Thomas County cat. [volume] (Colby, Kan.) 1885-1891, 1889-10-03
FISHING FOR SUCKERS.


FISHING FOR SUCKERS.
Swindling Cigar Vendors Catch Hundred
of Them Every Week.
The young man stood on the corner
and held his hand between his eyes and
the blazing sun which had swept the
street quite clear of all but few bold
and hardy pedestrians. Across the
square two stalwart figures came roll
ing up ragged and brown. One OF the
men carried loosely in his long. slim,
sunburnt fingers box that might have
contained 4 pair of dueling pistols or
any thing else of equally romantic sug-
gestiveness. And this was the vision
that caused the young man to stand on
the corner and shade his eyes in closer
scrutiny. Subsequent developments.
however didn't realize the young man 3
romantic anticipations, but the discom-
fort that he endured was sufficiently re-
compensed by information which he
received of one of the most an
moving tricks of swindling itin-
Grant Cuban" cigar sellers. for
| to this class did the brown-skinned
stalwart strangers belong. The time
OF this episode was yesterday after
| noon, and the scene was a busy part
OF a prominent street in this city. The
two strangers and the young man
! brought up in the back room of a
mercantile house on the street where
two other young men were industri-
ously trying to edit long columns of
figures and keep cool. Neither of the
strangers could speak English. so they
indicated their purpose by pantomim-
ic gestures, and they quickly displayed
the contents of the romantic-looking
bundle and wanted to sell the gentle
men some fine cigars. The gentlemen
didn't want the cigars. they said, but
! they might have said the first book of
XenOphOn's "Anabasis, with equal
effect. for the Cubans didn't under
stand the conversation, or, if they did,
they concealed their knowledge quite
artistically. and. by their rapid
and eloquent gestures and ex-
postulatOry chatter, soon reduced
the young men to condition of
PROSTATE helplesSness. Out of the
little piles of damp, MISUNDERSTANDING
cigars they jerlled half dozen speci-
mems. which they ripped open with a
pocket-knife. and showed to have been
made of good material. While they
were destroying their cigars for the
editication of the young men they told
their story. They We're Cubans who
were travelling through Boston. and
cigars were the best Habana They
had the material. and the cost of labor
was very small, and would the gentle
men offer price? All this informa-
ton was conveyed by means of gesture
and broken scraps of English aud writ
ten signs. They could afford to sell
good cigars for less price than the re-
tailers could sell common cigars. and,
being stranded. they were willing to
take any thing reasonable. The young
men bought 200 of the Habanas at s4a
hundred. That evening the reporter WAS
walking by the place when one of the (
young men called him in. The other
young man was there, and with him |!
was a man about town who knows all /
that's worth knowing about the queer +
tricks that go on in a big city. The /
young man was telling how he had /
found most of the cigars that he had .
used thus far to have been of the |
cheapest character, and the man about !
town was smiling quiZzically. When T.
the young man got through the smil !
ing cynic said quietly: Let me see il
| can describe the Cubans who sold the
cigars" and he proceeded to describe
with marvellous fidelity the two pictur. /
esque wanderers of that days episode.
My dear boy" he said, consolingly,
I'm sorry to say you've been duped.
These fellows are rogues who make
practice of swindling the susceptible
tenderfoot. Instead of being stranded
Cuban wayfarers, they are regular
" established in profitable business
in this city. They have place Oh
kueeland street, in garnet. where
they manufacture these very cheap
cigars. They mix in a reasonable
number of well favored and really
good cigars. and their method is to go
about and tell plausible stories that
will make smart young men, who
know good thing when they see it,
bite hard. They pick out, with a dex-
terious movement born of long practice
and general skill and expert knowledge
of tobacco. the good cigars, and they
open or smoke these specimens. blow
ing the smoke into the purchasers
fac. They will let you choose the
cigars if you like. But they have
enough skill to direct you to the cigar
they want you to take. They repre-
sent themselves as strikers, and they
want to sell their goods at any price.
So far as my experience goes, they