Rensselaer Republican, Volume 27, Number 23, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 31 January 1895 — To Bent. [ARTICLE]

To Bent.

A good house in a good location. Inquire of C. E. Nowels, Rensselaer, or T. W. Grant, Remington.

Cancelled postage stamps are known to have a certain money value. They are bought up by certain established agencies, and for the most part, finally find their way to China, where the superstitioue inhabitants are aaicUtp use them in the worship of their curiously constituted gods, in treatment of diseases, &c. But whatever be their money value, and whatever be their final destination, the method adopted by one Edna Brown, of Kaneville, 111., to gather up cancelled stamps in large quantities, is very ingenious and successful and very dishonest and dishonorable. She sent out a large number of circular letters, all over the country, stating that a hospital had offered to treat a cripple, for a nfillion cancelled stamps. These circulars not only asked the recipients to send all the cancelled stamps they could to Edna Brown, but also, and here the most effective part of the scheme came in, each recipient of a circular was requested to Write and send to their friends three more

just like it. Thus it will be easily seen how rapidly these letters were likely to multiply and possess the earth. The result certainly must have exceeded Miss Brown’s wildest dreams, for the letters containing stamps have long been pouring into the little cross-roads postofflee called Kaneville, at such a rate that the postmaster working night and day can not handle them, and the neighbors for miles around have to lend their assistance. At last reports the number of these letters was 22,000 a day. The whole thing is a fraud and one of the meanest kinds of frauds too, because it depended for success upon working upon and tipis betraying, tie instincts of people for charity. We know that some of our readers have

already been taken in by this despicable scheme, and to prevent others of them be so, we have written this article; and which we can not better conclude than by republishing a letter received by a citizen of Seymour, Ind., in answer to one written to the Kaneville postmaster. The postmaster didn’t answer the letter himself, for he has no time for anything but to sort out Miss Brown’s letters, but 0. C. Dadds, of Kaneville* answered for the postmaster, and here is what he wrote:

“In reply to yours of the 17th, will say there is no cripple by the name of Miss Brown. Mrs. Brown Garman is as well as you. Neither has any institute offered to treat any cripple for any number of canceled stamps. It is a fraud and a curse to our town. Yesterday’s mail was 22,000 letters for Brown. This is a cost of S4OO per day to the public. It is time the people think twice before they further any such a scheme.”