Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 19, Number 99, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 August 1898 — The Latest Graft. [ARTICLE]

The Latest Graft.

Here is the latest graft worked by sharpers: A stranger rides into a neighborhood on a good bicycle and claiming to be hard up, offers to dispose of bis wheel at a very low figure, and if lie can find a purchaser, gets all the money he can out of the wheel, and leaves. In a day or so another stranger comes along on the hunt of a stolen wheel; gives number and describes it. and the purchaser has to give up the wheel as stolen property. In this way the sharpers manage to make from S2O to SSO out of a township, and then hunt other fields for their operation^.