
milked and returned. We always rather 
milk late in the evening at this time of 
year, as the flies are not so bad. I always 
keep the cows in the pasture both night and 
day during Summer. The milk was sepa¬ 
rated immediately and handled the same as 
the morning’s milk. The chickens were fed 
at the usual "hour, which is just a short 
time before going to roost, and this ended 
the work with the stock for the day. The 
women folks had completed all the chores 
at the house, and by the time w6 were 
ready to serve the evening meal, supper 
was waiting for us. After each of us had 
satisfied ourselves with food, the men took 
a rest on the veranda, the women folks 
cleared away the utensils used in serving 
supper, and I wrote this story of a day on 
the Underwood Farm. 
Johnson Co., Ill. w. h. uxderwood. 
The recent rains have greatly improved 
potatoes, corn and pastures in Central 
New York. The corn supply is said to be 
the best in several years, though it is not 
yet safe from frost. 
