A few attempts have been made to prosecute the swindlers, but for the
most part the local officials have failed. In but few instances have
the victims been able to give anything like intelligent statements of
the representations made to them. Where the right sort of agents have
been used the people who have lost their money have not awakened to
the fraud passed upon them. A few Pecksniffian tears have deluded them
into the belief that the swindlers as well as themselves were victims
of some third party who is in another state and out of reach.
Where cases have been brought to trial it has been a difficult matter
for juries to understand how the persons aggrieved could have been
caught with the sort of chaff thrown to them, and there has been
little disposition to show charity for the victims. Then, too, the men
hauled before the courts have always made it appear they were in the
same boat with the complaining witness, and that the culprit was many,
many miles away. So, usually, they have escaped.