SWINDLER BEATS
MANY LABORERS.
COLLECTS A DOLLAR FROM EACH
AS A GUARANTEE.
Promising Work at Clay Center,
Kas., at Good Wages -- Some
of Them Gave Their
Last Dollar.
After waiting in the Union station for more than three hours last night for the appearance of a new employer, more than forty laborers and masons discovered that they had been cleverly swindled out of about $40 in cash. The matter was reported to the police.
A party of Italian laborers also waited at the station last night for a new employer to take them out on a train and he, too, failed to put in an appearance.
Advertisments were placed in several saloons in the downtown districts a few days ago for fifty laborers to go to Clay Center, Kas., to work in excavating and wall building for a new telephone exchange, and also some city work. Applicants were told to apply to the Missouri saloon, 803 Delaware street yesterday. When the purported agent appeared there were at least 200 laborers in front of the saloon looking for work. Each man was required to deposit $1 to guarantee that the laborers would appear at the Union depot at 5 o'clock last night, ready to take a Rock Island train for Clay Center. They were told they would get the $1 back when they had worked a week, and also that the agent would pay their railroad fare.
About forty men went to the Union station last night as directed. The new employer did not appear and about 7 o'clock they returned to the Missouri saloon in search of him, but he could not be found. A. P. T. Wilson, Jr., proprietor of the Missouri saloon, telephoned to the sheriff at Clay Center last night and was informed that there was no work of any kind there that would require the shipment of any laborers from Kansas City, and the work described by the agent was not in process, or contemplated. The laborers had been promised 20 cents an hour and the stonemasons 45 cents an hour. All of the men who gave him the money were out of work and many of them gave their last dollar in hope of securing employment. Many of the men have families and are in poor circumstances.
