MAKING MONEY OUT OF MELONS

NZ Truth, Issue 889, 9 December 1922, Page 5

MAKING MONEY OUT OF MELONS

TAKEN IN BY TRICKS AND TRAPS

D.II. to Tabloid Wfci.kej

NEVER RUSH A GOOD THING

Time was when the "Truth" man, with the office pen for the moment lived m parts where gardens really flourish, where the Spring comes on as the onion grows and the parsnips stay stored where the seed went m, and then h& knew, well enough the sprouting of the seed tomato and the pruning of the potato plant. But there is' nothing rural about.; the six-by-eight Wellington section he lives on how. and his gardening interest gets no further than the healthy varieties which will push up between the concrete. -His old interest woke up again" this , rooming, . when an advertisement clipped from another weekly, together with a note from the man who had answered that advert, and goods ,that were . supposed, to represent his (moneys worth, were placed upon hlB office table; Interest m terras of melon*; There are two main varieties of melons, the garden-grown and the human melon, the man who is grown to be taken In by the minor ■"Walling-, fords and other get-rich-quiqk artists who catch them with a nicely-worded two-Inch advertisement. But all who answer \ two -inch adverts, are hot m the melon class, some of them are lronbarks, and then the shrewd man gets a knock.

The advertisement laid on the table rpads: , / ijTHE FIGHTING DOLLS. J These Will Astonish Tour Friends. Anyone Can Work Them. ' For details and instructions send. postal note for 2s. : ■ ' '.-■ Verily they will surprise anyone's friends, a roan's worst enemy, would raise a hearty laugh, particularly when he heard that they had coat two shillings. The man who paid for them would be no less surprised,' though. he might not be exactly amused ; or be able to praise himself upon & bargain driven home. There is nothing of the . Dempsey-Carpentter style about these fighting dolls, In fact one WOULD NOT RECOGNISE THEM for what they are stipposed to be but for the headline upon tho Bheet of badly-written directions— ln pencil— which came down from the shrewdy manufacturer with them. A couple of clothes pegs, sawn off, just above tho prongs, one rubbed over vrith a elckly green ptvlnt, <v muddy melon eblour r and the other a nasty dead flesh pink, four strips of tin, moderately rusty, tacked on In pairs for legs and swinging none too freely, and two more longer strips for armß, tacked- slap across from peg to peg. The game, the amusement, the main astonishment (for the friends, the buyer already having had his little lot) Is to tie two lengths of cotton, which are not supplied, through the two holes punched with a nail In the tin arms and dandle the affair about. Simple In sooth, 'as simple as the man who would be content to, buy those dolls and bo content with < them. How many of these contraptions this Wallingford has swapped for people's money he may knoW; this office does not but a fairly generous estimate gives him a trifling profit of something over 1200 per cent, on outlay, and If he uses busted pegs and picks up his kerosene tins on vacant sections, the hundreds may run Into thousands maybe. Those dolls were a SUPREMELY CLUMSY TAKEDOWN, but other little schemes In the past— leaving out bis; business like lake land for sale and gold brick companies of a hundred kinds — have gone ahead with great success for months toother because they wore neat and did not catch enough m any single drag to raine a fuss worth noticing. The brightest of them, as far as th© "Truth" man knows just now. was worked off In a South Island- town by a visitor from overseas who settled down Just long enough to be Interested m Bible class work and Blblo class workers. His was the mail order system, and he ohose hi«s customers from Bible class rolls and caught them with tho very (roods they needed most Just how his folder circular, each one sent through the post, ran Is forgotten for the moment, but It started with a nourish of addresses to "The Young .Man and Young Woman of New Zoa'land." and enlarged on the Joys . and thrllln of life abroad where undue control and pi>sty convention were put aside for those who tlkod them, and ended with a nulot hint thnt for 6s 6d the young man or younp woman could jmther a very fnlr Idea of the complete Hf<? and run no risks nothwlthatandInir. Apply P.O. Box such and such. The custom was ORKAT FOR ONE WEEK, and on tjift Saturday tho Angln.FYnnro Rnol( Company w«»nt alona to fh» h'^dlnt; Jornl hnoksotlcr and Souuhf up a« many nln«>pnnny Bible* nn h« hr»A *!* rtnii jMx<*i» •-■ont th^m through

the post, and caught a train for elsewhere.: Did he deliver the goods? The, AJ. flykiiler • cannot be sold again Just yet 'awhile, but it still has a few more 'centuries to run under that or another title, and will come back again as long as flies fly. There arS two parts to tliis killer, generally posted for a single- shilling: Block A, through which two holes are bored for the threading of a length of tape, and Block B. Directions: Tie fly securely on block A, apply block B, press hard. It kills flies without a shadow of doubt, yet does not altogether satisfy the man with flies to kill, The guaranteed flea, fly, bus and beetle exterminator that must be fed by hand is older than the A3. killer and & great deal more annoy tog, but U stUl upon the hooks. Then there Is the smart man who buys a shilling bar of laundry soap and outs off sixty smaller bar§, still at a shilling, and finds lots of folks with costumes that need cleaning, but only X be spends sixpence or a little more oh a gross of cardboard packages and a Uttle ,more on . printed directions and testimonials. A good scheme for the man who hawks it, . Every now and then the CHAIN AND BLOUSE SHIRT . FRAUD rears its head and someone gets away with a pot of money. It costs a few shillings for printing, but advertises along its own lines and brings m the • shekels by the bushel till the coast looks dirty and the blouse and shirt king: moves himself The idea is. a cross between the chain prayer, the drapery business and plain robbery* Smith, gets to hear about the brilliant plan whereby he can have a blouse for his wife or his best girl or a shirt for himself If he knows no woman folk, which is quite unlikely, for two shillings and a very little trouble. All that he has to do is to swap his money for a coupon and then hand ;out four more coupons, which cost him nothing, to four friends of his. The slips all bear directions, and 'all the four friends have to do is to send m their two boba— -tpn shillings for the blouse specialist by that time — and each hand out the four free coupons supplied; to them to four friends of theirs, and the sixteen of them send in> more postal notes — 12s m hand by that time — and then the first man gets his parcel. By that time the scheme is really under way and there are Lord knows how many coupons out and possibly half a dozen blouses almo ft owing, bat than some darned fool " renegs and breaks the chain, with the result that „'• THE GOODS ARE FORFEIT, Ktd so are the postal notes. Even if the dodge was all above board and the chains were never broken, which they always are, the blouse king would make a pot of money between moons, but no chain of that brand can keep linked up, as he knows very well, and generally when the coupons out have run up towards the thousands and the money m towards the three- figure standard, the smart Alec "gathers up his heels and cash and bunks while the going is good. If you see a chain prayer chuck It into the waste paper basket, if you get a chain blouse coupon give the tecs, a ring. Some of the Cure-Your-Loved-One-of-the-Drink»Habit quackeries will not stand deep investigation either, though, like the best of them, if any deserve a description of best as far as anything approaching efficiency is concerned, even the most farcical are not very harmful, except from a moral point of view. One concoction that was hawked about the country by newspaper ads. and sample post a Httlo time ago guaranteed to do the Job. provided the simple directions were fulfilled over a period of six weeks. Certainly the directions were Bimpliclty i£se'f; all that had to be done was to dissolve one tablet In each glass of liquor taken during the length of the cure. A wonderful Joke on the inflicted one's wife and next-ofV friendship! The tablets wore able to stand up to almost anything short of nn aqua regla test, and" If one glass was missed THE CURE WAS OFF. There was the usual money back guarantee, but it is doubtful whether anyone ever won out on that score. Maybe a personal interview would have drawn useful attention to the wording of the guarantee, but size and tone of voice count for nothing through the post If Prohibition does happen to be carried, some shrewd friend of liberty will sidestep the regulations and hawk round recipes for a hop beer which differs from the real thing with authority by but one slight omission, sal* Ingredient not to be Included If n non«lntoxlcatlng beverage is to be obtained. That's certain. The wonder ia that A TABLOID WHISKY has not long ago been foisted upon the thirsty melons of dry districts. Of course, it can't be done, for alcohol stops dead short when tabtoldlsation is suggested to the bottle, but that Is not to say that quite a lot of foolish fools would not be t*ken In. It would «o If It could be brought forward, better than the tablet water which only roqulred to bo dissolved In a pint of spring water to produoe a pint of beautiful drinking water. There are a score more of these minor catches, frauds alt, leaving out of consideration the btg scoop 3. and for a time most of theso traps for simpletons go high. The funny man srets a bump occasionally, and then the man who dIA his money In hns tho loud and final laugh, but he seldom gets his money back, and not always his moneys worth In Inughlng. DON'T RUSH A GOOD THING, particularly If it looks too good. If Aomcone offers you fifteen shilling*' worth for two of the same, ask him where his 'warehouse la. Btlll with nil tho melons jrrowlnpr freely, when a really genuine bargain In thrown at the public by a repntablo flrm of trader* no one wilt have It on hl« mind, and us an example of that hint think l»nrk to thf> offer mnrto by n b\a South Intend flnn to noil n win<V>wful of furniture, inclmllnjr a hranrt n«»W piano worth -CSO to £M. tor CSO. Would anyone bo taken In? Not a , chance, and tho mnnnMmi'nt kn.»v If. Tf you want to tent that for yourself In*«t try to exohnntro n o-oml jK»'!tt«l not** tor a strflntorS sixpono' 1 '*■««* tvntrh yourself lew monfv on » »»t, hut b*U*r be sun* thnt tho mrnnßo man ha* not r<v»4 "Truth" thin wcuk n«» w«»Jl h»for* v ft " »-*'<*