The Savannah morning news., 1903-04-12

: of the voodoos' had only a theoretical
value. The authorities of Florida got
/ after this black man, but believe that
he wasn't punished.
! Notwithstanding the Vituperation
! and scorn with which the 'blue-gum
med niger is mentioned in some of
the current coon songs of the day,
| the sO-called blue-gummed negro of
the more remote colored settlements
of the far South is a very much-fear-
ed individual by his neighbors, who
attribute all sorts of superstitions
powers to him. The blue-gummed
! negro practices the voodoo business
with profit, and any old sort of a
philter that he rigs up finds a ready
sale among the ignorant blacks. Con-
sequently good many of the fore
handed darkies down in the obscure
regions want to be blue-gummed ne
groes, and they are easy victims for
the black con men, who sell to them,
for figures ranging from IS to $40,
certain nOstrums which are guaranteed
to change their gums to the blue hue
within a certain space of time.
THE superstitious black girls
house as well as field niggers'-are
easy prey for the purveyors of love
philtefs, who have become as thick
as blackberries all over the South in
the last decade. They readily give up
months wages for a little vial of
colOred water which is solemnly guar
anteed to bring the man of their choice
to their feet in a little less than no
time
But the black girls are not alone
in yielding to the Establishments of the
colored con men who sell philters.
There are philters devised for the
f1im-f1amming of the male blacks. A
smooth black CRATER got away with
a lot of money throughout Louisiana
a year or so ago by selling to black
youths little Walls which he guaranteed
would make the other fellow lose at
craps or any other game of chance
once he had involuntarily absorbed the
stuff into his system.
THE more ignorant blacks of the
cotton belt are in such a constant
state of fear of the evil eye that the
colored bunko men who sell contrap-
tions guaranteed to render the evil
eye Intellectual have as much business
as they can handle. One of them made
a good thing of it by selling at 81
apiece small quarter-pint bottles of
Tombig'bee water, which he vowed he
had got from the River Jordan.
Another of the grafters sold seidlitz
powders to his brethren for dollar a
throw. He described them as DOW
dered alligators teeth, and that a mess
of powdered alligator's teeth taken in
ternally would knock the tar out of
any eVil-eye spell that was ever de-
Vised. The effervescence of the seidlitz
powders gave him his stronghold in the
manipulation of this game, for not
one far-Southern black in a thousand
knows anything about effervescing
powders.
Hundreds of freckled yellow darkies
We're done out of sums ranging from
$40 to $50 few years ago by a black
punko1st who claimed that he could in
tallibly remove their freckles. He sold
his victims some sort of mixture that
had phosphorus in it, and told them
TO rub the stuff all over their bodies
for six nights running and then go
swimming in the nearest stream after
night fall. The glow they emitted in
the water made a hit with the freckled
ones, who were convinced that thew
were burning their freckles off,
THE authorities in most of the
Southern states rarely bother to appre-
mend the black con men who make a
business of preying upon the supersti-
tious beliefs of their fellow-negroes.
mainly because they appreciate the
virtual hopelessness of such efforts.
The swindlers are by and between the
blacks, and the victims rarely or never
complain to their authorities.
But several of the states are now
endeavoring to stamp out the insurance
swindlers most of them educated black
grafters, who have been preying upon
the Ignorant negroes for a number Of
years. These fellows represent no COM