Rensselaer Union, Volume 11, Number 35, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 May 1879 — Defrauded Out of Pensions. [ARTICLE]

Defrauded Out of Pensions.

Those who are interested in the securing of bounties and back pay from the government will be interested but pnined, to learn that it is reported that widows and heirs of dead Union soldiers hLve been defrauded out of hundreds of thousands of dollars by claim agents who swarm in Washington. These rascally fellows would secure an original power of attorney to prosecute a claim, and then, it is said, forge all the other papers necessary to collect the money. In many instance* the victims would live a distance from the Capital, and would be put off under one pretext or another until the time fixed by the law for the payment of the claims had expired, when thw agent would suddenly cease all correspondence and there the game would end. Last woek three men were arrested In New York for collecting bounty money on (brand papers. To head off the injury thus Joan to innocent clients, a bill ban been Introduced in the United Slates sonata, providing that widows and minor belra of doceased Union soldiers, who havo been defrauded of the bounty and arrears es pay due them by means of forgeries perpetrated by their attorneys or other persons, shall, when such forgeries have beea the result of no fault or uegligeuce on tbe part of tho claimants, be paid the amounts equitably due them .—Prairie Farmer, j. _