Rensselaer Republican, Volume 26, Number 51, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 August 1894 — MIDSUMMER MADNESS. [ARTICLE]

MIDSUMMER MADNESS.

The absolute determination of a certain per cent, of the human race to be swinded out of their honest dollars by some, species or form of trickery or deception, the certainty that almost any scheme that promises phenomenally large returns from phenomenally small-investments of labor or capital will attract a certain number of human moths who flutter"into danger and get singed or perish like their insect prototypes, still continues to receive verification throughout the country. This peculiar trait in human nature has been supposed to be indigenous to the ru-. ral districts, and “Johnny Hayseed” has been the typical dupe of the typical confidence man for a generation. Recent events, however, show that the innocent agriculturalist is not alone the easy victim of the con. man’s cunning wiles. The latest exhibition of the implicit confidence of mankind in the honor of entire strangers, so necessary to a successful confidence game, was furnished by the officers of the First National Bank of Albuquerque, N. M. These ‘ ’astute” officials purchased an alleged gold brick weighing 5G6 ounces from alleged miners for SII,OOO. The bank sent the brick to the Denver mint in the usual way, and shortly after received the assayer’s report which stated that the brick was a mixture of copper and zinc without a trace of gold in its composition. As these bank officers were in the business of buying gold and silver their “greenness” may be set down as being monumental and can only be accounted for on the theory of “midsummer madness.”