David W. Maurer
When I go to the book stores I usually know what I'm after but I always take a look at the bargain rack. The Big Con was one of those books that I just happened to find at too good a price to pass up. I love just anything to do with con men (I'm a right dab hand at the three shell game myself) so at ~$8 I just had to have this book. So I bought it and I read it and here I am telling you about it.
So as I understand this book was first published in 1941 and its author is not an ex-cop or detective, nor an ex-criminal or con man. Its author was a linguist fascinated by underworld slang. This linguist found and befriended all sort of underworld types to learn about the jargon they used. He did this and published a book about it but it seems that the argot of the con was so great and fascinating that it deserved its own book. I imagine that getting the underworld types to talk was no mean feat but he did it and even managed to keep the secrets he promised to keep by having his personal collection of notes destroyed upon his death. If you cannot tell I find the history of the book and its author just as fascinating as the book itself.
This book has two introductions being a second edition printed nearly half a century after the first, the first introduction tells how the book came to be and about the author and reminds us that $50,000 in 1940 is like $500,000 today which is important to remember. Some of the touches (con jargon for total money made from any one running of the con) are impressive even before you do the mental math. $300,000 is a lot even today but with inflation that $300,000 is the same as $3,000,000 today.
There are a lot of con games out there but for the most part the book only cares about “the big cons” which is basically defined as any con in which the mark is sent on the send (the sucker is sent to go get more money than he has on him) this is the opposite of “the short con” where the mark is only taken for all the money he has on him. Obviously the money made from each big con is significantly higher than that made from the short con. While I'm sure there are loads of big cons out there the book only mentioned three that were the popular when it was written; The Wire, The Rag, and The Pay-Off. Two of them were cons about horse betting and the other was about the stock market.
All three con's went the same basic way a con called a Roper search the countryside looking for a good mark. A good mark being someone with larceny in his blood (meaning someone that wants to get something for nothing) and a hefty bankroll to lose. When a roper finds a good mark he befriends him and takes him to where the insideman (a con that runs the show that loses the mark his money) is running his big store. There they put on a little show that fans the larceny in his blood (some marks have more blood larceny than others, one anecdote from the book tells of a mark that suggested killing the insideman and taking his money, needless to say the mark was cleaned out extra hard) they fire the mark up till he is ready to turn all he owns into cash to play the game. After that they clean him out and get rid of him in a myriad of ways.
While that all seems like a lot of information it actually only constitutes one chapter while I won't get as in depth with the contents of the other, you can read it your self for that, I am going to give a brief description of the other chapters. First up is 'The Mark' this chapter talks about what else, the mark. What a con looks for in one and such. Next is 'The Mob' which talks about the various specific jobs in a con and who fills them. Then comes a chapter entitled 'Birds of a feather' in which the book goes over con men themselves, shared characteristics and what con men say makes a good con man. My favorite part of the book is probably in this chapter where it talks about the cons that con men pull on other cons and criminals. After that we have 'Tin-Mittens' this chapter is about people that make money off the con but are not part of the con itself such as policemen who get a cut to keep the marks from taking any complaints to trial. Then comes a fun chapter called 'Short-con games' where there are explained eight short cons a con man my run if he is low on funds. Almost all require two con men to play though. Next to last and one of the most enjoyable of the chapters is 'The Con Man and His Lingo' which is like a bad guy glossary. The last chapter an amusing when you consider it was wrote ~50 years ago is 'Looking Toward the Future' which is about three pages long and closes out the book.
Over all I really enjoyed this, it was a fun easy read about a subject I love. About the most trouble I had was that sometimes slang is used that while common in 1940 is no longer in modern use and I can only wonder at what was meant. I always worry that I'm going too hard or too soft on grading a book but for me this one totally gets a 10 out of 10.
