618 
gkt RURAL NEW-YORKER 
April 0, 1924 
PUBLISHER’S DESK 
All letters to Publisher's Desk depart- - 
ment must be signed with writer’s full 
name and address given. Many inquiries 
are answered by mail instead of printing 
inquiry and answer, lienee unsigned let¬ 
ters receive no consideration. 
I think I never took as good a paper 
before as The ft. N.-Y.; you take such 
interest in your subscribers. Besides the 
many good points in your paper I cer¬ 
tainly know The R. N.-Y. is a godsend to 
the people. There is much information 
on everything anyone wishes to know or 
learn about farm or city ; they only have 
to read The R. N.-Y. to find almost any¬ 
thing that confronts them. May Bod 
speed the good work along that you are 
doing; long life and good luck to you. 
Missouri. ' • 
Our efforts are rewarded when we find 
the prevailing spirit as shown in the let¬ 
ter above from one of the members of 
the Rural family. The greatest satis¬ 
faction in life is not the greedy struggle 
for the. eternal dollar, but the serving of 
our fellowmen, for, after all, when life is 
over the accomplishment of deeds is al¬ 
ways remembered. 
I am personally a subscriber to your 
paper and value it very highly and I am 
going to avail myself of the opportunity 
it offers to make an inquiry which con¬ 
cerns a farmer in the lower part of our 
county, who was unfortunate enough to 
lose a leg, and started up a little store in 
order to eke out an existence. He had a 
very small amount of money, and the 
very day he opened the store a represen¬ 
tative of the Knickerbocker Merchandis¬ 
ing Company, 122-124 East 25th St., 
New York City, called, who gave the 
name, as you will see on the receipt, of 
l>ave Herman. This man talked him into 
signing some sort of contract by which he 
was appointed exclusive agent for the 
Knickerbocker wares in his village. The 
part of the proposition that tempted him 
to invest his $100 with this fellow was 
the low price that he quoted on merchan¬ 
dise and on such staples as sugar—the 
price quoted was 2%c below wholesale 
prices. Of course an experienced mer¬ 
chant would have known that it was a 
humbug for this reason alone. E. C. c. 
Pennsylvania. 
The above letter tells its own story 
pretty fully. The membership scheme is 
of course a fraud on the face of it. The 
Knickerbocker Merchandising Company 
have no financial strength or purchasing 
power to enable the concern to purchase 
groceries or other goods and sell them to 
retail grocers at prices below the regular 
wholesale trade. It is too bad to see a 
poor man struggling under such a handi¬ 
cap being taken advantage of in this way. 
We referred to this proposition as an 
easy-money scheme several mouths ago. 
Another subscriber asked my opinion 
concerning the enclosed circular of C. H. 
Green, 152 Main St., Buffalo. N. Y. I 
am afraid of it. What do you think of 
it? This section is well covered with 
circulars like this. N. L. a. 
New York. 
The circular offers 35 lbs. of sugar free. 
which brands C. H. Green as a faker 
from the start. A condition of the offer 
is that you have to buy a list of other 
goods, and of course the price of the 
sugar is included. This fake game was 
popular in Chicago some years ago, and 
we believe the Federal Trade Commis¬ 
sion put a stop to the fraud. 
T am inclosing a copy of a registered 
letter which I received from the Clare¬ 
mont Egg Case Co., asking me to make 
payment for a carload of egg cases. 
This is the second letter 1 received from 
them demanding payment. I ordered a 
carload of egg cases from the Claremont 
Egg Case Co., February 28, 1923, check 
of .$89 accompanying order, which the 
bank paid March 8, 1923. The order 
called for 1,000 egg cases and 10 cases 
of fillers and flats. They did not ship 
these -cases until September 25. 1923. 
after you forced them to make ship¬ 
ment. Now they are demanding pay¬ 
ment. I do not care to write to such 
a bunch so I am asking your advice. 
They claim in the letter which I am 
inclosing that they shipped 924 egg 
cases where they should have shipped 
1.000. and they did not ship a single 
case of fillers and flats. T am the one 
who should be filing claim for short¬ 
age. but I thought I would better drop 
the matter. If you think it advisable to 
file claim for 70 cases short and 10 cases 
of fillers and flats do so. I am tired 
of hearing from them about this claim, 
which is a fake. These letters are both 
signed by M. Robinson, who told you that 
lie was no longer connected with Clare¬ 
mont Egg Case Co., but was with 
Mitchell Egg Case Co. There is some¬ 
thing rotten about this. I wish you 
would try to straighten this matter up, 
so I will not be bothered by them any 
more. w. H. b. 
Virginia. 
The above experience will show the 
advisability of steering clear of the ir¬ 
responsible houses soliciting trade. An 
inquiry into their standing will save 
money in the end. 
Do you know anything about the Rose¬ 
mary Apron Co.. Box 21, Asbury Park, 
N. J.V I am enclosing their letter. They 
do not really say. they will pay for mak¬ 
ing the aprons themselves as I can see. 
I thought perhaps you could tell if they 
are reliable. u. s. 
New York. 
The printed letter of Rosemary Apron 
Co. of Asbury Park, N. J., does not say 
that it will buy the aprons when made; 
but it gives the reader this impression. 
The one thing definite about the letter 
is that it wants $1.50 to cover cost of 
material. All the work-at-liome schemes 
want money ! By that mark they can be 
judged. If these concerns only wanted 
people to do work for them there would 
be no necessity of asking for money un¬ 
der any pretext. If they ask you for 
money you can put them down as a 
fraud. And there are more of these petty 
swindlers appealing to country people 
now than ever before, not to mention the 
bigger schemes which draw $00 to $70 
from honest women seeking an opportu¬ 
nity to earn some money in spare time. 
Beware of work-at-home schemes! 
I have been reading The R. N.-Y. for 
a number of years, and I want you to 
know I do enjoy those exposures of 
fakers in your “Publisher’s Desk” page. 
I am sending you inclosed a circular of 
Maurice M. Wolff, Inc., Jersey City, N. 
J., I received yesterday. One of the 
many that are going the rounds. It 
looks the best I have seen this season for 
a get-rich-quick scheme. If these men 
can make a dollar earn over 50 per cent 
per year it certainly would not be neces¬ 
sary to go to the expense of mailing out 
this junk as they do. Please give them 
a good airing. h. p. k. 
New York. 
Mr. Wolff proposes making the sub¬ 
scriber rich by speculating with his 
money in Wall Street. He holds out 
the inducement of 4 to 5 per cent a 
month—this would mean 48 to 00 per 
cent a year. It will be noted that his re¬ 
turns are modest as compared with 520 
per cent Miller! The name of this op¬ 
erator is sufficient to suggest that he may 
be a financial wolf in fact as well as in 
name! 
You printed the truth about the work- 
at-hoine schemes being fakes. We tried 
the knitting machine and let me tell your 
readers if they think of buying one, I 
say do not. You could not earn from 
,$100 to $150 a month if you worked 
every minute, 24 hours a day. It is not 
just the simple operation of turning the 
crank as the advertisement would have 
you believe. There tire many more opera¬ 
tions before the socks are finally ready 
for shipment. Then there is a lot of par¬ 
cel post to pay. Socks have to be just so, 
before they are accepted. I know of more 
than one person who got stung with the 
knitter-work-at-home scheme. I hope you 
will be able to use this letter as a warn¬ 
ing to some of your readers. 
Pennsylvania. mbs. c. j. o. 
This report hardly needs comment. We 
have at least a half dozen complaints on 
file from women who have invested in 
one of the various knitting machines, 
cannot operate them successfully and 
are asking for their money back. But 
we judge this work-at-home scheme is 
pretty well played out. No business can 
be permanently profitable that is not 
based on satisfactory service and the good 
will of a large percentage of its custom¬ 
ers. One of these knitting machine con¬ 
cerns made big money in 1922. on tlm 
strength of which a prominent brokerage 
house underwrote its stock and had it 
listed on the Stock Exchange. In 1923 
this concern shows a large deficit and its 
stock is now selling at less than 25 per 
cent of the price at which it was sold to 
the public a little more than a year ago. 
Publisher’s Desk makes no claim to being 
a prophet for having predicted this re-- 
suit, as what has happened is only the 
logical result of such unsound schemes. 
The good word everywhere on 
balloon tires is “Goodyear*” Be¬ 
cause Goodyear makes them to fit 
rims on most cars now in use, as 
well as in the smaller diameter 20-, 
21- and 22-inch rim sizes. Motor¬ 
ists appreciate this opportunity 
for saving. Get the facts from your 
Goodyear Dealer and you will, too. 
Doctor : “Put out your tongue—more 
than that—all of it.” Child : “But, doc¬ 
tor. I can’t. It’s fastened at the other 
end !”—Onward. 
When you zvrite advertisers mention The R. N.-Y. and you'll get a 
quick reply and a “square deal.’’ See guarantee editorial page. 
