Today is the anniversary of the death of Jefferson "Soapy" Smith, the legendary US con artist whose most infamous scam, the Prize Package Soap Sale, earned him his nickname as well as a pride of place in the annals of US criminal folklore. Smith became notorious in the 1870s for duping entire crowds with the scam which involved him wrapping $1 to $100 bills around selected bars of soap, wrapping plain paper around these bars to hide the money, mixing them with normal bars and then selling each one off for $1 a throw. Usually a plant in the crowd, a shill, would buy the first bar, tear it open, and proclaim that he had won some cash, waving it around for all to see. That would be the cue for a frantic outbreak of frenzied buying to begin. During the proceedings, Soapy would announce that the hundred-dollar bill bar remained in the pile and he would then auction off the remaining soap bars to the highest bidder. Of course using deft sleight-of-hand, he would have hidden all the bars wrapped with money and replaced them with packages holding no cash at all. The only money "won" went to the shills in the crowd and, of course, these were members of his gang! Soapy's scam went on for over twenty years with great success despite extensive press campaigns warning the public to be wary of it and the funds earned from the Soap Sale helped to finance Soapy's other extensive criminal operations. Lord but there's naught as dumb as folk!
More tomorrow ...
More tomorrow ...
Soapy had the authorities in a lather!
PS. I've just added an email link and would be delighted if you'd subscribe to the blog and receive the daily updates.
No comments:
Post a Comment