St. Landry clarion. (Opelousas, La.) 1890-1921, 1891-06-20


chusetts, and Marvin, the razor-paste
man, is practicing medicine in Boston.
King still sells blacking in summer and
juggles with paper at the dime muse
ums in winter.
GAS for myself, commenced on bird
whistles in the street. They cost me
SO thousand, as made them myself,
and I whistled like Mrs. Shaw, so I
readily sold one for quarter, although
now you may buy them anywhere for
cent each.
"After that sold cheap jewelry-
six pieces for quarter, including
brooch, earrings, fnger-rings and a
scarf-pin. Twenty cepts profit on each
sale! Later solo sd el pens, buying
ten gross lots and calVing with me
samples of pens in their dGarent stages
of manufacture. After thaoI sold 25-
cent packages of stationery. These
packages contained six sheets of note
paper, six envelopes, three Faber
steamboat pencils, one of which had a
rubber top; six pens (brass), a nickel
penholder, pair of cuff-buttons, one
collar-button, two finger rings, one gilt
chain, one key-ring, six magic parlor
tricks on pasteboard, a box of blacking,
bottle of ink and bottle Of mucilage,
with brush. On this 25-cent package
realized cents profit, and sold the
boxes as fast as I could hand out the
goods and make the change.
Notwithstanding the fact that /
often cleared $40 day, ] wanted to sell
something that was all profit. One day
in Sarnia saw fakir in carriage
who talked to the people about the
anatomy of the hands and feet, and
offered his salve and lniment as Ucure
for every ailment, from compound
fracture of the ankle to corns and chill
blains. From carriage ! sell at 25
cents and from dry-goods box or -four
travel with gypsy wagon. My wife
dresses as Sioux princess and plays a
cornet when not playing a parlor organ.
In order to get my audience interested
take common newspaper, and, while
folding and tearing it into Jacobs lad
ders l give them the history of paper,
showing how it is made and telling how
useful it is, from wrapping red her
ring to bearing the death warrant of a
criminal, the will of deceased person,
the check of the millionaire, or mar
riage certificate. Then l give them
statistics. After this / take this
piece of stiff yellow paper which
my wife cut out, and juggle
with it. I can turn it into over
100 different shapes, including poke
bonnet, Partisan hat, a coal hod, a
bread basket, flower vase, card re-
ceiver, cruet stand and a cradle. All
this catches the crowd. Then throw
the paper down and turn the joint,
which is fakir for opening the sale. I
must have eyes, ears and mouth open at
the same time. My wits must be alert,
so that If somebody in the crowd makes
remark calculated to hurt my sale or
make fun Of me, can reply as quickly
as flash with something that turns
the laugh on him. He sneahs away
and my smiling but sarcastic reply
brings out deluge of quarters from
those who have heard the colloquy.
"Unless you have sold medicines you
would never believe what lot Of all
ments people have. Some OF them
never suspect it themselves until they
have heard me talk. In an hour in
some places take in $50 or $25, and as
it is mostly profit and I'm no hog
close my sales for the day. have a
dollar to spend and q dollar to lend,
and the latch-string hangs out to my
friends and my wife's relatives. I've a
dollar for charity, one to loan on good
security, one to spend for the benefit of
my family and another for my own
cigars. No, never mind my name. All
the first-class fakirs and most of my
country customers will recognize me
from what have said"