$22.50 Down

Manhattan's conycatchers used to do a profitable business in selling City Hall, Brooklyn Bridge, Central Park to innocent strangers. Last September in Harlem, an innocent and querulous Negro Methodist named Rev. Davis Frazer, preaching in a shop for which his congregation was growing too large, let it be known that he was in the market for a church. Two strangers approached him, told him they were agents for a bank which had a fine, large church for sale, price $96,000, on the installment plan. Parson Frazer paid $22.50 down, was told that it would be a few weeks before the congregation using the church would move out.

By last week, Parson Frazer had paid $850 for his church. Impatient to take possession, he prodded the agents. Finally they gave him two keys, and wished him well. Eagerly he went to the church, found that the keys did not fit, was shocked to learn that the Seventh Day Adventist congregation within did not know that their church had been sold. Parson Frazer took to his bed with chagrin.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.