The Con Artist's Tearful Pitch
A traveler uses a tragic tale of fire and loss to test the hospitality of a Seattle resident.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
The doorbell announced the arrival of a visitor. The lady of the house answered the summons and found a large, fine-appearing man, whose polite 'Good morning, madam' rather won the good opinion of the lady. 'Well, you see, she is my sister. I have just arrived here and am trying to find her. My sister don't expect me until spring, but I was burned out in Halifax, Nova Scotia, and lost $19,000, and a sweet, darling little daughter, five years old, burned to a crisp.' Tears dimmed his eyes and sobs choked his utterance, but, slightly recovering, he said, 'Oh, I am so glad that you are a good Christian woman, who believes in doing unto others as you would that others should do unto you. Will you practice that golden rule when I tell you I have not one cent in the world, and loan me fifty cents until I am able to pay you?' At this point, the lady's patience being exhausted, she, in the most winning and sympathetic tones, invited the man to the wood pile to honestly earn a dollar. The man departed. So far he has failed to return.
“Oh, I am so glad that you are a good Christian woman, who believes in doing unto others as you would that others should do unto you.”
Door-to-door scams rely on the same psychological triggers today—the appeal to the 'Golden Rule' and a sudden, tragic story—as they did in 1884. This incident serves as a reminder that the rapid growth of the city also brought transient hustlers looking to exploit local kindness.
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