A WARNING TO CYCLISTS.

Evening Post, Volume LVI, Issue 72, 22 September 1898, Page 4

A WARNING TO CYCLISTS.

»■ Among tbe many services rendered to the public by Mr. Labouchere in the pages of Truth, none have been more effective than his exposure of what is known as the " snowball.'' Shortly put, a "snowball" is a subscription-list started by some one in the interest of a real or supposed charity. The subscriber not only subscribes himself, but engages to procure say two others, who each subscribe and get'two others to do the same, and so on ad infinitnm. A good example of the snowball is recorded in the papers received by Saturday's mail, and is worth quoting. A young lady in a United Slates town desired to collect funds for the Red Cross Sooiety in the war lately elosad. She started the ball rolling by getting four

friends to give her ]0 cents, and each to J write to four others to make the same ■ contribution, aud 6o on. Her success was i greater than she anticipated, or, indeed, desired. After a few days the letters came to her in dozens, in a week by hundreds, increasing dfiy by day until they came literally in thousands. The Post Office staff in the town in which she lived had to be augmented by several clerks, and the letters were delivered into clothes baskets or barrels. Her parents' house — a large one — was inundated, and family and friends were turned into the damsel's secretaries to open tbe envelopes and enter the sums sent. Already 125^000 Jefcters have been reoeived, and the cry is "Still they come." The postage alone on these amounts to £500. This is an exceptionally favourable sample of the system and its possibilities. It was shown in the columns of Truth that some snowballs honestly started had realised far more than was needed for the purpose desired, that some of the supposed charitable objects were really fictitious, and that the system opened the door to innumerable abuses and frauds. Once a snowball ia started there is practically no end tfo it. The originator of the well-meant plan mentioned above was punished, with all her family and friends, by being subjected, to weeks of hard work in place of the one or two afternoons' amusement she had doubtless promised herself. In dishonest hands the scheme becomes a gigantic fraud. A peculiarly insidious variety of this snowball system has, we understand, been set afoot in the colony, and is proposed to be I introduced into Wellington. It is in con- j nection with bicycles, and is called the coupon system. It is worked in this way : A coupon is issued, for which 4s is charged. This coupon entitles the holder to purchase i for £2 a certificate entitling him to a bicycle on condition of his disposing of ten coupons. He sells the ten coupons for 4s each, thus recouping his £2, and leaving his net expenditure the original 4s. The purchasers of the 10 coupons each pay £2, receiving in exchange a certificate and 10 coupons, and on selling their coupons get their bicycles, aud so it goes on. By way of illustration, let us suppose that a young fellow in a factory wants a bicycle, and has saved up £,2 or so with the intention of buying a machine on the instalment plan. He hears of the coupon S3'stem, and goes to see the promoter and make enquiries. As a result he pays 4s for a coupon, which he hands back together with £2, receiving in exchange a certificate and 10 other coupons. He disposes of these among his fellowworkers for 4s a piece. The holders of the coupons follow the example of No. 1, and send £2 each to the agency, receiving certificates and coupons in exchange. No. 1 now gets his bicycle, which is thus paid for by the fi2o paid by I the ten coupon-holders, and the £2 paid by himself; but as he has received £2 by selling the coupons, his machine costs him onty the 4s he originally paid. The ten coupon-holders, spurred on by seeing No. 1 in possession of his wheel, now set to work among their friends, fellow Foresters or Oddfellows, cricket or athletic clubs, to sell their 100 coupons. AYe may suppose they succeed, and the third set of coupon-holders act in the same way. On the fourth turnover 1000 coupons are in the field, and it is pretty safe to say that no firm in the colony holds a stock of 1000 bicycles. If they are found, they are paid for by the fifth set of purchasers, who, having paid £22,000 for other people's machines, will naturally want to be supplied in turn. Here the fraud becomes palpable. The longer the scheme works the larger the number that get " left." There is not sufficient population in the colony to carry the plan out to its seventh term. The old familiar problems of doubling the nails in the horse's shoes or the ears of corn on the chess-board are trifling compared with the figures in this coupon system. There are not enough people on the face of the globe to enable the tenth set of holders to place their coupons. As a plan of this kind, if once established, is likely to deal a severe blow at legitimate trading, it is essential to check it at the outset. The snowball in its original form was proved to be practically interminable, although the motive which impelled it was comparatively weak, selfinterest not being affected. The motive might be supposed to get weaker and weaker, like the ripples caused by a stone in the water, the further it got away from the centre. But the coupon variety of the ball gathers strength in going. A substantial return for the original investment is the inducement held out, and the longer the scheme goes on the wider and deeper will be the disappointment when the scheme collapses, as it eventually must. Fraud is of the essence of the contract, as there must come a time when the terms of the bargain cannot be fulfilled. The matter is one in which the police might well make enquiries, with a view of checking this ingenious and pernicious scheme before many persons have been victimised.