Tin tube trickery: a clairvoyant’s love scam
‘Professor Clyde Dupree’ used a fortune-telling trick to rob people looking for love.
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A stranger calling himself Professor Clyde Dupree took lodgings with Mrs Susan Harner in Taylorville, Illinois, in February 1909.
That week, advertisements appeared in the local newspapers, offering clairvoyant readings at the bargain price of 50 cents. Using language probably lifted straight from other psychics’ marketing, Dupree made some grand claims:
Years of study, travels in far Eastern lands, and endless research, coupled with rare spiritual and physical gifts, have crowned him the greatest living exponent of his wierd (sic) and mysterious profession.
The Professor promised to reveal whether a spouse or sweetheart was faithful, to help clients win the love of an unattainable admirer, and even offer guidance for success in business or legal matters. His other supposed abilities included restoring youth, locating hidden treasures, and dispelling evil influences such as alcohol addiction.
But this Valentine’s Day, let’s focus on his most lucrative deception: a love scam that conned an estimated fifty women out of hundreds of dollars.
Those answering the advertisements were invited to an in-person consultation, where Dupree would discreetly determine how much money the client had. He then persuaded her to convert it into bills, which he placed inside a sealed tin tube along with a diamond allegedly worth $300. This powerful gemstone, he claimed, would work its magic over the coming days. The client must return on the first of March, when Dupree would unseal the tube. At that instant, the object of her affection would be overcome with reciprocal love!
When the appointed day arrived, however, Mrs Harner the landlady found a crowd of anxious women at her door. She had the unfortunate duty to inform them that Professor Dupree had skipped town two days earlier.
A young widow who said her tube contained $100 allowed Mrs Harner to open it. Inside, instead of money and a diamond, they found only scraps of paper cut to the size of dollar bills and a small piece of coal.
None of the humiliated victims would publicly admit to being swindled, nor would most disclose how much they had lost. The widow confessed that ‘…she would rather lose three times the sum than have her parents and friends discover she was such “an easy mark.”’
I can’t confirm the identity of Clyde Dupree, but his modus operandi is remarkably similar to that of his namesake Clyde McClure, a clairvoyant known to use numerous aliases. McClure was arrested in January 1909 for running a fortune-telling racket in Terre Haute, Indiana, the previous year.
He told his séance attendees that to be lucky in love or relieved of their physical ailments, they should put their money in a little leather bag, on which he would cast a spell. The sealed bag must be worn close to the heart for a set period of time – i.e. long enough for the clairvoyant to hotfoot it out of Indiana replete with cash, leaving the ‘gulls’ nursing wads of brown paper.
Although the trick sounds silly (and wasn’t even original), McClure used terrifying warnings to make it psychologically difficult for victims to back out. One woman, Anna Johns, was told that if she opened the bag or stopped wearing it, her baby would die.
After his arrest in Connecticut, McClure – thought to be the same man as one ‘Professor Earl Vautare’ who was wanted in Greensboro, NC, for similar schemes – put up a bail bond of $750 and immediately vanished. This was a couple of weeks before the appearance of Professor Clyde Dupree in Taylorville.
The elusive McClure/Vautare – said to be a distinguished-looking gent of about 60, who could easily be mistaken for a minister or a judge – got recaptured in 1911 under the name of John Judson. His trial in Terre Haute almost didn’t happen because some of the victims had moved away and others did not want to relive their former embarrassment, but in the end he was fined $500 – which he paid before gliding off into the sunset in search of new dupes.
A newspaper commenting on the Dupree incident noted that ‘the old saying that “there is a sucker born every minute” has daily verification.’ But while there is humour in the absolute audacity of these schemes, the victims weren’t the ones committing the crime and even the most sceptical among us can be taken in if a fraudster targets our specific vulnerabilities. However unlucky in love you might be this Valentine’s Day, don’t hand over your cash to a guy with a tin tube and a diamond.