The Evening Telegraph

NEW-YORKISMS.

From Our Own Correspondent.
New York, April 30, 1870.

The Gift Enterprises.

There are so many swindling gift enterprise concerns in New York city, that it is impossible to walk along any thoroughfare without running across more than one would care to keep account of in his memory. Before some of them a policeman is stationed whose duty is simplicity itself. If he sees you are about to enter, all he does is to tap you on the shoulder and tell you you had better not. By this means Justice is satisfied. So is the policeman. And the gift-enterprise swindlers escape. In fact, they are never brought up in court. It is one of the easiest means extant of making a living. Occasionally some gulled greenhorn, who has lost his last penny in responding to their swindling advertisements, writes to the Mayor about it, demanding that justice shall be done him and means taken to get him his money back. The trouble is that the fellow is afraid to do himself justice. In one hundred cases you will not find one who has the moral courage to have his name printed in connection with the affair. Hence the gift-swindlers of this city, which is the great centre of them, are notorious all over the Union. Complaints by the score are lodged at the Mayor's office, and are never pushed. The swindlers are successful because the swindled are ashamed of publicly owning their folly.