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.
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