How Matrimonial Agencies Prey on the Public--Their
Degeneration Into the Worst Forms of Crime.
$1,000,000 Secured by These Get-Rich-Quick Schemers
Discovered by Detective Clifton R. Wooldridge, Chicago's
Famous Police Detective.
125 matrimonial agencies in Chicago raided and closed in
the last five years.
4,500,000 matrimonial letters seized and destroyed.
1,500,000 matrimonial agencies' stock letters seized and
destroyed.
1,400,000 matrimonial stock photographs seized and
destroyed.
500,000 photographs sent to the matrimonial agencies by
men and women who were seeking their affinities seized and
destroyed.
40 wagon loads of matrimonial literature seized and
destroyed.
One of the most insidious forms of crime is the Matrimonial Agency.
Seemingly harmless, or at most merely foolish, is the Matrimonial
Agency at its inception.
But step by step within the past few years we have seen the
Matrimonial Agency turned into a volcano belching forth fraud,
swindling, bigamy, desertion, and finally ghastly wholesale murder.
We have seen the Matrimonial Agency sweep the whole range of the
world of crime from the petty thieving of a Carson to the almost
unbelievable horrors of the Gunness Farm.
[Illustration: THE SORROWS OF CUPID
"He Does Not See All the Rocks Ahead When He Brings Two Young People
Together"--Beatrice Fairfax.]
And this monster is hydra-headed. Stamp it out in one place and it
immediately reappears in another. Send a "manager" to prison once,
twice, ten times, and the minute the prison doors are open he is back
at the old stand doing business.
Something of the tremendous efforts being put forth to stamp out
this evil may be gained from the headlines of this story, where the
strenuous work of Detective Wooldridge of Chicago is summarized.
Chicago has been and is today infested by a formidable community of
matrimonial agencies who invade all ranks of life. They promote many
specious schemes to lure the elusive dollar from the pockets of unwary
victims. These operatives are sharp, smooth and unscrupulous--the most
dangerous of criminal perverts.
Were the census enumerators of the United States to compile a list
of the "sucker" public the gullible ones would aggregate tens of
millions. There is not a township in this great nation that does not
contain its portion of confiding persons who are ready to believe
anything, from the rankest catch-penny advertisement to a fallacy in
theological dogma.
They are willing to open up their hearts to unknown matrimonially
inclined correspondents; to accept as gospel the incredible statements
of impostors and to pay out money gained by hard toil for something
which the reason of a child should tell them it is beyond the power of
man to provide.
They are easy prey alike to religious and political impostors and
unscrupulous adventurers. Investigations for years past into the
innermost secrets of swindlers, and the observations incidental to
official experience disclosing how victims are drawn into the net of
the grafter, impel the belief that the faith of many persons passes
beyond the bounds of credulity into the domain of imbecility.
Men and women who are engaged in promoting matrimonial agencies are
guilty of crime. It is opposed to the fundamental principles of
society. Such a practice should under no circumstances be tolerated.
It is inconsistent with the highest ideals of what should constitute
the proper marriage relations.