Rensselaer Union and Jasper Republican, Volume 8, Number 32, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 April 1876 — A New Swindling Dodge Practiced at Boston. [ARTICLE]

A New Swindling Dodge Practiced at Boston.

Some three weeks since a man giving the name of Robert Baldwin obtained lodgings at house 37 Sterling street, and advertised in one of the daily papers that he had SO,OOO to loan. This announcement brought a large number of borrowers, old and young, male and female, to his lodgings, when he disclosed his plan as follows: An applicant was asked to state his or her security, real estate security being required. The generous lender had of course no doubt of the eligibility of the property offered to warrant the loan, but he was a stranger and must convince himself that the titles of the offered property were correct and what they should be. To obtain this information it would be necessary to employ a lawyer to search the records, etc., and the applicant must leave a small sum to pay the fee the limb of the law would require. To this plausible story the foolish money-seekers gave ready credence, and in almost every case left from five to thirty dollars to be appropriated in this way. They were informed that when the lawyer had reported their titles valid, the money would be at once forthcoming. On the Ist day of April Mr. Baldwin “stepped down and out,” andon the following Monday, by appointment, his vicitims began to call for their money, and—they have been calling ever since. Five dollars, $lO, sls, sl4, S3O. S2O, were successively represented by persons who had lost some one of these sums. The most aggravated case was that of a poor woman in West Somerville, whose house the scoundrel had visited on the very day of his disappearance, as he had stated. This woman, when she first called upon the socalled Baldwin had paid him eight dollars as a retainer. On the day he called upon her, as she was in want of a large sum, he took from her SIOO worth of jewelry and books, and this was the bundle he brought home with him. The unfprtunate woman is in despair. The victims of the swindle are of all classes, from the mechanic with a few dollars to the merchants with thousands, and included many business men who were considered shrewd operators. Mr. Baldwin is probably an old hand at the business, and without doubt is operating in the same line in pastures new elsewhere. He is described as a man about forty-six years of age, with false teeth, jet black hair, slightly tinged with gray, and was of ..middling height, with square, broad shoulders, and a trick of swinging his arms vigorously when he walked.--Boa-ton Globe.

The well-known plant, spartianthus junceus, has been lately utilized, in Southern Europe, in the manufacture of textile fabrics, its fiber is said to be capable of indefinite subdivision, and hence suitable for the finest cloths; it retains heat, and may, therefore, supply the jplace of wool; it is a good absorbent, and takes the most delicate dyes with the same facility as do animal textile materials; it successfully resists tlte action of acids and of salt water, without undergoing any change or losing its tenacity, as has been satisfactorily proved by its immersion for a whole month in diluted sulphuric acids, etc.; its strength is also found to lie one-third greater than that of hemp, and it is thirteen* per cent, lighter —so that, with fifteen per cent, less of raw material a rope may be obtained, the relative strength of which, compared with one made of hemp, is as of three to two. The Fifth Ward German school in Allentown, Pa., has been closed by the directors until further orders, because “ some of th» scholars, half-grown boys, are so ill-behaved and boisterous in their conduct in the school-room during recitations that it is Impossible to impart instruction understandingly to those schbl-, ars who behave themselves properly.” A> .leather manufacturer at Salem, Mass.,' has recently shipped nine tons (about 4,000 sides) of kip leather.to England. He bad sent 9,000 sides previously.