La « Boule de Neige » condamnée sans appel — L’Officiel du cycle, 30 June 1951, the Masthead and the Cour de Cassation Ruling

From L’Officiel du cycle, 30 June 1951, page 3: the masthead and the sommaire of the issue, and the opening of the article on the Cour de Cassation ruling against the boule de neige selling scheme, with the paper’s counter-propaganda poster. The title, headings, captions and lists are transcribed as printed; the text is summarized in Ebykr’s words, and the page images carry it in full. It belongs to the trade columns that the weekly addressed to the French cycle dealers, the vélocistes.

— Page 1 —
PARAIT UN
SAMEDI sur DEUX

Compte Chèque Postal
L’Officiel de l’A. C. M. Paris 1481-96

S. A. R. L. 1.200.000
Cycle et Automobile Industriels
R. C. Seine 223.772-B

L’OFFICIEL
DU CYCLE, DU MOTOCYCLE
ET DU CAMPING

30 Juin 1951
(61e Année)

La Revue hebdomadaire L’OFFICIEL DE L’AUTOMOBILE, DU CYCLE, DU MOTOCYCLE comporte deux Éditions spécialisées alternant chaque samedi et paraissant sous les titres de :
L’OFFICIEL DE L’AUTOMOBILE
et L’OFFICIEL DU CYCLE, DU MOTOCYCLE ET DU CAMPING

ABONNEMENT ANNUEL
SÉRIE AUTO… 400 fr.
SÉRIE CYCLE… 400 fr.
LES DEUX SÉRIES : 600 fr.
LE NUMÉRO : 20 fr.

DIRECTEUR : Alexis TANTET
REDACTEUR EN CHEF : Jacques CATINAT

DIRECTION ET RÉDACTION : 61, Avenue de la Grande-Armée, PARIS (16e) — Tél. KLÉber 86-15 et la suite

VOUS LIREZ DANS CE NUMÉRO

La “Boule de Neige” condamnée sans appel — 3
Nos Echos — 4
Nouveautés chez les Producteurs — 5
Le Tour de France 1951 — 7
Des applications du 2 temps — 11
“Equipements et Outillage” — 13
“Le Cyclomoteur” — 15
Régime complémentaire de Prévoyance Sociale — 17
L’arrêt sur la “Boule de Neige” — 21
Prorogation des baux commerciaux — 23
“Camping et Sports” — 25
Les propulseurs motonautiques — 27
Les machines à navette rotative — 29
Nouveaux abattements de salaires — 31

LA “ BOULE DE NEIGE ” CONDAMNÉE SANS APPEL

[Ebykr summary; the article’s text is not reproduced. The weekly reports that on 7 May the Criminal Chamber of the Cour de Cassation ended fifty years of hesitation in the courts by formally condemning the “boule de neige” (snowball) chain-coupon scheme, which the paper calls a diabolical “trick”. It presents this as a victory for the position it has held in its columns for half a century, and says that in its issue of 6 May 1900 it was the first publication in the whole press to denounce the system and expose the fraudulent mechanism. Taking up the “magic words” of the promoters who launched the scheme in France, “Une bicyclette pour rien !”, it says it showed the harmful stupidity of the idea and printed two tables of the results of the geometric progressions the scheme implies, likening it to a natural snowball that grows faster the bigger it is. It adds that it reported the Lille court’s finding that the scheme offended both morality and the law, and never stopped denouncing it as a swindle.]

[Ebykr summary, second column. Answering the objection that fifty years of campaigning were needed to reach the ruling of 7 May, the paper says it is fortunate that only fifty years were needed, since the Penal Code of 1810 had omitted to punish another swindle, “la grivèlerie” (leaving without paying), and the legislator acted only in 1937, after 127 years, with prison terms and fines. In the meantime no court had wished to punish the snowball scheme, case law treating as a simple civil debt what was in fact “filouterie d’aliments”. The same happened with the snowball: after the Lille judgment some decisions condemned the practice while others, a tendency that seemed likely to prevail, systematically discharged the accused. The judges, it says, did not deny the immorality of the system but refused to find in it the constituent elements (the sentence breaks off at the foot of the page and continues overleaf).]

Notre affiche de contre-propagande
de l’année dernière (Réduction au 1/11)

COMMENT PERDRE TOUS VOS AMIS POUR 200 FRS

UNE BICYCLETTE
POUR 200 frs.
par le système
de la
BOULE de NEIGE

— 3 —

[A full newspaper page, printed in black on a buff stock. The upper third is the masthead. “L’OFFICIEL” stands across the head in very large shaded roman capitals, with “DU CYCLE, DU MOTOCYCLE” below it in heavy sans-serif capitals and “ET DU CAMPING” in smaller spaced capitals. The issue date and year stand to the right, and a column of small italic and roman lines at the left gives the postal account and company details. Below sit a ruled box announcing the two alternating editions, the subscription prices at the right, the names of the director and editor, and the editorial address. A ruled box headed “VOUS LIREZ DANS CE NUMÉRO” lists fourteen contents lines in two columns of seven, in italic with dot leaders and page numbers. The article title follows in tall condensed capitals above a short triple rule. The text runs in two columns with a centered line drawing set between them. The line engraving, in a ruled frame, shows a huge snowball made of paper coupons marked “BON” rolling down a slope, with caricatured faces of men and women caught in its mass, a roadside sign advertising a bicycle for 200 francs, and below it a chain fixed to a bollard shaped like a thumb. Capitals beneath the frame read “COMMENT PERDRE TOUS VOS AMIS POUR 200 FRS”, with an italic caption under it. No artist signature or monogram is visible. The last line of the second column ends mid-sentence at the foot of the page, and the page number stands centered below.]