Democratic Sentinel, Volume 8, Number 50, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 January 1885 — CLEVER SWINDLERS. [ARTICLE]

CLEVER SWINDLERS.

Chips from the Washington Monument. [Washington special.] A gang of sharpers have organized here for the purpose of imposing upon the public chips from the Washington monument with miniature representations of the monument, Mount Vernon, and the Capitol painted on one side. These operators have sent to the quarries in Maryland where the monument stone came from, and bought a car-load of slabs from the identical vein that the monument material was taken from. These are broken into fragments and painted, and will be sold as chips from the monument. Detectives are at work on a case which they suppose will reveal an extensive swindling operation. An advertisement has appeared in several Northern newspapers wmcn contains the names of three citizens of the District, and states that they have received an appropriation which will enable them to distribute 50,000 mementojs of the Washington monument, which they will do upon receipt of 57 cents for postage. The piece of marble to be furnished as a memento is * to have a painting upon it and to be set in a handsome plush frame.