A man and his female pal take a small house in town or on the outskirts of a large city. The man insures his life for five thousand dollars. After they have lived there a while, and passed perhaps as music teachers, they take the next step, which is to get a dead body. Nothing is easier. The man goes to any large hospital, represents himself as a doctor and for twenty-five dollars can generally get a stiff, which he takes away in a barrel or trunk. He goes to a furnished room, already secured, and there dresses the cadaver in his own clothes, putting his watch, letters and money in the cadavers pockets. In the evening he takes the body to some river or stream and throws it in. He knows from the newspapers when the body has been found, and notifies his woman pal, who identifies it as her husband's body. There are only two snags that one must guard against in this plot. The cadaver must not differ much in height from the person that has been insured; and its lungs must not show that they were those of anybody dead before thrown into the water. The way to prepare against this danger is to inject some water with a small medical pump into the lungs of the stiff before it is thrown overboard. Then it is easy for the "widow" to get the money, and meet the alleged dead man in another country. A more complicated method, in which more money is involved, is as follows. The grafter hires an office and represents himself as an artist, a bric-à-brac dealer, a promoter or an architect. Then he jumps to another city and takes out a policy under the tontien or endowment plan. When the game is for a very large amount three or four pals are necessary. If no one of the grafters is a doctor, a physician must be impersonated, but this is easy. If there are, say, ten thousand physicians in Manhattan, not many of whom have an income of ten thousand a year, it is perhaps not difficult to get a diploma. After a sheepskin is secured, the grafter goes to another State, avoiding, unless he is a genuine physician, New York and Illinois, for they have boards of regents. The acting quack registers so that he can practice medicine and hangs out his shingle. The acting business man takes out a policy, and pays the first premium. Before the first premium is paid he is dead, for all the insurance company knows. Often a live substitute, instead of a dead one, is secured. The grafter goes to the charity hospital and looks over the wrecks waiting to die. Some of these poor dying devils jump at the chance to go West. It is necessary, of course, to make sure that the patient will soon become an angel, or everything will fall through. Then the grafter takes the sick man to his house and keeps him out of sight. When he is about to die he calls in the grafter who is posing as a physician. After the death of the substitute the doctor signs the death certificate, the undertaker prepares the body, which is buried. The woman grafter is at the funeral, and afterwards