Exchange chain letter (postcard).   Hankies.  Send three, three names, send 5 copies, deadline 3 days.  US, 1938.

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[List of three names and addresses omitted]

Within three days make five copies of this card. Send a hankie to the three names on this card. Leave off the top name and put your own at the bottom of the cards you send out. You will start receiving hankies at once. You should get 135 handkerchiefs. Please do not break the club - it's fun.

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Published: Times Herald (Olean, New York), March 17, 1938, p. 4.  SAYS NEWEST CHAIN-LETTER FAD ILLEGAL.  "Bolivar- Postmaster Mattie C. Dellone today warned participants in the handkerchief club latest chain-letter fad, that they are liable to prosecution under federal lottery laws.  She stated that the scheme shows evidence here of reaching proportions attained by the dime letters of a few years back. A number of postcards addressed to local women bearing handkerchief-club messages have been confiscated by postal employees and will be turned over to the solicitor of the Post Office Department. ¶ The illegal messages all carried copy of this nature:" [text]   Total participation would return 5 + 25 + 125 = 155 hankies.   Entered by DWV, Aug. 8, 2014.

xe1938-03-17p1_hankie_n3s3q5

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