Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 41, Number 83, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 July 1909 — TRADES COMMON TO NEW YORK. [ARTICLE]

TRADES COMMON TO NEW YORK.

Various Moans bjr Which tho Public Are Deceived. Take, for example the trade of the dealer in second h«td tombstones — not tombstones that have been taken from one grave to be sold for use on another, but stones which have been ordered and sculptured and lettered and then left on the original dealer’s hands by reason of the inability or unwillingness of the persons who ordered them to pay for the work. These stones are bought by the second hand tombstone dealer. The lettering is chiselled out, but the design is lett intact. All that the second hand man has to do is to cut new lettering. In the early spring the tre fakir is thriving upon the fad for foreign trees and shrubs. About the time the snow disappears in early spring the tree fakir takes his grubbing hoe, his pruning shears and a ball of twine and goes into the woods. There he grubs up tree sprouts—sumach, oak, ailanthus, hickory, beech, poplar, chestnut or almost anything else win serve his purpose. These h trims and prunes and ties up In bundles for removal to the place where they are to be stored. When the spring tidying up of the home garden commences the tree fakir makes his appearance in public. He will show pictures of rare Japanese or Chinese or Mexican or East Indian shrub trees and offer to supply you sprouts at a figure that is most inviting. You see an opportunity to get a plant worth S4O for $3, and then you think of the envy that queer, rea leafed, wide spreading bush will excite in the breast of your neighbor—and you buy. By and by you shout with joy and call your wife out to see the tipy leaves and then you begin to brag and look down upon your neighbors. You invite them in to see the wonder, and you talk learnedly of horticulture in Japan or the East Indies. And then your glorious tree bursts into, leaf —when you discover that you have bought an ordinary common, everyday sumach or a maple, or perhaps a scrawny little peach tree. Then you lie in wait for that tree.fakir, to do things to him, and you meet with another disapointment. He doesn’t come around any more. Few people are familiar with the professional pigeon thief. He is another oddity who caldom is heard of. He is known to the caterers of cheap table d’hote restaurants, because it is to them that he sells the product ol' his thievery; but., while they buy of him, few, if any, among them know how lie gets his birds, much less that they are stolen. Like the street fakir, the professional pigeon thief often makes a change of quarters —not, however, so much because he fears detection as to get around to those places where pigeons are most plentiful. Unlike the tree fakir, he can go over the same route year after, year with little fear of detection. Ordinarily the pigeon thief rents quarters on the top floor in a section where pigeons are plentiful. That, gives him access to the roof, and on the rcoi he sets up a pigeon cote for his pet tumblers. His cote is like any other, except that it is provided with spring doors. The tumbler pigeons are I

decoys. He anoints the tips of their wings and tails with aniseed oil, ana when the pigeons from other cotes are swarming he throws his pets into the air, and they soar aloft to mingle with the stranger birds. The scent of the aniseed attracts the strangers, and they follow the decoys. By and by the-tumblers sail home to tfaeir ~cote-with a flock of —strange

pigeons in their wake. The decoys enter the cote. After a chattering consultation one of the strangers gets as far as the door. The side jambs of this have been anointed with anise also, and the pioneer stops to ruffle his feathers and rub them against the anointed spots. Then the other strangers see what the first is doing and crowd up. There is a stronger scent of anise from inside the cote, and they scramble in, one after another, pell-mell. Then the spring is touched, the door flies shut and they are prisoners. At his leisure the pigeon thief kills and plucks them, and takes them to This oplration is repeated as long as there are any stranger pigeons in the neighborhood to follow the decoys home. There are men who, after a week’s observation, will undertake to rearrage the most complex office systems "for a consideration,” and give you advice “free, gratis, for nothing.” As drowning men catch at straws, so do men whose affairs are hopelessly an inextricably muddled grasp at the chance these gentlemen hold out to them. The professional "business adviser” has plenty of clients, and nine times out of ten his advice to his employer is to "mate assignment for the benefit of your creditors.” It is the safest counsol be can give.