Wheedle Whackers

Canadian immigration authorities are checking on the records of "bird dogs," "bell cows" and "reloaders" who may have entered the Dominion from the U.S. Out in British Columbia, the Attorney General is investigating "dynamiters" and "foxes."

All these steps are directed against Ontario's "wheedle whackers" --high-pressure speculative mining-stock promoters who sell by direct mail and long distance telephone. They have been riding Toronto's current stock boom. Complaints about their operations have poured in all the way from Portland on the Pacific to Halifax on the Atlantic.

The wheedle whackers can operate across provincial lines in Canada because there is no federal securities law. They can sell across the border without fear of extradition because the U.S. and Canada have not agreed upon a treaty which covers their operations. These activities mainly consist of peddling dubious stocks at greatly inflated prices. One Ontario woman paid $1.20 for a stock selling at 23-c- on the open market.

The slickers who follow the trade have developed a lingo all their own. One who points the game is a bird dog. The prospect is a sucker or a mooch. An advance man who attracts the mooch is a bell cow. The man who makes the sale is a loader. The smoothie who takes the sucker a second time is the reloader. Foxes are those who sell by mail; the dynamiter works by telephone. An argument for a difficult prospect is the Russian Injection.

Sometimes a wheedle whacker telephones the wrong mooch. One dynamiter recently tried to give the Russian Injection to the head of the Crime Section, U.S. Department of Justice.

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