Soapy Smith in Tucson, Arizona 1882

The soap fiend
Arizona Citizen
(Tucson, Arizona)
December 17, 1882

(Click image to enlarge)

 

 

OAPY SMITH IN TUCSON, ARIZONA

Arizona Citizen
December 17, 1882
Tucson, Arizona

The soap fiend with his little trick is again in town, taking in the four bits and the dollars of the unsuspecting verdants. The game is to roll up little bits of soap in paper with an occasional bank note enclosed, and then mixing all together sells the privilege of choice for the figure named. In nineteen cases out of twenty the buyer gets his nubbin of soap and the blue paper, but the bank notes, like hen’s teeth, are too scarce for him to find. If the business be neither honorable nor respectable, it is, at least, one out of which considerable can be made.

Note: I believe that the “blue paper” is the wrapper around Sapolio Soap brand. Rather than unwrapping the soap package and wrapping it back up again, which took time and could be messy and sticky, all that was needed was to slip the currency under the blue band.

 

Cake of Sopolio soap
with blue paper band

In 1882 Soapy was traveling around Arizona, operating in Tucson, Tombstone, Phoenix, and likely Prescott.

Visit the Soapy Smith Soap Box blog

 

Dec 26, 2015
Mar 04, 2021

 

"Look high, look low, and we see that gamblers actually form the majority of the world's inhabitants."

—James Runciman, Side Lights, 1893