Rensselaer Republican, Volume 17, Number 28, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 March 1885 — A New Gang of Swindlers. [ARTICLE]

A New Gang of Swindlers.

Valparaiso Messenger. * “When the robins nest again” will be the signal for the usual campaign of swindlers and dead beats. Every year the list of these fellows and their schemes grows larger UDtil to enumerate them all would require columns of space. There are a few old staml-bys-the lightning rod man, the roof painter, the cloth peddler, the Bohemian Oats fiend, the .patent wagon-tongue rogue, the “best-gate-ever-manufac-tured” swindler, and, hundreds of others are of common occurrence -and it is a very backward spring when they do not begin operations about the middle of March or the first of April. The people have been warned time and again of these swindlers but it is all the same and new nibble the bait just as voraciously as did those of the year before. Already the lightning rod man has made his appearance in some localities and is, as usual, rodding buildings for all they are worth. At Shelbyville, says a reoent dispatch, several gangs have lately been working and a new gang has lately come in. Only a few days ago a prominent farmer near the town, named John Walker, was caught for S2OB, and Mr. Walker was glad to compromise for $155. This is too old to warn people against. They who bite now do it after repeated warnings. But there is a new swindle in this part of the ceuntry to which we desire to call attention. This new gang are selling the “Great South American Cuban Corn”. The swindle is being worked in several ways, and is said to be about as slick as the Bohemian Oats business. Just what this new swindle is we cannot say but farmers will do well not to give thp Cuban Com business a trial. Foe several years past Stanley Bay. a machinist employed in the Delaware Lackawanna and Western Railroad shops at Holster ville, Pa., had been complaining of excessive pains in the stomach. Physicians’ prescriptions did him no good, and some time ago he was compelled to quit work, and since that he has been confined to the house. As a last resort he took a dote of warm medicine. Directly afterward he was relieved of twenty-five crabs of the water species and a milk snake thirteen inches in length. He is improving rapidly, and the doctors are discussing the crabs and the situation. Bay says that about two yean ago he drank from a well in the dark) and probably swaUrwod tfeo srtbt MMI •ukb thru, . . ...... •