1910. 
OTHER PEOPLE’S MONEY. 
Where It Has Gone To. 
League, or a total of $1,528,324. The 
women can easily learn how their prom¬ 
ised “nest egg” got away from them. 
. . , , , Every letter written to them cost them- 
E. G. Lewis has hnally yielded to tl e se j ves according to Lewis 20 cents; every 
persistent demand for a statement of ■ subscription sent in cost them five cents 
THE UR. .A.L> NUW-VORKSR 
EVENTS OF THE WEEK. 
DOMESTIC.—Higher rates for window 
glass are announced following the liquida¬ 
tion of the Imperial Window Class Com- 
the financial affairs of his American 
Woman’s League. Remembering what 
he has published during the past three 
years, it is not surprising that he did 
not permit the women to audit the ac¬ 
counts as promised, nor that he refused 
so long and persistently to make the 
statement. Just a year ago he was urg¬ 
ing the women, as you will remember, to 
hurry up their applications for member¬ 
ship, as the Chapter would be full by 
Christmas, and no room left for delin¬ 
quents. It will interest you to know 
that he had only 27,160 applications for 
membership on January first, 1910; and 
these only about one-half paid up. You 
will also recall that recently he stated 
that application had been made for more 
than enough to fill the 100,000 member¬ 
ship in the Chapter, and that those who 
did not pay up promptly would lose 
their right to membership to those who 
paid up first. Now he admits that on 
October 31, 1910, he had only 59,313 
applications for membership, and these 
were only about half paid in. 
The League has no property in its own 
name, but there is an art building and 
some chapter houses held in the name of 
a trustee designated by Lewis, and a 
campus held by a corporation controlled 
by him. None of this property furnishes 
any income; but the campus is mort¬ 
gaged for $141,810 at six per cent per 
for bookkeeping, every new member to 
the ranks cost the old members from $6 
to $8. Lewis now admits in this state¬ 
ment that the League was organized as 
a subscription scheme for his publica¬ 
tions; though he sued The R. N.-Y. last 
June for saying so. It was a character¬ 
istically Lewis scheme. The papers were 
to have one-half the returns, and the 
subscription agents (League members) 
the other half. The first half went 
straight to the papers. The agents paid 
all the expenses out of the other half, 
even to the postage stamps and the re¬ 
plies to their own letters, as well as the 
expense of alluring new members. Most 
publishers are glad to get subscription 
agents to work for their papers and pay 
their own expenses. They pay the agent 
besides. Lewis simply allured the women 
into a scheme by which they paid the 
expense out of their commission of 50 
per cent; and as a result they are short 
nearly a half million. At the beginning 
we told these women that no publisher 
pany, of l’ittsburg, Pa., tlie officers of 
which were iined in the United States 
Court and ordered to dissolve the organiza¬ 
tion because their business was alleged to 
have been carried on in violation of the 
Sherman anti-trust law. The American 
Window Glass Company has issued a cir¬ 
cular to the trade increasing the rates. The 
prices quoted, however, are subject to 
change and may be withdrawn at any tune. 
The American Window Glass Company is 
one of the largest producers of machine- 
made window glass. 
November 21 Federal officers gathered in 
the members of the firm of Burr Brothers, 
whose offices were in the Flatiron Building, 
New York, and also one member of the 
Continental Wireless Telephone and Tele¬ 
graph Company, of 5G Pine street. These 
men have been conducting various get-rich- 
quick schemes by mail, which has brought 
them into the hands of the Post Office De¬ 
partment. Postmaster-General Hitchcock 
says these swindlers have acquired $100,- 
000,000 by mail frauds in the past five 
years. The men arrested were Eugene II. 
Burr, Shelton C. Burr, F. II. Tobey, and 
Charles L. Vaughan of the Continental 
Wireless. The Burr people, among other 
things, floated the Buick Oil Company. The 
Burr Brothers case, according to the Gov¬ 
ernment officers, involves stock sales of be¬ 
tween $49,000,000 and $50,000,000 face 
value, and Chief Inspector Dickson has been 
busy for some time gathering evidence 
against the company and its promoters rela¬ 
tive to the sale of stock in more than a 
could do the things Lewis promised even dozen companies. Burr Brothers was in- 
if he wanted to do so, and from Lewis’s corporated in Connecticut in 1907. It start- 
v v n «_! i.i, v* nn in l a! ic 1 i W k IW if i iviif" ciinn 
previous record we had no reason to 
accuse him of sincere intentions. Now 
he admits that it cannot be done; but 
proposes a new scheme, worse than the 
old one. He proposes to raise the mem¬ 
bership to $100, but says it costs $20 per 
year for the expense of a membership. 
The membership is for life and unless 
the average life of a membership is 
limited to five years every year that a 
member lives in excess of five will put 
the League $20 in debt on his own reek- 
annum, and this interest, is payable oning. But against that we have the 
monthly, indicating that it is mortgaged present record of the membership, which 
to the limit. This interest expense is 
$8,508.60 a year. 
But it is the income and expenditures 
of the League that is most astonishing. 
When the League was formed, you re¬ 
member that the women were told that 
the membership would be complete in 
two years, and that the League would 
start off with a “nest egg of $26,000,000.” 
Not only that, but the Lewis Publishing 
Co. would also receive $26,000,000, and 
be the richest publishing house in the 
world. A trust company with $5,000,000 
capital was to handle the finances of all 
the rich Lewis companies, including the 
League, and make more millions in the 
process. Lewis would endow the League 
with two millions of stock of the Pub¬ 
lishing Company and Trust Company 
and both these were to pay 100 per cent 
dividend the first year, and many times 
that modest amount the succeeding 
vears, which was to make this endow¬ 
ment worth $200,000,000. Notice how 
glibly the big figures are written. This, 
of course, was figured out on a full mem¬ 
bership; but the membership was as¬ 
sumed, and all the argument and prom¬ 
ises and persuasions were urged as if 
the membership was an assured fact. 
The women were not allowed to consid¬ 
er the result of failure to complete the 
membership. One timid creature ven¬ 
tured to ask what the result of this con- 
tengency would be; but Lewis assured 
her in at least two published statements 
that it would make no difference to the 
members, as each one was provided for, 
and that each member, whether the num¬ 
ber was large or small, would receive a 
cash semi-annual dividend for life out 
of the endowment fluid in addition to 
the educational and other benefits. The 
annual income of the League from its 
endowments was represented to be $3,- 
800,000. 
With all this in mind, now let us turn 
to the statement just made by Mr. Lewis. 
The women sent him all told for mem¬ 
berships $t,785,154. One half of this 
went clean and without reductions of 
any kind into the hands of the publish¬ 
ers. All the papers published by Lewis 
at the time of the organization of the 
League and which were to make the 
richest publishing company in the world, 
paying 100 per cent dividend the first 
year, are now to be discontinued, be¬ 
cause, as Lewis says, he cannot com¬ 
pete with other publishers who support 
no league or other schemes. The other 
half, or $892,576, is credited to the 
League; but unfortunately it is not there 
now. All the cost of organizing the 
League has come out of this half, and 
instead of having twenty-six millions of 
has paid in about $30 each, and yet leaves 
the League short nearly half a million. 
It is characteristic of Lewis to compare 
his schemes with things entirely differ¬ 
ent and prove his contention from the 
comparison. He now compares ^ his 
League scheme with life insurance. The 
life insurance business has its own sins, 
but there is no more comparison 
tween them and the Lewis schemes than 
there is between a ton of pig iron and a 
puff of smoke. Yet Lewis forms con¬ 
clusions from the comparison, and 
lamentable to relate, the false logic goes 
unchallenged. 
But if Lewis confined himself to fak¬ 
ing women into becoming his subscrip¬ 
tion agents he would be little danger to 
our subscribers, and consequently no 
concern to us. As we have so often 
pointed out his main object is to collect 
sums of money from the country people 
who are induced to subscribe for his 
papers, or to whom the papers are sent. 
We have never known him to pay one 
of these obligations except under pres¬ 
sure. During the past three years, while 
he has been printing big stories of profits 
and collecting money on all sorts of 
schemes, from country people, there has 
never been a time, during the three years, 
ed with a capital of $190,000, but soon 
jumped to $300,000. A large .part of the 
company's stock was sold to the public, and 
for some time the company has been paying 
a dividend of one per cent monthly. More 
recently Burr Brothers have been adver¬ 
tising extensively the Buick Oil stock. In 
Burr Brothers’ new prospectus, entitled, 
“Yours for More Money,” they boasted that 
since 1908 they had been paying 17 per cent 
a year to some people who bought stock of 
them two years ago. In this booklet the 
Arm’s assets were set down, and it was 
noted that the biggest one was the “mailing 
list,” which was valued at SI00,000. Mr. 
Vaughan, charged with using the mails in 
a scheme to defraud, was taken before 
United States Commissioner Shields and 
held in $10,000 bail. He couldn't raise it 
just then and joined the Burr brothers in 
the Tombs. The particular victim named 
in the complaint is Walter N. Altman, Ol 
2001 Clay street, Topeka. To him and 
many others Vaughan is said to have sent 
circulars and letters stating that the Con¬ 
tinental had been organized to control and 
develop the wireless telephone and tele¬ 
graph systems now doing business in the 
country. Mr. Altman and the others were 
. ’ given to understand that arrangements had 
be- been made for controlling interests in the 
Collins Wireless Telephone Company, the 
Clark Wireless Telegraph-Telephone Com¬ 
pany, the Pacific Wireless Telegraph Com¬ 
pany and the Massie Wireless Telegraph 
Company, and that the stock of the Conti¬ 
nental was “a conservative, safe and protit- 
able investment.” The day after the Bun- 
people were arrested the morning’s mail ad¬ 
dressed to their concern contained about 
$20,000 from would-be investors. Some of 
the others who told their stories to the Post 
Office people were Mrs. Levina Lawrence of 
Philadelphia, who said that the $4,000 in¬ 
surance money left by her husband had all 
gone to Burr Brothers ; Mrs. David Crabb, a 
widow, of 127 East Ninety-third street, who 
had put her savings into 5,000 shares of 
Burr Brothers oil stock at 50 cents a shave 
after having been assured that she wouldn’t 
have to work any more if she invested; 
Fred Grundelman, of 72 Sands street, 
Brooklyn, who had purchased 1,000 shares 
of oil stocks, and an old woman who had 
11,000 shares of Buick oil at 50 cents a 
share and who refused to leave the Federal 
Building, saying over and over: “They 
told me just to wait and I’d get my money, 
and surely they wouldn’t deceive an old 
woman.” ‘The Post Office people said that 
when Burr Brothers took parties to see 
x . 1,1 w Ill'll null DXUlUCiO loon ».v 
when St. Louis lawyers have not nad their 0 u wells they always let them look 
notes and accounts against him for col- upon real spouting oil wells owned by some 
lection We have now nearly $20 000 8 “if ‘Y'ttj’TuS 
for collection against him, and the Mer¬ 
cantile National Bank of New York 
City has just brought suit against him 
to collect a protested note of $2500 with 
interest for the past year. If this note 
should turn out to be given in payment 
of advertising in magazines, it may yet 
figure, according to Lewis, as a liability 
of the League. 
How do the women like this emancipa¬ 
tion? The relief from bondage must 
carry with it some humiliation into the 
realms of high finance! Lewis has now 
begun seriously to scold and threaten 
the women who do not pay up. We 
tell these women that they are under no 
obligation, moral or legal, no matter 
what the form of their promises, to send 
Lewis another cent. Every promise given 
him was made under misrepresentations 
as now clearly shown by his statement 
and his printed previous promises. The 
record is complete, and no one is bound 
by an obligation contracted under such 
misrepresentations. 
But how about the respectable pub- ma 
Ushers who have been booming the 
scheme for their little share of the graft? 
Now that the bubble is burst, will they 
admit their shame in the enterprise and 
retire with a smirch, or will they con¬ 
tinue their search for pennies in the cess 
Brothers oil properties except Buick Oil and 
has found them all to be worthless. Besides 
spending some of their clients’ money in 
private car trips, Burr Brothers paid out 
considerable sums to such newspapers as 
would print their advertisements. When 
the raid was made the inspectors found evi¬ 
dence that the concern had recently con¬ 
tracted for $300,000 worth of newspaper 
advertising. 
FARM AND GARDEN.—During the 
short course in floriculture at the Massa¬ 
chusetts Agricultural College, Amherst, 
Mass., a designer from Thomas Galvin, 
Inc., of Boston, will give a lecture-demon¬ 
stration on design making. This will be 
followed by a series of afternoon exercises 
in “making-up.” 
A modern horticultural building, with 
potting hopse and greenhouses, is being 
constructed for the horticultural and plant 
pathology departments of the College of 
Agriculture of the University of Wiscon¬ 
sin, at Madison. The entire new .struc¬ 
ture will cost about $60,000. exclusive of 
equipment, and will provide much needed 
additional facilities for instruction, and 
research work in horticulture and plant 
pathology at the university. One range 
of four greenhouses, 100 feet long and -0 
feet wide, is completed, and a potting 
house adjoining this is about finished, the 
main horticultural building will consist of 
cash in a nest egg and two millions of pool until they become permanently per- 
stock paying 100 per cent dividend for meated by the stench? 
life, the expenditures of the League has 
actually been $342,064, more than its in¬ 
come, according to the Lewis statement. 
In addition to this, Lewis has recently 
promised the members a $20 debenture 
in lieu of the stocks that were promised 
as an endowment and dividends that did 
not materialize. This would add $1,1S6,- 
260 to the other indebtedness of the 
FUR NOTES. 
Prices on furs vary considerably accord¬ 
ing to quality. The following figures cover 
a fair range of business in New York. Some 
very fine skunk has gone as high as 
but $1 to $2 covers the majority of deals, 
with some as low as 50 cents. Muskrats 
run 10 to 40 cents; mink all the way from 
25 cents to $9 ; raccoon, 30 cents to $2.50; 
fox, $1 to $6.50; opossum, 10 to 40 cents. 
11 
building with two wings, rue construction 
will consist of reinforced concrete, with 
brick exterior trimmed in stone, and red 
tiled roof, being absolutely fireproof 
throughout. The building is located upon 
a southwest slope and the high basement 
will give a well-lighted basement story, 
which will include a large machinery 
laboratory for orchard, garden and spray¬ 
ing machinery, separate storage cellar for 
vegetables, fruit and seeds, a large general 
storage room, a laboratory for the prepa¬ 
ration and demonstration of spraying ma¬ 
terials, and a general work room. 
The Connecticut Sheep Breeders’ Asso¬ 
ciation will hold its annual meeting at 
Unity Hall, Hartford. December 2, 1910, 
morning, afternoon and evening. I here 
will be interesting speakers and an exhibu 
of Connecticut wool for which libera) 
U23 
prizes will be paid. Everyone interested 
in the sheep- industry is invited to attend. 
Under the direction of the federal 
authorities in Brooklyn 720 cans of frozen 
egg products alleged to be unfit for con 
sumption were seized November 19 at 
the stores of the Kings County Refrigerat¬ 
ing Company at 30 Hull street, Brooklyn, 
N. Y. According to the libel filed against 
the goods, the cans were shipped from 
Kansas on October 26 by the National 
Egg and Poultry Company of Atchison. 
According to the government chemists at 
Washington, who analyzed a sample, 
2,300,000 bacteria were found in a single 
grain of the stuff. 
The poultry show of the Empire Poultry 
Association, New York, was held November 
21-24, at the Grand Central Palace. A 
large proportion of the prize-winning entries 
hail from Long Island. The display of pig¬ 
eons at the show was of a high class; 
probably the most admired birds were the 
white fantails from the lofts of T. A. Have- 
meyer, president of the New York Poultry, 
Pigeon, and Pet Stock Association. The 
Empire Poultry Association is almost en¬ 
tirely composed of Long Island men. Their 
show, achieved notable success in attend¬ 
ance. _ _ 
PENNSYLVANIA EGG SHOW. 
December 19-24 will be farmers’ week 
at the Pennsylvania State College, State 
College P. O. Demonstrations will be given 
in killing, dry picking and packing for 
market. The display of market eggs is ex¬ 
pected to be an interesting and instructive 
feature and all poultry keepers who contem¬ 
plate attending these exercises are request¬ 
ed to bring one or more dozens of their 
best eggs for the display. There will be no 
entry fees and no prizes, but ribbons will 
be awarded. Eggs will be the property of 
the exhibitor and will be retained if re¬ 
quested, but right is reserved to open one 
or more in each dozen in judging. First 
and second ribbons will be awarded as fol¬ 
lows : 
Section 1—-nens, best dozen brown eggs ; 
best dozen white eggs. 
Section 2—Pullets, best dozen brown 
eggs; best dozen white eggs. 
Section 3—Largest and heaviest dozen 
eggs. 
Section 4—Best dozen eggs of any va- 
riety. 
In awarding ribbons, the judge will con¬ 
sider the size, shape and purity and uni¬ 
formity of color, cleanliness and texture of 
shell, freshness, condition and color of yolk 
and albumen, etc. Double yolked and mis¬ 
shapen disqualified except in Section 3. 
For entry blanks and further particulars 
address Homer \V. Jackson, State College, 
Penna. 
THE FIGHT FOR PARCELS POST. 
I am sure you have every reader of The 
R. N.-\ r . with you heart and soul in the 
splendid fight you are making for a parcels 
post for the people of this country. The 
various communications you are printing 
are opening the eyes of our people, I am 
sure. The article on page 1045 from Mr. 
B. E. Evans, Maryland, should do much to 
advance the cause, for he is getting down 
to business by giving figures and facts and 
not sentiments. , 
The other day at the post office I asked 
what it would cost to send a package to a 
village in Bosnia, Austria, ’way down on 
the Adriatic Sea. The reply was that I 
could send a package weighing up to 11 
pounds for 12 cents per pound. I next 
asked what the charges would be to Milton, 
Wisconsin, six miles away, and the reply 
was that I would only be allowed to put 
four pounds in a package and the carrying 
charge would be 16 cents per pound. In 
Europe, where monarchs rule, the people 
have a parcels post service. In America 
the corporations rule and the express com¬ 
panies, as one of the rulers, have the peo¬ 
ple by the throat—and yet we call this a 
free country, and have those who would 
serve us as our officials, begging us for 
votes each election time, and then after the 
election is over going to Washington and 
keeping as mum as clams on anything the 
voters want. Mr. Hitchcock is the people’s 
hired man, yet he talks about postal matr 
ters as though he owned the post office and 
the people had no rights thereto. 
Keep up the fight! 
Wisconsin. [prof.] w. a. henry. 
R. N.-.Y.—Some of these gentlemen will 
keep mighty “mum” and won’t go to Wash¬ 
ington either. They begged hard for votes, 
but the people remembered how they gave 
nothing but “careful consideration to 
those parcels post letters. It is now a sure 
thing that the chief reason why the Re¬ 
publicans lost Congress was their contemp¬ 
tuous attitude on this question. The peo¬ 
ple have now come to the point w here 
they do not care which party gets parcels 
post for them so long as they get it. 
The Jewish Agricultural and Industrial 
Aid Society has devised a system of free 
scholarship for the children of Jewish 
farmers. As a result of this 20 Jewish 
boys and girls will spend this Winter in 
agricultural colleges at the expense of this 
society. Connecticut leads with nine schol¬ 
arships. and New Jersey next with six, 
while North Dakota and Wyoming send 
one each. Seven of the 20 are girls, two 
of whom are married and the wives of 
young Jewish farmers. These scholarships 
are awarded as prizes, the competition con¬ 
sisting in the writing of a brief essay on 
some agricultural topic. The result of 
these scholarships this far has been admir¬ 
able. The pupils go home and at once 
start to develop their farms, barns are 
whitewashed, proper rations are figured out, 
and fertilizers, crop rotations and similar 
things are studied. As might be expected, 
these Jewish students give great attention 
to the breeding and improving of poultry. 
Many of the girls take courses in household 
economics. On the whole, this is the most 
important matter for the Jewish people, 
and is a most practical and businesslike 
way of benefiting the younger generation 
to American .Tews. 
FROFIT OR WAGES.—Some very fine 
red apples are selling here at the grocer’s 
for $4 per barrel, or 50 cents per peck. 
A peddler said he made 90 cents a barrel 
on much poorer ones at $3.50, and would 
make $2 if he retailed by peck. Our re¬ 
tail system is largely responsible for the 
discrepancy between the producer’s and 
consumer’s price. I am using some Kieffer 
pears for which I paid $2.25 f. o. b. in 
cloth-head flour barrels, bought from the 
grower, freight about 25 cents. The stand¬ 
ard for profit has always been way in ad¬ 
vance of that for wages. e. l. s. 
Cape Cod, Mass. 
