As in the horse swindles, the older investors were paid their
dividends from funds sent in by new ones. No attempt was made to win
dividends in the market. As the gullibility of the "suckers" became a
little dulled, innovations to increase the plausibility of the schemes
were made and new forms of bait devised.
"Turf swindles" have flourished, while the victims, who number tens
of thousands, dare not raise their voices in protest or complaint,
well knowing that they would not only be the butt of ridicule in their
community, but also that the world at large would rather rejoice
at their losses, and courts and juries would probably waste little
sympathy on them. Consequently the safest swindles operated today are
those having race-track betting for their basis.
In the latter part of 1902 there were upwards of twenty-five of these
schemes in operation in the United States. New York City was the
headquarters for about ten, and the balance were located in St. Louis,
Chicago, New Orleans, San Francisco, Cincinnati and Brooklyn.
Their prosperity was evidenced by the ability of managers to buy
advertising space in the leading newspapers, to pay the printers
for the most elaborate booklets, circulars, etc., and Uncle Sam for
postage stamps, with which they were extremely liberal, usually
sending a stamped envelope, for reply, to prospective investors.
Extracts which I give below from the literature of five of these
concerns offer a fair criterion for the whole mass which I have before
me, and demonstrate the turf swindlers' method of extracting money
from the unsophisticated. Fully 25 per cent of their "investors" are
women, while the whole number who contribute to their scheme is made
up of persons who would not be seen betting at a race track or pool
room, but who have consciences that will permit them to make money
"honestly or otherwise."
[Illustration: WHO SAID I LOST TWENTY DOLLARS?]