e had succeeded in obtaining damages
in Wichita, Kansas, for a supposed fracture. The Review quotes a
newspaper account of this operation as follows.--

"According to the Wichita Dispatch he represented himself as a
telegraph operator who was to have charge of the postal telegraph
office in that city as soon as the line reached there. He remained
about town for a month until he found an inviting piece of defective
sidewalk, suitable for his purpose, when he stuck his crutch through
the hole and fell screaming to the ground, declaring that he had broken
his leg. He was carried to a hospital, and after a week's time, during
which he negotiated a compromise with the city authorities and
collected $1000 damages, a confederate, claiming to be his nephew,
appeared and took the wounded man away on a stretcher, saying that he
was going to St. Louis. Before the train was fairly out of Wichita,
Landers was laughing and boasting over his successful scheme to beat
the town. The Wichita story is in exact accord with the artistic
methods of a one-legged sharper who about 1878 stuck his crutch through
a coal-hole here, and, falling heels over head, claimed to have
sustained injuries for which he succeeded in collecting something like
$1500 from the city. He is described as a fine-looking fellow, well
dressed, and wearing a silk hat. He lost one leg in a railroad
accident, and having collected a good round sum in damages for it,
adopted the profession of leg-breaking in order to earn a livelihood.
He probably argued that as he had made more money in that line than in
any other he was especially fitted by natural talents to achieve
distinction in this direction. But as it would be rather awkward to
lose his remaining leg altogether he modified the idea and contents
himself with collecting the smaller amounts which ordinary fractures of
the hip-joint entitle such an expert 'fine worker' to receive.

"He first appeared here in 1874 and succeeded, it is alleged, in
beating the Life Association of America. After remaining for some time
in the hospital he was removed on a stretcher to an Illinois village,
from which point the negotiations for damages were conducted by
correspondence, until finally a point of agreement was reached and an
agent of the company was sent to pay him the money. This being
accomplished the agent returned to the depot to take the train back to
St. Louis when he was surprised to see the supposed sufferer stumping
a