A BUDDING LEVERHULME

NZ Truth, Issue 1179, 5 July 1928, Page 8

A BUDDING LEVERHULME

Soapy Swanson Sold! Housewives A Profitable Pop

ft (From "N.Z. Truth's" Palmerston Niwth Representative.) Wily and wonderful are the ways of the Itinerant hawker who bamboozles unsuspecting housewives*

TWO justices of the peace m the Palmerston North Magistrate's Court the other day listened with interest to the get-.rich-quick scheme . of David Alexander Swanson. '.' Soft and persua'sdve was the tongue of David Alexander—almost as soapy and spurious as the soap he sold. , For, despite all appearances to the contrary, soap was David's forte,'hislittle private . method of selling the public a pup. • . But it was no -ordinary soap that David sold —at least, not on the surface.*- '

. penny bar into seven cakes by means,- of a neatly-contrived little device/ ' _ , ' Each.! of these cakes, worth approximately-, a penny at this stage, mystically weoame endowed with magic proper-Bias. under the touch of the Klean-ft King, An afttractive tinsel wrapper with a brightly-worded little panegyric setting forth the virtues of "Klean-e'-zee" comP^ted !a very neat little swindle. -A- 8 GH'e.y housewife will testify, barMa soafp, for its own purposes, Is;good

«m_,-- _ ---,» rtwiri /,3n»^ ;* Klean-e-rec David called it, and.very rnce, too! , „ Before its ma«ic influence, accordingta the attracttively-worded wrapper, grease, paint, tar and stains of all kinds were spirited away. But, as the sage truly saith: "All that glitters -te not gold," nor, as the public found to its cost, is everything wrapped m gfold paper a magic condiment. T;T, ' '- "My Hu'murrous Memories of France," by';'A Retui^ned Nurse," was a delight-

value,: but to endow it with special cleaning properties merely by Tgarbing it m 4 ra£ per and beatowirS upon it a piretentious name, seems, to' the disinterested observer, a feat even beyond ttllie powers of such an adept trickstlejr as David Alexander Efwanson. And, jmost important fact of all-—to David, !:the Dirt Destroyer —the profit on eaohi transaction must have totalled at leatat' ninepence (or 900 per cent.), Furthiar, although this did not come out m [court, David's claims to sympathy as an ex-dlgger appear to be

ful little -booklet with 'whicfo David introduced himself, as- a . down-on-hisr • luck ex-dtgger. .By this aneans'-he proceeded to ■ work

the '-hard- luck story," thence leading up' to thebig coup, the sale of a cake of "Kleaor-e.-zee." One shilling- a packet -was all Soap King Swanson asked for his concentrated Reparation' "-of .magic. For tiiis moderate.' consideration, the busy rroiisewife could forever banish Douglas, the dirt fiend, from the home circle.-; ?:-,-;,'" '-.' - Muhilflcent as David's . offer seemed, the hicurably sfceptic eye of the- law resteijL .searchingly upon him. TT It.Tbveri vsrent so far as to examine "Klein-e-zee" bereft of its tinsel Ayra-ffpings. \. 7 /VVlhereupon the heavy hand of the men m blue descended upon Dayid's shonilder and deposited him m the dungeon-keep. I? or, it seemed, "Klean-e-zee," minus its incidental effects, was nothing but a. small cake of >arilla washing soap, -l^rociirable by the large bar for about JT-Msd. retail. .-,-.- T.David's stout little scheme, it, appeared from later, revelations m the f Magistrate's Court, was briefly this. He divided his sevenpencerhaifi

77 TT-- ;/-■■; .. '- ...). ■':. ;

open to question. He was given a ! very poor reception by the local R.S.A. authorities and had apparently omitted to ask for one of

the oertificates' which the R.S.A. is al-' : ways ."filling ' to give m genuine cases of distress. ' , . Thisi • certificate,, which can be obtairiei_/'"on application, testifies to the bonai fides of returned men on the rbad^imd gives the public, a guarantee of- g<vpd. faith. iSjjwanson, smugly secure m his ov^) '''Virtue, had not considered one of ; these certificates worth asking . '-foru' ■■■•-;■. '-.- '■■ ■ Q-oiie possibly David had met Mad-e-moiselle from Armentieres, but he "K?f.; not signed up on the dotted line ,a,s; a- distressed digger. Wiffii the case outlined >as above, DavM, smiled sbapily over, the top of the T ( dock when he appeared on a change of false pretences. -Ppubtless feeling\that the arm of Uia-TJaw was stronger than that of GplJlEtth, he took as his motto: "Aban-do-u,-Jsoap all ye who enter here" and ple-eiled guilty. ; yWvid has to^ go but of the soap business— pay £2 into the Consolidate Fund or else pm « m durance vil^-for fourteen days. ' .T. . ' >

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