Bismarck weekly tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, Dakota [N.D.]) 1884-1943, 1891-06-05
WHERE FAKIRS MEET.
THEY HAVE AN EXCHANGE QUEER
ENOUGH IN ITS ODD WAY.

It IL in Narrow and Crowded Ann Street, |
Convenient to the busy Part Of the
MISUNDERSTANDING About q Glass
Of Men Who Push Novelties.
When you visit the fakirs' exchange and I
come to know it you will be able to under
stand at least one circumstance that must
have struck you as being a trifle queer.
Now, many persons have at some time
walked from the city hall through Park
row and down Broadway as far as Wall
street, and lave noticed that the streets
were strangely clear of peddlers. Going
over that same ground a couple of hours
later they ave encountered a horde of
bowling, hoarse voiced men and boys, their
cries arising far above the noise of the
streets as they fairly assaulted the passers-
by to compel them to buy the trinkets they
had for sale.
If you have noticed this you lave per-
haps wondered whence all these fakirs have
80 suddenly sprung. The key to this mys-
terry is not hard to find and is not a great
distance away. 1t is to be found at the
fakirs' exchange.
just strike down Ann street from Park
~" duO AhAO III AuCftUCI dl1cy, d SuOIU Adll
block away. You will see nothing there
that will remind you of the Produce ex-
change or the Cotton exchange or the Real
Estate exchange or anything of that sort.
You will see on one side of Theater alley a
liquor store, on the other another The
Fakirs' exchange is right about there.
In the windows Of one of these saloons is
a small crystal lake, in the center of that a
smaller island, and on that a bullfrog al
most as large as the island. He is the
tutelary genius of the exchange. When he
was first put into that aquarium he was a
brash sort of bullfrog. He started in to
make things hum at once. In the same
place were several catfish. If you lave
ever attempted to toy in a careless manner
with a catfish you probably know that he
has a very decided way of making himself
felt. This bullfrog ought to have known
this and perhaps he did, but rs has been
said, he was brash. So he fooled with the
catfish and they fooled with him.
THE EXCHANGE.
Then one day he climbed on the island
before mentioned and began to wonder why
it was that catfish were allowed in a civil
lied country to carry s%tilettos behind their
ears. That was W years g and the bull
frog has spent about all his time on that
island ever since. This biography Of him
may seem irrelevant, but it isn't. The
members of the exchange treat him with
large consideration. They call him Robin
son Crusoe, and they claim that his powers
of hard and persistent thinking entitle
him to respect. So if you want to get along
with them you will cast no reflection on
Crusoe, the frog.
The exchange is unique. There will be
days and days when it will be to all in
tents and purposes closed, when you will
see scarcely a member about. On those
days they are scattered all over the city in
every place where men and women congre-
gate, selling with greater or less success
such wares as they hav to offer. Then
you will see them drifting back to head
quarters, and on another day when you go
through Ann street you will find handcart
after handcart about Theater alley and
men lounging about looking at Crusoe and
talking in groups. It is an exchange day.
1t is not proper to class these men with
the small peddlers who sell shoestrings,
matches and the like. These are but work
ing on what is practically the system of
the Italian p%adrones, albeit in this case it
is worked by Hebrews. These peddlers in
Ann street are usually either individual
merchants, so to speak, or members of a
combination, and in a general way with so
much unanimity of fornsShat their head
quarters may really be termed an exchange,
or at the very least a market.
They have capital within certain limits,
and credit too. They will not deal in things
hat to their mind will not strike the pub
lie as either bargains or novelties. The
class of peddlers who deal in bargains buy
r1noo11 cfNckc IF moro1ipoo hooko o.s)
Illustrated papers, hats just gone out of sea-
son. second hand articles that are easily
transferred by means of a handcart or with
the assistance of ar ancient horse.
HOW FAKIRs WORK
The dealers in novelties form the cream
of the exchange. They work on combina-
tions. They watch every toy and novelty
manufacturing house in the business.
They have scheduled novelties that of
course change from year to year for every
holiday, whether it be Christmas or Labor
Day. 1t was mainly through the efforts of
these men that the Fifteen Puzzle' be-
came popular. When they heard, and
they did speedily, that the "Boulanger
March" was a good thing, it was but a day
or so when they were selling it by the tens
of thousands on the streets.
They watch every theatrical hit, every
success of a public man, every great event,
and in fact study the public taste much
more closely than much greater men do.
They are in touch with all the wholesale
houses in this city that deal with mechan-
ical toys and novelties, and the managers
of these houses lave no hesitation in say
ing that so far as New York is concerned,
and that means a good deal, these street
fakirs are rare good judges of what will go
and what will not.
If you could see all the members of this
exchange at their headquarters you would
see an interesting throng. But that is
hardly possible.
They do not congregate at any specified
time. But if any new thing comes out
that is likely to sell on the streets of New
York the manufacturer has but to let it be
known at Ann street and Theater alley. It
will be speedily tested, and if it is what it
is claimed to be by its inventor it will in
twenty-four hours be on sale in every i'm
portant point in New York, and a Thousand
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