The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1893-10-02
FAKIRS At THE BIG FAIR.
UnSuSpGCting Victims as Numerous as
the Visitors.

lHG llSllOIS.
The Plaisance, the Fakir's Original
Home on the Grounds-Good Imita-
tions of Foreigners Mingled With
the originals-The Greater Part of
the Midway Run on the Buneo Plan.
You Pay for What You Don't Get.
The Howltng Fakirs, Silenced, Put
up a Dumb Show-Water the Only
Cheap Luxury to be Had.
If anyone expects TO visit Chicago and
see the fair without being taken in. as
the saying goes, by some of the many
arts and devices that are there for that
purpose, he may as well unpack his grip
and stick to his own pocket borough
This was the experience of a Savannah
man, who recently visited the fair
Everybody knows that there are hun
dreds of people, and perhaps thousands
there for the purpose of making living
easy, and perhaps getting rich, at the ex-
pense of the unwary and unsuspecting
visitor, and everyone who goes there gen
orally goes with the idea, if not the reso-
luton, that he will not be played for a
| jay" or that he will always get the
worth of his money when he spends it.
| Worthless resolution, made but to be
| broken, knowingly sometime perhaps,
| but broken nevertheless and the fakir gets
| the benefit of it. Some people spend
| their shekels knowing that they are
| being taken in, but when they do, value
| received is second consideration, as
! compared with the curiosity they feel
| to know what this or that building
contains. Knowing this universal trait
Of human nature, the fakir plays upon the
! propensity of his fellow man to see what
| is on the inside.
ON THE MIDWAY.
The Midway Plaisance is the original
| home of the fakir at the fair, and there is
| where everybody expects to find him
| They are there in all shapes, conditions,
and from almost all nations, for America
| though foreigners think tits, is not his only
home. You can find them there, all the
way from the man who pretends to give
| you value received for the money
you spend with him, and in many
| instances even more down to the conf
dence man and woman too, for that mat
ter, and the steerer of bunco, who has
left his original home in New York to
play his subtle games in a new field and
among a changing population.
AS you go down that immense street
with towering buildings on either side for
half mile or more, surrounded by the
varied architecture, you imagine yourself
in mosaic of nations, and you have only
TO turn here or there to be in Vienna, in
India, Java, China, Siam or almost any of
| the numerous occidental nations. You
see the quaint and varied colored cos
TUNES, the gilded exterior of the build
ings and you imagine if the interior is
all that the exterior gives prom
Use of its being you will
of an admission. But you are in the
midst of fakirs, people who are there for
the purpose of getting your money by
giving you as little in return for it as pos
sible. Some of the shows on the Midway
are, of course, worth the time and money
spent in seeing them, but unless you have
questioned closely those who have been
there before you. and know well what
you are doing, you are certain to be
| taken in.
WHAT YOU DON'T SEE.
You pay so or 25 cents for the privilege
of entering one of the numerous foreign
villages on the Midway and when you get
in you see no more than you have seen
outside You have the privilege of paying |
for your lunch or glass of beer at what |
| they call a Javanese restaurant, or |
Moorish restaurant, and you get the same |
kind of glass of beer and the same kind |
of lunch that you get at the German or |
the plain American restaurant. Then YOU |
can pay 80 or 25 cents more and 90 into |
what they call the Jayanese or sChinese |
theater where some foreigners dance a |
| can-can or some such dance in their ma !
tive dress, and with a rather fertile i'm |
agination you may be able to think that |
you have been spending your time abroad, |
until the illusion is quickly dispelled by |
the numerous people in your own costume |
that you see around you.
bn ul bnr ilor # Inv
ing any of the various and numerous |
trinkets from the far east that YOU see |
inside that may strike your fancy for all !
of which you pay double duty because it |
is at the worlds fair. Further down the |
Midway you can see the ostrich show for
a quarter. You see fifteen or twenty big
birds such as you can see in any zoologi- |
cal garden, walking around feeding on
grass When you come out you hear the
fakir across the way crying:
THIS WAY TO LAPLAND
"This way to the Lapland village! Ad-
mission only 25 cents. We don't have auy
barnyard fowls in here!" And then YOU
feel little as if you had been taken in.
But you are on the one and only Midway,
and everything goes.
The foreigner is there for the money
and he is making it. Here and there
such as in the Ferris wheel in the Moor
ish palace, or in Hagenbeck's museum. and
one or two other places, you feel satisfied
that you have got your moneys worth
but everywhere else you are followed by
grave doubts, which on serious con-
temptation become dead certainties.
You can run across a foreigner almost
anywhere that is n fake in himself
There are a number of Americans on the
Midway who have studied little broken
English, learned how to array them
selves properly in the various and fancy !
BAKING ?