Twenty years a fakir

by S. James Weldon

When I came out of prison I was in no condition, financially, to long remain idle, for I had no idea of asking or receiving assistance from the folks at home. Nor was I in condition physically to do the exhaustive hustling I had been following for some years. I had to take up with something easy, and as I had no capital to speak of there was no time to pick and choose. I took up with the first thing which offered employment, and considered myself lucky that as a stranger in a strange place I was able to secure a position as solicitor for an insurance scheme, which was certainly as big a fake as any I had ever met with.

The “company” had been organized long enough to inspire some confidence and was doing a thriving business on the following scheme, which was just a variation of what has been called the “graveyard” plan.

Any man could pay in by installments within ninety days the sum of thirty dollars and have his life insured for one hundred, while on the day after the last payment he could draw out sixty dollars in cash, always provided he fulfilled faithfully certain conditions, the most important of which was that within thirty days he was to furnish two new members. Of course, the two new members had to do the same thing.

Some persons might think a fake like that could not win, but it did. Men with plausible tongues can start almost anything, and once get a scheme like this to going it soon grows into a regular epidemic. Where it would have ended I cannot say, had not the state insurance commissioner interfered, to the great disgust of the policy holders, who were willing and anxious each to put up the remainder of his thirty dollars in order that sixty might be drawn. The company made no great fight for life. It had been making big money while it lasted, paid its agents well, and dissolved with full pockets, leaving me improved in health, capital and general knowledge of what the world wanted and was willing to pay for.

When the insurance scheme gave out I jumped the town, because I knew the law was going to step in, and I had enjoyed my fill of legal entanglements and didn’t want any more. With what money I had I went down the road about twenty miles to a little station called B——. The first thing I did was to put up at the only hotel there was in town. I asked the landlord what his rates were. He took me into the dining room and showed me two tables; one was covered with white cloth and the other with Turkey red. Pointing to the white he said, “If you eat at this table it will cost you two dollars a day and you get cake every meal, but if you eat over there with the boarders it will cost you three dollars per week, but you don’t git no cake.” I played the red for a week and came out all right; but, oh, such a hotel. It was while here looking for some light outdoor work that I fell in with a traveling horse doctor. He had a scheme of his own and was working it to the queen’s taste. I suspect that I knew more about horses than that doctor, but that is neither here nor there. He claimed to have a sure cure for hog cholera. I told him my predicament and he took me along.

His plan of treatment was to catch a hog, give him a hypodermic injection close to the tail and then turn him loose. Charges were ten cents per head.

There was cholera all around the neighborhood and for about four months we did a nice business. One day, though, a large drove of hogs we had just operated on suddenly took sick and died. The doctor heard of it in time and skipped. So did I, and we went in different directions. The last thing he did before we parted was to hand me three ten-dollar bills, and I was on earth once more.

Here I was, adrift again, with a little money, but my health not at all restored and my case before the supreme court of the United States still hanging fire. I looked around for some light, open-air business and invested in a wheel of fortune, some cigars and a license to run the thing.

Probably the reader is familiar with the instrument, though it is not so much in evidence now, I believe, as it was in those days. The anti-gambling laws of many of the states have made it a less profitable investment.

This wheel had six rows of numbers, from one to five, encircling it. I charged five cents a turn and guaranteed a prize every time. For number one I gave one cigar, for number two two cigars, and so on up to number five.