03/28/2026
It’s “Fairgrounds Friday.” (Just a little late.) This story from the Frankfort Evening Crescent newspaper was published on Saturday, July 5, 1902. (Used with permission.)
Farmer’s Experience Who Speculated
In Side Show With Sure-Thing Man
It is reported by people who attended the side show with the Robison circus yesterday that the sure thing men were making desperate efforts to separate the unwary from their money, but did not find many suckers. One instance is related, however, of a Michigan township farmer who made an easy wining of five dollars but failed to get out of the ten with the money. He was shown an easy way of winning the five by the investment of a quarter of a dollar and being of a speculative turn of mind consented to take a chance. The grafter very obligingly allowed him to win and handed over the fiver with a smile of delight an accompliment to the farmer on his wisdom at beating another man’s game. The farmer made a wad of the bill and locking it in the palm of his h***y hand turned to leave the game and take a peep at the side show attractions. But the grafter wasn’t thorough with him yet and insisted that he remain and play the game out.
“The game is out now, as far as I’m concerned, replied the man of broad acres, taking a firmer hold on the five and a step in the direction of the “lady” who toys with the big snakes.
“But don’t you understand,” explained the man behind the sure thing “you have only put up one installment and are not entitled to any dividends until all assessments are paid It would be little short of larceny for you to walk off with that five dollars which was given to you as an evidence of good faith.”
“Good faith fiddlesticks,” retorted the farmer, in a tone of voice that woke up the lazy animals in the menagerie tent and caused the “razor backs” to grab for stakes and listen for the “hey rube” signal “ don’t talk to me about assessments and dividends and don’t give me none of your dad binged confidence clatter. I ain’t been connected with the Clinton county fair association thirty years for nothin’. I’ve seed more of you kind of fellers than could stand in my barn lot and I know all your tricks and manners. I may have hay seed in my hair, but misser, you’ll have to put on green goggles to see anything of an emerald hue about me, and don’t you forget it. I’ve been to town before.”
The grafter next tried to compromise and offered to return the farmer his quarter if he would yield up the five dollar bill, but the offer was spurned and the victim again turned to walk away, taking a still firmer grasp on the long green which represented a net profit of four seventy-five. He was at that moment given the last degree in the game. Three cappers and the operator of the game seized him and wile two held him the other pair wrenched the bill from his hand which was closed like a vise. Instead of going out and getting an officer and having the gang of robbers pulled he simply backed up against a pole and “chawed” and was at it when the crowd came out of the big tent.
Moral: Twenty-five cents in your pocket is worth more than a five dollar bill in your hand when you are trying to make large profits off of a man who is in the profit business himself and operating in a side show tent.
