soliciting funds for investment, promising enormous interest, and paying
this interest out of the principal intrusted to him. For a time he
preyed only upon his friends, claiming "inside information" of large
"deals" and paying ten per cent. per week on the money received out of
his latest deposits.

Surely the history of civilization is a history of credulity. Miller
prospered. His earlier friend-customers who had hesitatingly taken his
receipt for ten dollars, and thereafter had received one dollar every
Monday morning, repeated the operation and returned in ever-increasing
numbers. From having his office "in his hat," he took an upper room in a
small two-story house at 144 Floyd Street, Brooklyn--an humble tenement,
destined to be the scene of one of the most extraordinary exhibitions of
man's cupidity and foolishness in modern times. At first he had tramped
round, like a pedler, delivering the dividends himself and soliciting
more, but soon he hired a boy. This was in February, 1899. Business
increased. The golden flood began to appear in an attenuated but
constant rivulet. He hired four more employees and the whole top floor
of the house. The golden rivulet became a steady stream. From a
"panhandler" he rolled in ready thousands. The future opened into
magnificent auriferous distances. He began to call himself "The Franklin
Syndicate," and to advertise that "the way to wealth is as plain as the
road to the market." He copied the real brokers and scattered circulars
and "weekly letters" over the country, exciting the rural mind in
distant Manitoba and Louisiana.

There was an instantaneous response. His mail required the exclusive
attention of several clerks. The stream of gold became a rushing
torrent. Every Monday morning the Floyd Street house was crowded with
depositors who drew their interest, added to it, deposited it again, and