The Soap Man: Soapy Smith in Tucson, Arizona, 1883

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ou are invited to try your luck for fifty cents"

The following clipping from Tucson, Arizona was published just three-days after purchasing a street vendors license in Phoenix, Arizona. This article is also one of the very few in which the reporter did not publish that the prize package soap sell was a outright swindle. Did this reporter not realize it was a scam, or care that fellow citizens were being conned? From what I can tell, Soapy was not arrested during this trip to Arizona. However, the article does make mention that this is not Soapy's first trip to the city.  

Transcription of the clipping: 
Arizona Weekly Citizen
(Tucson, Arizona)
December 29, 1883

The Soap Man.

      This morning a soap man, who has been here before, held forth on Congress Street. Like all of his profession, he is a glib talker, but this time he has a new racket, which he is working for all it is worth.
      Little pieces of soap about an inch long are wrapped up in pieces of paper. He says one-half of them contain greenbacks denominations from $1 to $20. Some of them certainly do contain some currency. You are invited to try your luck for fifty cents; you get soap, if nothing else, and you stand a chance of making $20. To keep the excitement of the crowd at fever heat every once in a while the manipulator of lye-and-grease would unroll the packages, exhibit the greenbacks, and then, picking up several packages, offer to give any man $10 who would pay $10 for them. This offer would excite the laughter of the crowd, and some individual would accept the offer. His astonishment would be great to see that he sold back to the soap man $50 or $60 in clear currency. The trick works well.

 

Tucson, Arizona
Congress Street facing west
Circa 1888
Courtesy of Arizona Historical Society

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"I am now eased in my finances and replenished in my wardrobe."

—Andrew Jackson after winning a horse race.