The herald., 1894-10-28
He IS THE PRINCE OF FAKIRS,
Tom Ryan, Promoter of Schemes
That Work.
The Science of Separating People
From Their Money.
How Business Was Done on the Midway
La Belle Fatima OF New York,
Queen of the Harem-Lux
the wild Man.

dreamy look in his eye, II not only
make business OF it. but l have re-
duced most Of these schemes for eeps-
rating people from their money right
down to a science. l have made deep
study of the work and there are today
probably few men in America who have
learned the trade better than | have,
or who are better able to grasp the
great scientific principles underlying the
art"
The speaker WAS Tom Ryan. who may
be we'll described as the "Prince OF
Fakirs."
He has been residenE OF Los Angeles
ever since ne tore himself away from
Col. Il. Daniel Boone's wild animal
like the Arab, silently folded
his tents and stole away across
the desert from San Diego, some tive
weeks back. 1t must be understood
that the work "fake" is used here in the
sense it is used by the "profesh." The
word used indisoriminately signifies
fraud of any character, but with those
in the ''business of removing people
from their wealth" it means q scheme
OF any kind where music. either of the
chin or brass band variety is used. 1t
may be dangerous to Mr.. Ryan's health,
even at this late day. to let it be known
that he is the man who stood on the
platform in front of this gigantic ''fake"
and inviegled people into paying %
cents for the privilege of seeing two
stuffed and slightly moth-esten reindeer
and a number Of Minnesota Swedes in
Lapland costumes. But Mr.. Ryan was
that man.
SIT was the biggest fake ON the
grounds" said he with the air of q man
giving himself q modest little puff,
not calculated to injure anybody else
but apt to do himself some good in
business way. "Why. even the Colum-
bian guards we're ashamed to steer peo-
pie our way on u percentage, and those
Columbian guards were not all Y. III. 9.
A. people. either, let me cay to you.
Now when l say the biggest fake on the
midway it means something. There
were some very able fakes there. Our
methods of doing business will sound
peculiar to you | know, but OF course
the ordinary methods wouldn't have
done for worlds fair. We had to get
up new ideae.
Consequently bad the greater part
OF the show on the outside, and to guard
against unpleasantness we had large
sign placed in very conspicuous place
on the inside. 1t was the finest thing to
catch the eye of any one entering the
place. 1t simply ssid, exit" and a
large hand pointed to the rear. Then
we had very able-bodied policeman
who stood we'll towards the back and
invited each visitor as they entered to
''step right this way and see the sights"
The visitor walked back past the two
stuffed reindeer and the skin.clothed
Swedes, whose duties consisted in keep.
ing their mouths shut and their skins
greasy, and passing through the "exit"
found themselves in an alley. They
had been to the "Lapland theaterP
'sKick? No; how could they? 1t was
thirty minutes walk to get around to
the place where they started in at again
and by the time they got back, if they
did. they had seen so much to bewilder
and confuse them that they were apt to
pay a second admission fee and go
through again in the hopes of actually
seeing the wonderful things | told them
about on the outside.
but we had bigger fake than that
there. We called it the Oriental Muscle
Dance. We had nine girls, seven on the
outside, who looked as if they might be
able to dance il they tried, and two in
side who actually did try occasionally,
and made q dismal failure of it. The
show lasted from three to seven minutes,
according to the size of the crowd. One
OF the most successful ideas that came
to me was the ''for men only" scheme.
II the crowd around the door was COM
posed chiefly OF men | opened up on
that line. The "for men only" talk
caught them in droves, but occasionally
| would get crowd around me which
contained a number of ladies. That's
where l finessed. "The entertainment,
ladies and gentlemen" seys L, contains
nothing which the most sensitive lady
cannot see without offense." and the fun
OF it was, this was too true.
"You see, we had picked up job lot
of girls that had been gotten together for
walters in restaurant that failed. We
bargained for their services with the ex-
plicit understanding that there wasn't
one among the lot who could dance, or
even thought she could. The idea was
that as long as ihsy didn't think they
could dance they wouldn't try, and the
would go away after while believing he
had seen some wonderful dancers in
repose; while, on the other hand, if the
girls had gotten the idea that they were
there to give an exhibition of the great
muscle dance, why. you can see for
yourself what o pickle we would have
been in, with the whole snap given
away.
Tho girls were better than the
Swedes in this respect. The Swedes
never could understand why we wanted
to exhibit them as Laplanders when in
their opinion Swede ia a mucn more
interesting thing. They wanted to be
exhibited simply as Swedes. They were
not up in the science of separating the
people from their money, you perceive.
"In this business, you understand, we
have to take some precautions, go we
used to change our 'front.'" that is to
say, on clothes. two or three times
day, and in that way we confused the
pecple, and if anyone had kick coming
we could easily convince him that he
was barking up the wrong hickory.
1T ie strange the different ways
man or woman will take to get even
after being sold. man will come right
up to the stand aud want to fight or
threaten to have ua arrested or exposed,
and draw a Dig crowd Of people around,
most OF whom will visit the show before
they leave. Now woman goes at it
different; she goes out among the crowd
and warns people against such a terri