CHAPTER XII. SWINDLES AND HOAXES.

procedure, described during the trial, was this. Applicants in due time, after sending in their stamped and addressed envelopes, received circulars, stating that the work which the sender was able to furnish comprised braiding, point lace, tatting, church needlework, and Berlin wool. The needlework was to be done at the ladies’ homes, and they were never to earn less than eightpence or a shilling per hour. To secure employment the applicants were informed that the payment of one guinea “for registration fee, materials, and instruction,” was required, half of which sum was to be returned when the employment was resigned. Post-office orders were to be made payable at the office, Windmill Street, Croydon, to Margaret Dellair. “There is,” says a writer at the time commenting on this case, “something quite admirable in this calm repudiation of the anonymous, in this wearing of the heart upon the sleeve, on the part of Mistress Dellair. The bait she threw out was swallowed with avidity by many young ladies—some with more money than wit, others painfully anxious to secure bread-winning employment; others less solicitous about procuring work for themselves than inquisitive to discover, for the benefit of society in general and their friends in particular, whether the transaction was bonâ fide. Then the curtain rose on the second act of the drama. Some ladies sent post-office orders to Windmill Road; others took the train to Croydon, and had personal interviews with the benevolent recluse of Fern House—a little cottage near a wood—who did not fail to represent that she was extensively employed by some eminent firms of church furnishers in the metropolis.” One young lady having sent her guinea, received, after a lapse of some weeks, and after repeated communications on her part, ten toilet-mats, with the materials for braiding them. There was not enough braiding, and so she wrote for more, but received no reply.