DECEIT

But evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving, being deceived.

—II Tim. 3:13

1085 Pretending Ignorance Is Illegal

A newspaper article gives this legal case:

When Krafft learned there was a rich supply of potash under his neighbor’s seemingly worthless swampland, he hurried over to make a deal before Dan got wise too. They both knew the swampy acreage was just a tax drag. Krafft lied blandly, but with it handy to graze his cattle, he’d pay $2,000 for the land.

This sounded like finding money and Dan grabbed at the offer. But when he saw Krafft begin dredging out potash, the valuable mineral that’s used in glass making, Dan sued him for the land’s true value.

“Krafft pulled a fast one,” Dan complained. “He knew there was a fortune in my swamp, and that talk about wanting it for his cows was only a pack of lies to swindle me.”

“A buyer doesn’t have to spoil a good bargain by telling everything he knows, does he?” Krafft shrugged. “Anyhow, Dan got more than he ever expected for his land, so nobody’s hurt if I make a nice gain on my investment.”

Now, here’s the point of law to be decided: can Dan collect the difference between “worthless acreage” and a valuable potash deposit?

Yes, Krafft had to pay another $73,000. A buyer needn’t reveal all he knows, Nebraska’s Supreme Court held, but Krafft had pretended he wanted the land for grazing, and he made a point about its being worthless. “Having of his own volition spoken when speech wasn’t required, he should have confined himself to the truth,” the court concluded. “His passive privilege of remaining silent for the purpose of availing himself of the fruits of superior knowledge did not include affirmative aid amounting to deceit.”

1086 “Inventor” Fooled Soviet System

Another newsreport of fraud, this time in the Soviet Union:

S.I. Gendlin easily impressed officials at the Russian Institute of Aviation Instruments. Tall, dark, and carrying a portfolio full of diplomas from scientific schools, he quietly informed them that he was the discoverer of the mysterious “Gendlin’s Effect.”

The “inventor” also explained that he had not patented his discovery and therefore was not free to describe it to the scientific world. The officials believed Gendlin and put him in charge of five specialists.

He might still be considered a brilliant young scientist, if he had not taken an extra job at another scientific institute. Moonlighting is illegal in Russia, and the resulting investigation showed Gendlin to be a fraud and his diplomas clever fakeries. Izvestia, the Russian government newspaper, gave a neat comment: “For almost two years, he didn’t do any work. Consequently, he didn’t make any mistakes.”

1087 Homemade Sub Crossed Atlantic?

Joseph Papps had a problem. His homemade submarine wouldn’t function. He had worked for six years on it; he had spent all his savings building it. How then could he ever admit failure to his friends? He dreamed up a stunt. He spanned the ocean on the Dutch airline KLM, and went to Brest, France, where he told police he had crossed the Atlantic in some twelve hours in his submarine. Yet it was all a desperate and vainglorious attempt to save face. The London Daily Mirror says that the Hungarian-born Canadian, Joseph Papp, “confessed that his tale of crossing the Atlantic in a homemade submarine was a hoax.”

1088 What Is Written Is Written

The United Press International reports of an angry Israeli judge who refuses to allow a lady to be her own age. The 1975 story:

In 1955, Miss Melania Neubart decided she wanted to be 10 years younger in hopes of paving an easier road towards marriage. Claiming there was an error in the official records, Miss Neubart obtained a court declaration stating she was born in 1923 instead of 1913 (she would have been age 62 in 1975).

Several months ago, she went to magistrate’s court to change her year of birth back to 1913 and admitted she had lied the first time because she wanted to find a husband. Still single, she realized she was officially too young to qualify for a national insurance pension.

The judge refused the applicant’s behavior as “bold impertinence,” saying she made the court “an unwitting accomplice in the perpetration of a lie.”

1089 “Blind” Man Goes To Movies

President Walter G. Clippinger of Otterbein College in Ohio, enjoys the story of the fake blind man.

The pitiable creature, with dark glasses and his little tin cup was standing on the street corner, patiently waiting for some small contribution. A kindly man passed by and generously dropped a dime in the poor old fellow’s cup. Then for some reason he turned around, and to his surprise saw the blind man’s glasses pushed up on his forehead, and his eager eyes closely examining the recent gift.

“I thought you were a blind man,” said the disgruntled donor.

“Oh, no,” was the answer, “I am only substituting for the regular blind man today. I’m not really blind at all.”

“Well, where is the regular blind man?” asked the other.

“Oh, he’s gone to the movies; it’s his afternoon off.”

1090 Agile Performance His Downfall

In 1934, a black railroad worker filed a $100,000 damage suit against his company, claiming he had been jolted off a train and, as a result of the fall, his legs had become paralyzed.

Knowing it was a false legal action, the company hired two Negro detectives who opened a crystal-gazing parlor in his home town. Their advertisement of “Home Readings for Shut-ins” brought a request from the faker to call and tell his fortune. During the visit, the crystal-gazer “saw a lawsuit” in his ball and predicted that, to win it, his client would have to carry a log across a nearby railroad track at dawn the next morning, hopping over on one foot and back on the other. He did, and the detectives, hiding in the bushes, took a movie of his performance.

1091 That Was Worse Than Cancer

Dr. Peter A. Angles, a 32-year-old assistant professor at the University of Western Ontario, told a luncheon audience in Toronto that he had incurable cancer and would be dead in three months. Then he encouraged people not to worry about eternal life, but to be engaged in world betterment. He later confessed he did not have cancer. “I wanted to make it powerful,” he explained. He had even added that it would be his last public appearance before his death.

1092 Dentists Up To Their Teeth

In Southend, England, dentists are fed up to the back teeth with a man who insists on emergency treatment, including a general anesthetic, for what he says is excruciating toothache. As they have subsequently discovered, the would-be patient has false teeth.

—Reuter

1093 Where Is Helga Sue?

High school life can be intriguing: When Helga Sue Gronowitz failed to keep an appointment with her guidance counselor at Twin Lakes High School in West Palm Beach, Fla., the counselor was not particularly surprised. After all, in a school of 2,000 students with a full roster of extracurricular activities, it is not uncommon for a student to miss an appointment or two.

Still, Helga Sue was not just any student. By her junior year the pretty, blue-eyed blonde had amassed a substantial number of honors. She was a member of the Debate Boosters club, the swimming team, the Red Cross club; she had written several stories for the school newspaper; she had been a candidate for the student council and an entrant in a contest to name a Miss Twin Lakes.

So when Helga Sue repeatedly failed to respond to messages rescheduling her appointment, the guidance counselor began to ask questions. Helga Sue’s friends attempted to cover for her. The explanation proved to be imaginary. So did Helga Sue. Twin Lakes High’s favorite student did not exist.

Helga Sue’s name became known throughout the school because she was often paged over the public address system: “Will Helga Sue Gronowitz come to the office? Your mother has brought your lunch.” Then there was her ad in the Palm Beach Post, offering walruses for sale. But it was not until the guidance counselor investigated that Helga Sue was officially exposed.

While a few faculty members had gradually become aware of Helga Sue’s nonexistence, Twin Lakes Principal Herbert Bridwell had not. When asked about the girl, he said. “I can’t exactly place her, but the name does ring a bell.”

1094 He Beat The Paris Traffic Bet

At noon on a spring day in Paris about 1910, an old motor truck broke down in the center of the Place de I’Opera, requiring the driver to spend a half hour under the vehicle to make the repair. After apologizing for the trouble he had caused several policemen who had been directing the traffic around his truck, the man drove away—laughing to himself. That night he collected several thousand dollars from friends who had bet that he could not lie on his back for 30 minutes at the busiest hour in the busiest traffic center in Paris. He was the late Horace DeVere Cole, England’s great practical joker who died in 1936.

1095 How To Manufacture “Antiques”

A Parisian weaver some years ago put out an “antique” tapestry which was done so skillfully that even experts thought it genuine. The secret finally came out when his assistant exposed the whole thing. This is how it was done: using special threads, the tapestry was worn away by being dragged behind an automobile, given a musty odor by smoking, faded with ultraviolet rays and even deftly ingrained with centuries-old dust collected from the crumbling rafters of a church. The tapestry had been sold for a record price.

1096 Imaginary General In Action

During the Balkan wars that preceded World War I, McAlister Coleman was a war correspondent for the New York Sun. Only slightly handicapped by the fact that the paper’s budget would not cover overseas travel, Coleman simply created a “General” who went on winning battles all over the map.

Other papers, bemoaning the Sun’s scoops, sent their reporters to the battlefields to locate this victorious General. Finally, when Mac realized other reporters were getting too close to where his “general” was located, he killed off his hero in a final blaze of glory.

1097 Frenchman From Formosa?

A French adventurer known as “George Psalmanazar” started one of the most impressive hoaxes of all time in London in 1704. Posing as an educated native of Formosa, which neither he nor any Englishman had ever visited, the impostor ingeniously invented and wrote several books about his alleged country’s strange language, religion, manners, customs, geography and history. So complete and convincing were these works that Psalmanazar was accepted and lionized by British society until he revealed the deception several years later. The books had created such faith in the man that few of his contemporaries ever believed his confession.

—Selected

1098 Madam Humbert’s Money Box

A country girl of humble origin but clever and ambitious, was anxious to figure in the best Parisian society. She had married above her station and gave out that she was immensely wealthy.

She told how, while travelling, an old gentleman in the next compartment was taken seriously ill, and she had been able to save his life. As a result he had bequeathed all his property to her. The deeds of his property were supposed to be in a certain safe which Madame Humbert kept in her salon, and which was sometimes on view, bearing on its front a plentiful supply of sealing wax. On the strength of this she borrowed money to the extend of millions of francs. This went on for several years till her creditors became uneasy.

Then the matter was brought to court. The judge decided that the safe should be opened in the presence of witnesses. When it was opened, it was found to contain only a copper coin not worth a halfpenny. The manifestation revealed her poverty and bankruptcy as well as her deceit.

—A. Naismith

1099 TV Misrepresentations

It is pitiable how biased persons deceive the public via the mass communications media. During a CBS documentary, for instance, the camera focused on a pitiful Negro infant who was nothing more than skin and bones. It came out later that this little child, instead of being a victim of malnutrition, was born to a healthy, well-nourished mother. It was born prematurely, however, and weighed only 2 pounds, l2 ounces at birth. The baby died within five days after birth as a consequence of its prematurity. But mil lions of viewers were led to believe that malnutrition was the cause of the child’s condition.

1100 Janitor Gives Science Talks

Moscow—For three years, David Chakhvashvili gave hundreds of lectures throughout his native Georgian Soviet republic.

He spoke on “the technological revolution,” “the atom,” “modern medicine” and “love in the advanced society.”

Then it was found he was a janitor with no scientific training whatsoever.

Chakhvashvili evidently got inspiration from the place where he worked, the Georgian Academy of Sciences. He printed cards identifying himself as a professor—”doctor of technical sciences.”

The newspaper Izvestia said he soon had a busy lecture circuit with $20 an hour in pay. Izvestia said he earned $820 on his first “lecture tour.”

—United Press International

1101 Can’t Win

News media carried two lessons for losers in a single week. In Wisconsin, Joseph Huber was arrested for selling “tea” (marijuana) to a student. Huber beat the charge easily when the stuff was shown to be plain drinking tea. But his victory was short-lived: the law convicted him of defrauding the other student.

—Gospel Herald

1102 Starting Early

A little boy was lost during the Christmas shopping rush. He was standing in an aisle of the busy department store crying, “I want my mommy.” People kept passing by, giving the unhappy youngster nickels and dimes.

Finally a floorwalker came over to him and said, “I know where your mommy is, son.” The little boy looked up with his teardrenched eyes and said, “So do I … just keep quiet!”

—Pastor’s Manual

1103 Resurrecting The “Classics”

In 1935 violin virtuoso Fritz Kreisler was publicly condemned for a hoax that he had been perpetrating on the music world for some years. Kreisler had been entertaining concert-goers with transcriptions of purportedly neglected classics by such composers of the past as Boccherini, Couperin, Francoeur, Martini, and Pugnani. All these composers came from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The works as played by Kreisler won enormous popular favor.

—Prairie Overcomer

1104 Woman’s Shrinking Portfolio

Most of her life Bertha Hecht worked as housekeeper for no more than $125 a month. Born in England, she served one American employer so faithfully that he married her and left her more than half a million dollars. Bertha left the money with her investor, and between that time and seven years later, while the stock market was zooming to amazing new heights, her investments fell to a worth of about a quarter of a million dollars.

She sued the investment firm—one of Wall Street’s respected brokerage houses. Early in 1970 the court ruled that Mrs. Hecht had been defrauded and awarded her $375,000. It also took note that:

1. About a third of all the commodity commissions at the brokerage office branch which served Mrs. Hecht came from transactions involving the widow’s funds.

2. Nearly two-thirds of all the commodity commissions of her agent came from her transactions.

3. The firm charged Mrs. Hecht nearly $200,000 for commissions and mark-ups.

4. While Mrs. Hecht’s stocks were dwindling to less than half their original value, the original value of her portfolio increased to more than a million dollars. In other words, if this widow had done nothing at all with her stocks, they would have doubled in value.

1105 Never Studied Pharmacy

Some years ago a druggist in the East advertised as follows: “THE DRUG STORE YOU CAN PATRONIZE WITH CONFIDENCE—ACCURACY AND EXPERIENCE, OUR MOTTO.” After many years of making up prescriptions for the neighborhood, it was discovered that he was doing so without a license. He was not an expert pharmacist. He had never even studied pharmacy. Who knows how many people suffered in health from his inexpert prescribing or filling of prescriptions? How many deaths had he caused?

—Tonne

See also: Evil Imagination ; Honesty ; Stealing ; Traitors ; Jer. 5:27. Matt. 24:24. Mark 13:5. Luke 21:8. II Pet. 2:13. Rev. 13:14.