Fort Worth daily gazette. (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1890-03-29
GRAFTERS.
A Separate and Distinct Battalion in the
Great Army OF Circus Men.
How They Ply Their Trade and Grow In
mensely Rich-Police Inspector Byrnes
Making Record of Them.
Special to the Gazette.


NEW YORK, March 2s.-Inside Of a
month q thousand grafters will be at
work. A CRATER is a fakir. A faklr Is
a swindler who travels with circus and
makes his living by trick and device
oftentimes by downright robbery, and
always by gullIng the unsophisticated,
either through the use of a glib tongue or
a pair of merveIlously adroit hands.
Grafters are not recruited from the ranks
of the intrepid bareback rider, or the
chalk-face clown, or of the muscle
swelling gladiator of the sawdust arena.
Grafters are an altogether separate and
distinct battalion in the great army of
circus men. They are the suave, sly,
silky chaps who fit around the outside
OF big white tent and below out in
cessantly: "Here, var; tickets for tn ,
show same as at tn Office They are
the smoothly shayen, professional look
| ing fellows who you see buZzing and
darting hither and thither in the crowds,
with lots of bank bills care
lessly crowded between the fingers on
each hand. AS they have at you with
conquoring stride, and ga nice reserved
seat, sir, - you will, at first, be at
traoted by the fstfull of bills, which
flap in the breeze, and are clutched so
| vise-like 'twixt their digits. Every
| cirous-goer knows them. Many remem-
Der, sorrowfully, the nimbleness of those
very digits. There is news in this sub
ject, because Police Inspector BYrnes is
making a record of the grafteTs. 'I
am powerless to arrest them,' he said
to your correspondent to-day; "but am
putting them into a condition of scrutiny.
Their names will be kept here, at police
| headquarters, along with information as
to the circuses they follow, the peculiari
ties of their methods, and their charac-
teristics individually. My agents are
now gathering these facts, for the season
of circus travel will soon begin. Then
| we shall keep our eyes on the route of
each show, learn at least of the larger
| robberies committed, and so be able to
render assistance If requested. Mean
| while, you couldn't do the country
better service than to publish the truth
of this whole matter.
The Stars among the grafters of to-
day are Jim Jordan, Kid Barrett, Kid
Harris, Kid Connors, George Wattsey
and George W. Hall or Popcorn George.
There are others, but these men are the
belt winners IN the fraternity of circus
fakirs. Popcorn George month or two
ago got enmeshed in the jungles of
1 Southern law for some act in connection
with the elections in Tennessee. No
settlement has been reached in his case;
but it is safer, a good deal, to bank on
the probability of Popcorn George face
turning up serenely with some circus in
| few weeks, than it is to pick winner at
q race course as the races are run nova
| days. Among the grafters named Is one
who was the leading spirit in confidence
game which Melted the operators $1,000.
| 1t will serve no object to name this man.
The trick was played in Washington two
years ago, aud its stands to-day in the
swindler's estimation as the cham
pion fake ever perpetrated on
circus ground. A couple of
grafters ingratiated themselves into the
good graces of a granger, and piloted
him through every department IN
rs circus. The cleyerer of the
grafters represented that he was the
treasurer of the show. They would let
him in as a partner, provided, he had
the capital. Certainly the granger had
it; but 1t was in the bank. Could he get
it? Why, to De sure he could. And he
did. Then the grafters got it-and kept
it. A valise figured in the transaction,
but the victim of the grafters never fig
! ured, for a moment, as partner in the
| show. 1t was shift in valIses, and the
duped man serenely sauntered off with
his bag filed with the grafters' best
wishes and a lot of not easily negotiable
wrapping paper. To be sure there was a
great row made by the dupe when he
discovered the swlndle. The sharpers
were miles away.
The methods of the CRATER are multi
farious. If he cannot get your money or
a portion OF it, by the slide trick, he will
work you a push note. These are the
two principal tricks of the short-change
| man. To illustrate the slide trick let US
suppose the CRATER has located his plant.
This in polite English, means he has
selected man with money. His victim
is buying a couple of fifty cent tickets.
He hands $50 bill to the CRATER.
/ "Smallest you have, sir?''
OF course it always is, and even If 1t
| ism Il, it doesn't make the slightest diff
ference TO our magic fingered. manlpu-
lator of paste boards. He carelessly
slows the $40. away and counts out three
S., three 81, and silver dollar IN
change He hands you the paper
money, and you wait for the other dol
lar.
''Isn t that all right, sir?'. blandlv
inquiries the slick ticket singer, "Let
me see.
Then taking the money from your
hands, he holds the roll IN his left hand
with the thumb pressing the bills just
tightly enough to hold them In place.
Now he begins to count them with his
right. The fives are on the bottom.
Five, ten, fifteen, sixteen. seventeen,
eighteen he repeats, as he tsllies off
each greenback and folds it across his
left forefinger, "and the silver dollar
| makes Sl9. All right now sir, L guess, -
| and lie walks away. You are satisfied.
He ought to be, for he IS got $40 more Of
your pile than he should have; in many
| instances he may have fifteen. Chow 8
that?" you say. Why in the easiest
manner, to the CRATER, imaginable.
As he places the big cartwheel dollar on
top of the eighteenth dollar in his left
hand, he draws the left away and with
it, in its palm, are the two bottom f1ves,
which he counted so conspicuously be-
fore your eyes. There is five left, of