Evening Republican, Volume 17, Number 11, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 January 1913 — Deadbeats of One Pattern [ARTICLE]

Deadbeats of One Pattern

Veteran Credit Man Says They All Talk Alike and Try Same Tricks.

* “Deadbeats,” remarked an old credit man, “all talk alike. They are plausible to start with,” he went on, “and are so free and easy they deceive every one but the most astute credit* man. When they are dunned the first time they make a frank and positive promise to pay on a certain date. They do this so unreservedly that suspicion Is dlmrrmca. or course they don’t pay —but they have some of the best excuses In the world. They have had a run of hard luck, for instance. If the merchant takes this well, they will ask for more credit If the merchant Is obdurate they will come back with the statement that the merchant is

"making it unnecessarily hard for them to get along by crowding them; they will hint, also, that others have been soliciting tbelr trade. “Right there is the time to come down cn them hard. Shut off their credit. Usually it is useless to sue, for such persons are Judgment proof. The next move is to let them think you have forgotten them. They always are on the watch for the man who keeps nagging them all the time, but they grow careless of the man who leaves them alone. Some day they will leave an opening so that something cat/ be attached or levied on, and then is the time to Jump in and get your money. “A favorite trick of the deadbeat is to offer his note for the account. These fellows thinji nothing of giving their notes. They would buy the continent of Asia If they could give their notes for It, knd would clean up a fortune and get out of paying tha note. Just listen to one of these deadbeats talk, remember what be aays, and when the next one strikes yon hia lanauaae will b« Identical. It la almost

as If it were the fixed ritual of their order."