The Vain Wish that Lures Men and
Women Into the Snares of
the Designing.
[Part of an article lately printed in the New
York World.]
Take a cursory glance over the daily
newspapers. On almost every page can
he found accounts of persons who have
sacrificed everything—honor, position,
good name, liberty, even the money they
have acquired by the hardest kind of
work—just in the vain attempt to get
something for nothing.
Or else, if this is not so, why do so
many of the get-rich-quick schemes
flourish like a green bay tree?
Even the “Spanish prisoner'’ swindle
works well yet. For ten years there
hasn’t been a week when another new
dupe has not told his story in the news
papers.
It was only the other day that a New
Yorker sued the Western Union Tele
graph Company because it refused to
deliver $400 to “Don Luis Rodriguez
Ohliger,” in Madrid. Just for that tri
fling amount “Don Luis Rodriguez’’was
making the New Yorker guardian of his
14-year-old daughter, who was to get
three-quarters of his vast estate; the
New Yorker was to get the other quarter
just for his kindness.
The telegraph company very kindly
held up the cabled $-100 until “J.)on Luis”
could be identified. Just for that the
company was taken to task by the New
Yorker’s lawyer. Client and attorney
both declared that such an unwarranted
act had jeopardized the New Yorker’s
chances of a large inheritance. Fiddle
sticks!
Isn’t it money hunger all right? Or,
are we just going crazy?
Take the case of Mrs. Caroline Flower,
in the Tombs for stealing from hotels.
It is believed that money hunger has
unbalanced the poor woman. So her
mother says, at any rate.
Mrs. Flower was a music teacher and
doing very well. The dollars came her
way and she saved every one. Finally
she had enough saved to pay a first in
stalment on a studio apartment house at
No. 22o West Eighty-third street. Then
came her dream of wealth.
Every penny she could scrape together
went toward paying off the mortgage
and interest on the apartment house.
Her only dream in life was to get entire
possession of the property. At first she
rented the apartments unfurnished, but
gradually she came to realize.that if she
could furnish the apartments she could
gather a greater revenue and pay off the
mortgage the more quickly.
Mrs. Flower was tempted. She called
herself Thelma Paulson and took a posi
tion as a maid at the St. Regis. Piece
by piece she stole to furnish her studios.
A sheet here, a towel there; silver one
day and a set of glasses the next, she
gradually furnished the rooms. She
told the janitress that she had bought
the marked things in the pawn shops.
From one hotel to another she went,
stealing right and left. Because of her
refinement she was thought to be a gen
tlewoman who had met reverses.
At the studios she was Mrs. Flower,
owner of the building, rich and culti
vated. At the hotel she wore cap and
apron and answered the calls of the
patrons. She worked in the rooms of
the rich, filching where she could. Only
chance caught her. She had disappeared
from the St. Regis and the house de
tective looked up her references to see if
she could be found. Then, to his amaze
ment, he discovered that the reference,
Mrs. Caroline Flowei, of No. 225 West
Eiglity-third street, was none other than
the missing Thelma. She had given her
self as her own reference She had even
: left her husband, it turned out, because
she thought they could live more cheaply
! apart and thus give her more money to
. buy the coveted apartment house.
And now she is ruined, disgraced, in
I prison!
And take the case of Felix, the rich
importer, lie has a handsome home in
Princeton, N. J., and a place of business
at No. 38 East Twenty-first street. Rut
he wanted wealth quickly, or rather, he
wanted to add more quickly to his for
tune than the proceeds of everyday
bu-iness could do. Mr. Felix is an im
porter of musical instruments, and a
man of refinement and education.
For all this, he tried gambling as a
means to satisfy his money hunger. He
droped $35,000 at one place, Lou Lud
lum’s, and $15,000 at another. One of
his acquaintances over the roulette ta
ble sympathized deeply and called upon
the despondent importer.
He was Mr Charles Mason, business
man, but in reality he was Christopher
J. Tracey, swindler. He suggested that
they tap the wires of the Western Union
Telegraph Company and in a single hour
make themselves rich beyond the dreams
of avarice by beating the pool rooms.
Felix was agreeable.
Mason took him to a place in West
Twenty-second street, where there were
ail sorts of instruments and telephones,
and loud cries of “Place $50,000 for Mr.
Vanderbilt,” and “Double Mr. Oates’s
bet for him.” Busy men in shirtsleeves
ran hither and yon, instruments ticked
off messages and operators with their
ears t<> ’phones did business in fabulous
I amounts.
It was explained to 51 r. Felix that
this was the racing department of the
Western Union. It took ten minutes,
his friend added, to get the results of
the races to the pool rooms, and that in
those precious few minutes he could
learn the name of the winner, put up
his money, land his bet and cash in, all
within a half hour.
Felix was delighted. He went to his
bank and drew out $50,000 in crisp new
bills. His wire-tapping friend took him
to a broker's office in the Fifth Avenue
Hotel and there introduced him to an
other man, who was cashier for Maho
ney & Co., bookmakers—at least that
was what he said.
He bet on Old Stone because the wire
tappers had told him the horse had won
the third race at New Orleans and that
the news had been held back He gave
his $50,000 to the cashier and waited.
“Old Stone wins!” announced the
cashier.
• mey tom me unit uiu ©tone nau
; won,” explained Felix at Tracey’s trial
the other day, “and I was just as happy
l as anybody around the Fifth Avenue
Hotel. Then they told me there had
| been a mistake in the horse’s colors,and
that Old Stone had run second. I wasn’t
| so happy, and they told me that I had
been told to play Old Stone second.”
Tracey was convicted the other day
upon his trial. Mr. Felix testified
| against him.
“You went into a scheme to deliber
| ately beat the pool rooms?” queried the
! defendant’s counsel.
I “Well,” admitted Mr. Felix, “they
S. E. HEETER.
HARRY BURRUSS.
FREIGHTERS and PACKERS
Freigliting and Packing to and from all (’rocks.
Good Equipments and Service Unexcelled
JL
told me to lay aside my conscience and
lthought 1 could/’
Such is money hunger.
Perhaps it is best defined by John S.
Strosnider, cantidence man, gambler
and philosopher, who recently figured
in the newspapers. Said lie:
“Little Old New York is the place par
excellence to exercise one’s ingenuity
upon the criminally unsophisticated. I
am willing to go on record as stating
that no man who has been duped by
myself or other men on the outlook for
other people’s money through the prac
tice of my particular specialty would
have been so mulcted unless he had
larceny in his thoughts. First find a
victim who has no scruples against do
ing other people; then do him.”
This is real philosophy. One man
comes to town to buy counterfeit money
and is robbed. He expected to cheat
others because of his overmastering
money hunger and is cheated himself.
The man who goes into the wire-tapping
game expects to cheat others, but is
himself cheated. Then he goes to the
police with a pitiful tale of how his
partners have robbed him. The man
who thinks he can cheat at cards or at
the races on some “sure thing” just
misses cheating some one because he
himself is cheated.
New Yorkers fall every year to the
crooked mining scheme — the bogus
stock, the “salted” mine.
Take Cassie Chadwick and her money
hunger. On mythical securities she
got more than $2,000,000 from men and
banks. She was clever enough to make
her dupes believe that they were going
to dupe others themselves. Her loans
were always secured by giving a consid
eration for the favor. The banker who
lent Mrs. Chadwick $“>0,000 of his bank's
money thought he was doing her when
he got a bonus of $10,000 for the loan.
Instead she pocketed the $40,000 and
was content. The people who gave her
jewels, autos, bric-a-brac, on credit,
overcharged her because they thought
she was gullible. But she got the goods
and let them whistle for their big bills.
One man, Iri Reynolds, whom she
ruined, had left of all his big fortune
just $311. She borrowed $300 of it to
come to New York to get money to pay
him back. At last accounts he still had
the $11. But Mrs. Chadwick is in
prison and doesn’t need it.
Take the murders here in New York
due to money hunger. There was Albert
T. Patrick, for instance, who has been
convicted of killing old miser Rice, after
forging a will and forging checks for big
sums. Today Patrick is still lighting for
hi£ life.
And the mysterious death of old Mrs.
Todd, the eccentric, who was found dead
on the railway tracks after announcing
that she intended changing her will. Or
the shooting of Bartley T. Horner by the
Fifth avenue dentist, l)r. J. \Y. Simpson.
Old man Horner was about to change
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his will when his son-in-law, the dentist,
shot and killed him with a shotgun.
“Accident,” said Dr. Simpson. But
he is awaiting trial for murder.
Look at Robert J. Ammon, college
graduate and lawyer. His money hunger
has landed him in Sing Sing, together
with his partner, “520 Per Cent” Miller.
Ammon would have been free today had
he given just a tithe of their stealings to
Miller’s wife, who was starving. But
Ammon wanted it all, and Miller
“peached” for revenge.
[ With them in state’s prison are a
goodly company of men whose educa
tional advantages fitted them for lives
of usefulness, but whose careers were
ruined by money hunger—the foolish
striving after something for nothing.]