This is a story of the most despicable graft extant. For, although it
has been broken up in Chicago, it still flourishes in nearly every
other large city in the country. It is not only despicable but it is
heinous, fiendish, unspeakable. It is the sort of a thing that causes
the blood of an honest man or of a manly rogue to boil, and long for a
chance to clutch its inventor by the throat. It is the letter-copying
scheme. Real criminals take chances on death, or the penitentiary,
and on personal encounters with those whose money they unlawfully seek
to acquire, but the vultures behind the "ads." promising lucrative
work at home content themselves with mulcting helpless invalids, aged
and infirm persons who seek to contribute to their own support and
persons whom poverty has driven to desperation, and who see in the
gilded promises of the cormorant an avenue of escape.
The public is familiar with the advertisements which constantly are
seen in the newspapers offering employment that will not necessitate
canvassing, or peddling, and which can be done in the home with great
profit. Occasionally the "ads." explain that the work is that of
copying letters.
[Illustration: AN ATTEMPT TO CATCH YOUR EYE]