The Osceola times., 1882-10-28
THE GIvE-AWAY GAME.
A Street Fakir's Idea Upon
the Simplicity of Man
kind.
His yersIod of the Way In which an
American Crowd Can be Success
fully Duped.

reporter for the Atlanta Constitution,
that the Americans are the easiest hum
bugged of any in the world? 1t is true,
and have helped TO humbug them
about as much as the average man."
Somebody had just been reading an ac-
count of the Louisville lottery drawing,
which brought forth this speech
Cant you tell us some of your ex-
perience in that line?" asked man
near.
"Well, you would laugh to know what
fools people make of themselves some
times. About two years ago was down
in Brunswick, where saw a fellow run
ming perfectly square game, but which
was the most perfect out and out steal l
ever heard of. His plan was simple, and
hundreds of the very best people of the
town tlocked to give him trial. He
rented store and put show case across
a counter in the center. In the show
case he had, | know, my hat full of ten
and twenty dollar gold coins, piled in a
heap in one corner, and in the other
about the same sized pile of silver dollars.
A dice-box and six dice completed his
outfit. By paying half a dollar a man
had one throw with the dice. If he
threw six skies he took the entire pile of
gold if he threw six aces he was en-
titled to all the silver. OF course, no one
ever threw all the skies, neither was it
possible to get the aces to come all in a
bunch. A man might as well expect to
get struck by lightning from a cloudless
sky at MONDAY as to throw six aces; it
is almost an impossibility, that's all.
Well, the fellow made several hundred
dollars and left"
"Did you ever hear of how easy it is
to fool man with soap?" continued the
talker. "We street men know that it is
an old story of course. l was down at
Troy, Ala, several months ago, when a
fellow came along almost strapped. He
went to a grocery store, bought a few
bars of this transparent soap, cut it into
small pieces about the size of sne's
thumb wrapped it in colored tissue pa
per very neatly and then covered the
package with tin foil ,sprinkling the whole
with bottle of cologne to give it good
smell. Well, sir, the fellow got on box.
and soon gathered crowd by nice talk
ing, and proposed to take all the grease
from hats, coats, &c, that could be
brought in. The first case presented
was the city marshal, who walked up
with great spot in his coat which he
wanted taken out. The fellow carried
a sponge well saturated with benzine and
arnica, which of itself will take out al
most anything, and by using bit of the
soap, soon had the marshals coat entirely
free from grease. That started the soap
sales, and in two or three hours, it being
Saturday and crowd in town, the soap
man had sold S36 worth, nearly all of
which was clear profit
Stopping to draw long breath the
jewelry man continued his interesting
story. 81 tell you you can humbug any.
body. am not unlike the rest of the
world. believe could bite at my own
tricks if | could only get in the crowd.
"While | was at Brunswick, Ga some
time ago took revenge ON the town by
playing what we term the 'give-away
racket It's mighty fine thing to play,
but very dangerous one in some locali-
ties. had been using big umbrella,
large enough to cover fifty people, when
one night on the street crowd of sailors,
led on by some ofthe town boys, threw
rotten eggs at the umbrella and broke up
the crowd. Then resolved on the give
away racket A fellow has to be mighty
careful about working it, or he will get
caught out. 1t can only be played once
| in town.
"The way to do it is this: Get lot of
| fine gold rings which cost about 81 a
dozen and propose to be advertising some
big gold concern in New York. called
mine the great brazed gold of San Fran
cisco, stated that | would show the crowd
a thing or two, and soon got them inter-
ested. First, made a speech, in which
| stated my business; then | commenced
to offer the rings at any price from two
cents up, telling them that they could
not be bought for less than S4 a piece at
a jewelers.. | let out about 20 rings at
cents, and then asked everybody who
had bought rings to hold them up. In
stantly every ring was in the air Now
said |, addressing the croowd, this is
your money, is it% Yes said dozen.
And you gave it freely for the rings?
Yes came again in chorus. Very well;
here's 20 cents for you, sir, and 20 cents
for you, sir; and so on around the crowd
They commenced to wonder what on
earth meant-said was crazy and
lot of other things; but only told them
was advertising goods for my house,
and had plenty more things to give
away. Next took up some of my dia-
mond studs, which, explained, were
Lake George diamonds equal to any on
earth, &c, and that was going TO sell
them from twenty-five cents up-the
more one paid the better it would be, Of
course for him Twenty studs were soon