While I was absent from my show my manager once engaged two boys with
heads little larger than teacups; one of them had a club foot and had
some little claim to intelligence. Our people had painted them to look
like savages, and they were exhibited as the "Aztec Children." One day
when the lecturer was expatiating upon these remarkable children a
burlo countryman shouted:
"Hello, John Evans, I know you; I worked in the harvest field with you
many a day; oh, you can't fool me."
The "Aztec child" had been taught to make no reply to anything said to
him, and the lecturer paid no attention to anything said to the
countryman's interruption, but the countryman was not to be put down,
and once more he shouted:
"Say, Bill Evans, maybe you think I don't know that club foot; just
come off, now."
The audience was greatly amused at this, and the lecturer saw that he
had plenty of trouble on hand; consequently he called the countryman
aside and told him that he was certainly mistaken as to the identity of
the freak. "Oh, no, I ain't," replied the obdurate fellow; "and what is
more, you and your whole shebang are frauds and humbugs." Then the
lecturer took another tack, gave the countryman five dollars, and
thought the incident closed; but it was not, for the fellow proceeded
to spend his money on whisky and tell his friends of his discovery,
with the result that the business at that point was ruined.
From the viewpoint of the showmen there are "fakers" and "fakirs."
Under the former head we class the men who conceive and manufacture
fakes of the kind already described. The fakirs are altogether of a
different kind, being the camp-followers who hang on the heels of a
circus for the purpose of swindling the public by every variety of
device known to the "blackleg fraternity."
Frequently a number of illegitimate shows start out, and, before doing
so, announce that faking privileges are to be leased. The leaders of
the various gangs make the arrangements with the circus proprietors,
depositing a sum of money in the ticket wagon with which to "square
squeals," then the tribe of showmen and fakirs start out on their
nefarious pilgrimages, the shows furnishing the transportation for the
fakirs. One of the fakirs in connection with each show is selected as
the "squarer." He is generally a member of various secret societies and
orders, and his particular duty is to bribe the petty officers of the
towns visited, to secure immunity from arrest. Lottery schemes,
gambling games of every sort, pocket-picking and robbing are among the
methods by which these fakirs reap their harvest.