1338 
‘Ibi RURAL NEW-YORKER 
October 18. 1924 
PUBLISHER’S DESK 
Mark Harris, well known broker of 
Buffalo, N. Y., pleaded guilty in Federal 
Court, Sept. 16, to four counts charging 
him with violations of the United States 
postal laws and was fined $4,000 by 
Judge John R. Hazel, $1,000 being as¬ 
sessed on each of the four counts. Har¬ 
ris was accused of having used the mails 
to defraud. — Rochester Democrat and 
Chronicle. 
Readers of The R. N.-Y. have been 
warned of the get-rich-quick promotions 
of Mark Harris for a good many years 
back. He promoted many worthless 
stocks through which trusting people lost 
their hard-earned savings. Fines or jail 
sentences do not as a rule turn pirates 
of the Mark Harris type into honest 
citizens. The rule is such promoters 
continue the old game, using a little more 
caution to avoid the meshes of the crim¬ 
inal laws.. 
Will you collect money sent to Mid¬ 
west Jewelry Company, 839 W. 15th St.. 
Chicago, Ill.. Dept.. 33? I sent $6.75 for 
a wrist watch, and it didn’t keep good 
time, so sent it back. They stated if at 
any time it got out of repair they would 
repair it free of charge, but they wrote 
to send them $2.35 and they would return 
the watch. I sent the $2.35 to them, but 
never received the watch or heard from 
them. I am a poor girl and work in the 
glass factory, and needed the watch; now 
I have neither watch nor money. 1 will 
be very much obliged to have you look 
into this. E. B. 
New Jersey. 
Our letters to the Midwest Jewelry 
Company, 839 West 14th St., Chicago, 
Ill., have been returned by the Chicago 
Post Office Department unclaimed, and 
if any of our readers want a watch they 
will not want to send their money to 
them for goods, if they appear in some 
other section. 
I am enclosing data which my father 
and I w r ould like advice on. Would you 
try to collect the $720 mentioned in these 
certificates of stock of the Wayside Tele¬ 
phone and Auto Service Company, or a 
part of same, as the company from their 
letter which I am also enclosing, state 
they are considering bankruptcy. I.. F. 
New York. 
As we have many times stated in this 
column, it is impossible to get the re¬ 
fund of money invested in spurious or 
worthless stocks. The only service we 
can render to subscribers in connection 
with investments of this kind is if they 
come to us in advance, we invariably ad¬ 
vise against the investment. 
This Wayside Telephone and Auto 
Company appeared to us from the start 
as being either the dream of an impracti¬ 
cal man or a get-ricli-quick investment 
Scheme of a professional promoter. The 
idea was to install wayside telephones 
along motor roads at intervals of one 
mile so that when an accident occurred 
the tourists would not be more than half 
a mile from a telephone. The idea is a 
very good one, but impracticable. Where 
the revenue was to come from to support 
such a telephone system does, not seem to 
have been considered. Now the com¬ 
pany sends a notice to stockholders that 
“the advisability of the company to con¬ 
tinue its operations or to enter a petition 
of bankruptcy is being considered.’’ The 
latter alternative will no doubt take place, 
unless the original victims of the scheme 
are unwise enough to put more money 
into the enterprise. 
I am sending you a new one. Probably 
there will be a lot of kind (?) hearts that 
will send the dollar. a. p. 
Maine. 
The proposition forwarded by this 
subscriber is new and original. II. W. 
McDonald, Minneapolis, Minn., asks the 
recipient of his circular letter to send 
him $1. He wants to develop a gas and 
oil well, or so he says. He makes no 
promises to pay it back except as the ap¬ 
peal for the dollar as a loan. No one. 
you say would be so foolish as to send 
even a dollar on .such a scheme. Out¬ 
guess would be that McDonald will re¬ 
ceive a dollar on from 5 to 10 per cent 
of the letters he sends out. The sucker 
crop is always prolific. 
Letters from the Florida General 
Phosphate Co.. Riverhead, L. I.. N. Y., 
are enclosed. I feel doubtful of this, and 
would like information regarding this 
concern. G - G - A - 
New York. 
The letter forwarded contains an op¬ 
tion on 300 shares of stock in the above 
named company at $1 per share. This 
stock selling campaign seems to be con¬ 
fined to Long Island thus far. The com¬ 
pany is said to control phosphate lands 
in Florida, which the proceeds of the 
stock sales, it, is proposed, will be used 
to develop. Anyone familiar with the un¬ 
favorable conditions in the fertilizer 
business will not be inclined to risk his 
savings in such a project. The industry 
is in a deplorable condition as a whole, ! 
and we can see nothing but disappoint¬ 
ment in store for farmers who are in¬ 
duced to part with their cash for stock 
in this untried and undeveloped enter¬ 
prise. if it can as yet be said to con¬ 
stitute an enterprise. 
The enclosed literature of Eureka Poul¬ 
try Food Mfg. Co., of East St. Louis, Ill., 
may be of interest to you. This company 
advertised in the Middletown Times-Press 
for a man to introduce their products at 
a straight salary of $35 per week and ex¬ 
penses. My letter to them elicited their 
letter to me, with its enclosure, all of 
which I am sending you for your consid¬ 
eration. The scheme seems to me “fishy,” 
to say the least. F. s. c. 
New York. 
Many firms desiring to secure agents 
to sell goods on commission advertise to 
pay salary and expenses. Such adver¬ 
tising is deceptive, and it is a pity that 
country and small town papers have not 
more concern for their readers’ interest 
than to print such deceptions. For our¬ 
selves we should have little confidence in 
the goods for which it is necessary to 
stoop to such methods to sell. 
Can you assist me in looking into the 
reliability of Continental Auto Accident 
Corp., 1775 Broadway, New York? An 
agent called at my house the other day 
and induced me to take out an accident 
policy with this company. He stated 
that if I paid the initial sum of $10.50 I 
would have my policy sent to me in a 
few days. After two or three days I re¬ 
ceived a card from said company ac¬ 
knowledging the above amount, and that 
I had been duly listed with the company. 
A few days after another man called to 
present the policy, asking an additional 
payment of $10.50 before leaving the poli¬ 
cy. The policy was not left. I told the 
fellow I did not care to pay more money 
until I looked into the matter further. 
The agreement with the first agent was 
as follows: I was to have my car insured 
against any accident, either to the car 
or its occupants for a period of two years, 
for the sum of $42. I was to make an¬ 
other payment six months after, c. s. B. 
New York. 
Here is another alleged insurance com¬ 
pany which is without established finan¬ 
cial responsibility. The subscriber, evi¬ 
dently from the letters to us. has not 
seen the “contract” or “policy” and 
therefore has no knowledge of what the 
document contains except what the agent 
stated. The reports would indicate that 
what, the agent is selling is another of 
the “service contracts” and is in no 
sense an insurance policy. These “ser¬ 
vice contracts” sold as insurance are the 
most popular fraud infesting farm com¬ 
munities at the present time, The R. 
N.-Y. has denounced them on an average 
of once a month for the past two years. 
If these concerns were really selling in¬ 
surance the State Insurance Department 
conld stamp out the fraud, but the de¬ 
partment has no jurisdiction over these 
easy money schemes pretending to be in¬ 
surance. 
Would like you to give me some infor¬ 
mation concerning land investment at 
Muscle Shoals through Howell Graves, 
350 Madison Ave.. New York City. 
Building lots. 40x120, are selling for 
$825. three blocks from the court house. 
Do you think it would be a safe invest¬ 
ment or a chance thing? J. s. 
New York. 
Those who speculate in lots at a dis¬ 
tance that they have never seen and know 
nothing about stand a poorer chance of 
winning than the outsider who speculates 
in Wall Street—a 100 to 1 shot. Better 
Business Bureau of New York brought 
charges of unfair practices against these 
real estate promoters some time ago. The 
charges were not sustained but as a re¬ 
sult the concern revised its advertising. 
The R. N.-Y. showed Howell & Graves 
were using the name of Henry Ford to 
promote the project without his knowl¬ 
edge or consent. The only prospect we 
see in these ventures is for people at a 
distance to lose their money. If the lots 
were any bargains the owners would not 
have to look for buyers beyond a 50-mile 
radius of the property. 
Lead goes 
out in every rainstorm 
E VERY time you put on a 
rubber raincoat and over¬ 
shoes you don some lead. When 
rain beats upon your shoulders 
and puddles of water lie in wait 
for your feet, lead helps to keep 
you dry. 
More than 10,000,000 pairs of 
rubber boots, 68,000,000 pairs of 
rubber shoes and overshoes, and 
more than 20,000,000 pairs of 
canvas shoes with rubber soles 
are made annually. 
In making your rubber foot¬ 
wear and clothing, the manufac¬ 
turer uses from 5% to 15% of 
lead in some form. 
Litharge, basic lead sulphate, 
and white-lead, all obtained from 
the metal, lead, are used in rub¬ 
ber to obtain a uniform cure and 
great toughness. Today more 
than 19,000,000 pounds of lead 
are used annually by the rubber 
industry in rubber goods such as 
rubber bath mats, rubber aprons, 
rubber jar rings, hot water bottles, 
This man is giving the farm house white-lead 
protection against the attacks of the weather. 
property adequate paint protec¬ 
tion. Such property first loses its 
freshness and attractiveness. 
Then it decays. In both cases, 
its value in the real-estate market 
drops. 
Save the surface with 
ivhitedead 
Wise farmers are today cutting 
down property repair costs and 
protecting their investments by 
more careful adherence to the 
watchword, “Save the surface 
and you save all.” They have 
learned from experience that it is 
more economical to save the sur¬ 
face with white-lead paint than 
to repair or rebuild property that 
has rotted beyond repair. White- 
lead paint is cheaper than wood. 
What the painter prescribes 
Ask the professional painter what 
gives the greatest protection to 
surfaces such as wood. He will 
tell you pure white-lead mixed 
with pure linseed oil for exterior 
painting and white-lead and flat¬ 
ting oil to give a beautiful finish 
to interior jobs. 
Painting facts by the score 
How to save the surface of wood, 
masonry or metal on your farm 
with paint—that’s what our 
“Handy Book on Painting ” tells 
you. In this book are over a 
hundred pages filled to the limit 
with essential paint facts and for¬ 
mulas. We will gladly send this 
book free at your request. 
hard and soft rubber electric in¬ 
sulation, hard rubber combs and 
pipe stems. 
Lead's most general use 
No matter to what extent lead is 
used in the rubber industry, its 
most nearly universal use is as 
paint. On every hand you see 
houses covered with white-lead to 
protect them from rot and deteri¬ 
oration and eventual destruc¬ 
tion. Nearly 350,000,000 pounds 
of white-lead are used in this 
country ou wooden and non- 
metallic surfaces annually. 
Whenever you see a house, 
barn or silo scarred and weather¬ 
beaten or actually crumbling 
away, you can assume that the 
owner has neglected to give his 
Producers of lead products 
Dutch Boy white-lead is the name 
of the pure white-lead made and 
sold by National Lead Company. 
On every keg of Dutch Boy white- 
lead is reproduced the picture of 
the Dutch Boy Painter shown 
below. This trade-mark guaran¬ 
tees a product of the highest 
quality. 
Dutch Boy products also in¬ 
clude red-lead, linseed oil, flatting 
oil, babbitt metals, and solder. 
National Lead Company also 
makes lead products for practi¬ 
cally every purpose to which lead 
can be put in art, industry and 
daily life. If you want 
information regarding 
any particular use of 
lead, write to us. 
NATIONAL LEAD COMPANY 
New York, 111 Broadway: Bo-ton, 131 State Street; Buffalo, 116 Oak Street; 
Chicago, 900 West 18th Street; Cincinnati, 659 Freeman Avenue; Cleveland, 
820 West Superior Avenue; St. Louis, 722 Chestnut Street; San Francisco, 
485 California Street: Pittsburgh, National Lead & Oil Co. of Pa., 316 
Fourth Avenue; Philadelphia, -John T. Lewis & Bros. Co., 437 Chestnut St. 
”*4rve the surface and "} 
all* f - 1/- ^ I 
: Jou save all - 
