born every minute” is so true that the task of educating them all to
the folly of entertaining get-rich-schemes is quite beyond the power
of even a wise man. The shortest and safest rule for self protection
against misrepresentation is “Don’t do it in a hurry.” Take your time;
if the proposition is good it will keep for a day or so; besides it
will bear full investigation. If you are considering the investment
of any sum of money in somebody’s else scheme don’t be too proud or
stubborn to seek the advice of a man of large affairs and unquestioned
integrity--your banker, for instance, or your legal adviser. If you
have no relations with either of these professions consult your
friend. Anyway, take it easy, take it easy and don’t swallow the
hook at one gulp. This will be especially difficult to avoid if
your cupidity be aroused, provided, of course, you be burdened with
such excess emotional baggage. If you make wagers with strangers or
casual acquaintances you are a candidate for the mourner’s bench, and
sometimes all your regrets and the best efforts of the police are of
no avail to bring back a single dollar of your loss. You simply pay so
much money for so little experience, which may be likened to a mule’s
kick, not being worth anything when acquired.
As for pickpockets know these things: If you must carry money on your
person carry it in an inside vest pocket, or nearer in yet if possible.
And don’t keep your hand on it, nor feel of it every once in a while
to see if it is still there, lest a pickpocket observe your concern
is solicitous and shortly cause you to learn that it is not there but
elsewhere; just where no man may be able to inform you.
Avoid crowds if you carry money on your person and do not be too
eager in the press when boarding or alighting from street cars, when
leaving a theatre or other public gathering, or when seeking a vantage
point at a fire or other unusual spectacle. For it is in these places
that they do it. It may be your house rent, or your entire savings,
or your employer’s or your friend’s money that you are carrying, but
if you must carry money don’t exhibit it nor get in a jamb. If you
observe these suggestions the only opportunity the pickpocket will
find to relieve you of valuables will be when you are intoxicated or
hypnotized. Women who carry money in a hand purse or bag on the street,
especially at night or in crowded places, run an even greater risk
of loss than do men, for there are ten amateur pickpockets, maybe a
score, to every one who by practice has acquired the skill necessary to
extract valuables from the person, and the amateurs operate on women
chiefly, finding little difficulty in opening a hand bag and extracting
a purse therefrom in a jamb. The fairs and carnivals on the Pacific
Coast in 1915 will call many of these gentry from the East.
Greater familiarity with the ways of criminals could be acquired if
the department of public safety were provided with the means for
organizing and maintaining a publicity bureau whose operatives should
be charged with the duties of developing measures for preventing crime
by circulating all the information available upon the subject. Against
this proposal will be offered the objection that too many are already
familiar with criminal methods. On the contrary, though, the fact of
the matter is that too few are prepared by foreknowledge of the proper
means for defeating the propagation of criminal actions.
The present system maintained by each community leans more toward
a cleansing of the locality of criminals by “floating” them off to
another locality than it does toward either prevention or permanent
suppression of criminals. These delinquent ones are as much the
nation’s wards as are the hundred-odd thousand dependent Indians or
the insane. While a great step in advance of old customs has been
taken by the adoption of the indeterminate sentence law, so long as
the individual who has repeatedly demonstrated his propensities for
moral obliquity is merely restrained and not improved both physically
and intellectually just that long will he continue to be a thorn in
the side of law-abiding society. And he will not be improved until you
demand that he shall. When a man’s principles and actions square with
each other you are impotent to convince him of his wrongness and your
rightness; and if punishment, the punishment of confinement, cannot
awaken a higher feeling of responsibility in the convict how can you
hope to eradicate his evil by hiding it from your sight, by consigning
him to a living limbo? This accusation against society’s present
methods could not be made without fear of refutation if it could be
shown that the ratio of criminals to population has diminished in the
past fifty years. But it has increased rather than diminished, which
points out the fact that there is a palpable flaw in the system of
apprehending, convicting and imprisoning criminals at such tremendous
expense. A sincerer effort must be made to lift up the delinquent if
lasting good is to come from our peace measures within the house.
MODERN PRINTING CO.
PORTLAND, OREGON
Transcriber’s Note
Some words are clearly typos, and those appear in the list of
corrections below. But some words are clearly malapropisms or even
unique constructions, , which have been left as in the original.
All footnotes are the transcriber’s explanations for odd usage or
missing cross-referenced items.
Missing punctuation, such as missing opening or closing quotes, has
been silently corrected.
Font representation
• Italic text represented by _underlines_
• Small caps converted to ALL CAPS
Corrections
• p. 9: typo _stimullation_ corrected to _stimulation_
• p. 11: change _over-head_ to _overhead_ to make usage consistent
• p. 15: change _PUTEMUP_ to _PUT-EM-UP_ to match the cross-referenced
entry
• p. 15: change _SMOKEWAGON_ to _SMOKE WAGON_ to match the
cross-referenced entry
• p. 18: typo _unitiated_ corrected to _uninitiated_
• p. 18: typo _complimentary_ corrected to _complementary_
• p. 21: added _BUMP OFF_ to match a cross reference
• p. 26: change _saw-buck_ to _sawbuck_ to make usage consistent
• p. 26: change _jack-pot_ to _jackpot_ to make usage consistent
• p. 27: typo _physyician_ corrected to _physician_
• p. 27: typo _BRAKES_ corrected to _BREAKS_ (changed the title to
match the usage of the example text)
• p. 34: changed _TWIST_ to _TWISTED_ to match the cross-referenced
entry
• p. 37: changed _RINGERS_ to _RINGER_ to match the cross-referenced
entry
• p. 38: typo _SNEEZEZD_ corrected to _SNEEZED_
• p. 41: typo _construtcive_ corrected to _constructive_
• p. 41: changed _YEN-YEN_ to _YEN YEN_ for consistency
• p. 44: changed _BOOST_ to _BOOSTER_ to match the cross-referenced
entry
• p. 45: changed _FLUZY_ to _FLUZIE_ to match the cross-referenced
entry
• p. 47 and 48: changed _JACK POT_ to _JACKPOT_ to match the
cross-referenced entry
• p. 52: changed _HOOK_ to _HOOKS_ to match the cross-referenced
entry
• p. 57: typo _gratituous_ corrected to _gratuitous_
• p. 61: typo _throuh_ corrected to _through_
• p. 74: changed _RINGERS_ to _RINGER_ to match the cross-referenced
entry
• p. 75: changed _RAPPED_ to _RAP_ to match the cross-referenced
entry
• p. 76: changed _ear-ring_ to _earring_ to make usage consistent
• p. 81: typo _snonym_ corrected to _synonym_
• p. 81: changed _NECK_ to _NECKING_ to match the cross-referenced
entry
• p. 85: changed _noncriminal_ to _non-criminal_ to make usage
consistent
• p. 86: changed _pocket-book_ to _pocketbook_ to make usage
consistent
• p. 86: typo _Se_ corrected to _She_
• p. 95: typo _Pizzaro_ corrected to _Pizarro_
• p. 100: typo _secruity_ corrected to _security_