April 18, 2023 • 25 mins
You can't talk about confidence artists and their games without talking about one of the classics: the shell game. It's been called a lot of things over the decades, and during the time and place we're going to visit in this episode, it was 'thimblerig'. It's often portrayed as a gambling game, but it's actually a con used to fleece unsuspecting bettors. Samuel Bennett was one of the best-known 'thimbleriggers' – perhaps ever, depending who you ask – and he made a fortune scamming passengers on steamboats along America's waterways in the 19th century.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Welcome to Criminalia, a production of Shondaland Audio in partnership
with iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
You can't have a season about confidence artists and their
games without talking about one of the classics, the shell game.
It's been called a lot of things over the years,
and during the time and place we're going to visit
in this episode, we'll be calling it thimblerigg. Though it's
often portrayed as a gambling game, it's actually a confidence
trick used to perpetrate fraud. It is a long popular
(00:37):
game among confidence artists, some who became famous for using
this shortcun on many many marks. Sophie Smith, for instance,
was a renowned thimble rigger. William Lucky Bill Florington was
as well, and so was doctor Samuel Bennett, the confidence
artist in this episode's hot seat Welcome to Criminalia. I'm
(00:59):
Maria Tremarky.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
And I'm Holly Frye. Samuel Bennett was one of the
best known so called thimble artists, perhaps ever, depending on
who you ask, and he made a fortune playing the
game on steamboats along the Mississippi and Red Rivers in
the United States in the nineteenth century. Samuel was one
(01:21):
of thirteen children born in January of seventeen ninety one
in New Hampshire to Thomas and Sarah Bennett. We unsurprisingly
have very little detail about his childhood, but we do
know that before he turned confidence man, and actually during
his confidence career as well, he did legitimate work. He
(01:43):
worked as a fur trader, a merchant, and as a
tavern keeper. You surely noticed Maria referred to him as
doctor Samuel Bennett. The thing about that is he was
never actually a real doctor. He had no training whatsoever,
but he either tired or self styled the honorific title
at some point early in his adulthood. In eighteen twelve, Samuel,
(02:07):
at that point in his early twenties, became a father.
He and a woman named Comfort Batchelder had a daughter
named Mary Dole Silly Bennett and nicknamed Bammy in Chichester,
New Hampshire. Mary herself has a big life story of
her own. She's known as having been a shrewd business
entrepreneur and is known as the mother of Shreveport, Louisiana.
(02:31):
Although Samuel and his daughter had what seems to have
been a pretty good relationship, when her father died, the
rest of the Bennett sued to have Mary removed from
his will. If you're wondering what the problem was, Samuel
and Comfort never got married, which meant that Mary was
born in a non marital union. At the time, she
(02:52):
would have been called an illegitimate child, and for that reason,
Samuel's family wanted to disallow her inheritance. Samuel's family actually
won their suit.
Speaker 2 (03:03):
So let's go back to Samuel's life, not his death.
He may have spent the first twenty two years of
his life in New Hampshire, but Samuel was from Shreveport, Louisiana.
If you get what we mean, he spent most of
his adult life there and had a significant impact on
the growth of the city. In fact, he and several
(03:24):
other Bennett family members, including his daughter Mary, all played
roles in the history of Shreveport over many decades before
landing there, though, Samuel first moved from New Hampshire to Alabama,
where he became a landowner and enslaver. And for perspective
on the historical timeline, this was still a few decades
before the American Civil War would begin. Small local papers
(03:47):
occasionally wrote little stories about him, and it didn't take
long for them to report on the details of his
growing side gig his com career. To quote the press,
Bennett played checkers unusually well, and I truly liked to
play that game. Bennett considered it a wilful waste of
time to play only for the sake of the game,
and would not play except for a stake of not
(04:09):
less than ten dollars a game.
Speaker 1 (04:12):
In eighteen thirty three, give or take a year, Samuel
and his brother William found themselves back in New Hampshire,
and while there, William fell in love with his niece Mary.
By today's standards, that's problematic. Despite Samuel's concerns about the pairing,
the two did marry and moved to Shreveport. The Caddo
(04:34):
people called the area home before the arrival of Europeans,
and William and Mary Bennett were among the earliest white
inhabitants in the region. They set up post along the
river and also made money through warehouses they owned on
Cross Bayou. The Bennetts provided food and supplies to travelers
who were making their way west into Texas. The family
(04:55):
also operated a ferry to carry travelers across the Red River.
Many many early settlers came through this region on their
Way to the American West. By eighteen fifty, more than
two hundred wagons per week passed through.
Speaker 2 (05:11):
The area to be near his daughter, brother and eventual grandchildren.
Samuel too relocated to Shreveport. According to the Weekly Shreveport Times,
quote he was engaged in mercantile and farming pursuits, owning
the valuable body of Richland opposite the city, and for
a short while ran a private bank here. He may
(05:33):
have been involved in legit pursuits upon his arrival in Shreveport,
but Samuel was already pretty well known throughout the American South,
especially in cities in Alabama and Georgia, as a great
trick man a corn artist. The Weekly Shreveport Times began
to catch on and began to report that he quote
had the distinguished honor of either inventing or reviving the
(05:55):
game known as thimblerig, which has been calculated to capture
the ung Way. They continued, quote a recital of his
many sharp practices would fill a volume.
Speaker 1 (06:07):
We're going to take a break here for a word
from our sponsors. When we return, we'll talk about what
the game known as thimble rig is and how it's played.
Speaker 2 (06:30):
Welcome back, to criminalia. Shell game swindles are still in
vogue among con artists today around the world. But let's
talk about how thimble rig was played in the nineteenth century.
Speaker 1 (06:43):
The definition of a thimble rigger ever since the game's
popularity in the eighteen hundreds, has been one who manipulates
or controls, generally in deceptive or dishonest ways. The game itself,
thimblerig is related to another game called cups and balls.
That's a magic trick that's performed as entertainment. It's not
(07:06):
anything to do with gambling or anything scammy. It's also
pretty much the same swindle as three card Monty, just
the substitute for the cards. Some will tell you it's
a game of skill and not a swindle. Some people
will tell you it's all just an illusion. So let's
talk about how it's played.
Speaker 2 (07:28):
You'd actually probably recognize it if you saw it. It
can be identified by its three small overturned containers and
a small object for hiding. Over the years, the containers
have been everything from fimbles to walnut shells to bottle caps,
and the small object is usually a small ball, pebble, bead, button,
(07:48):
You get the picture. There are descriptions of the game
from the early eighteen hundreds, and though there have been
slight changes over the decades, it's generally run like this.
For simplicity, we're going to use thimbles and balls as
our object examples, as that would have been common in
nineteenth century thimblerig. It begins with the operator and this
(08:10):
is the con artist inverting the three thimbles on a
surface such as a mat or a table. A single
ball is placed under one of those three inverted thimbles,
and then then here's where they get you. The thimblerig
scam works because of an illusion. The secret is a
second ball. This involves an element of sleight of hand
(08:31):
to pull off the swindle. The secret ball is placed
under a second of the three thimbles, and the original
ball is removed from play palmed by the operator. The
operator quickly shuffles the containers with the replacement ball under them,
while the better otherwise known as the mark, and spectators
unwittingly look on. In his book Suckers Progress, An Informal
(08:54):
History of Gambling in America from the Colonies to Canfield,
Herbert Asbury describes the slow height of hand like this
quote ten times out of ten, unless the bet was
a come on, the object is between two of the
thimble rigger's fingers or has been shifted by a confederate
during the excitement of the betting. Now the action moves
(09:15):
to the better. The better then chooses which container the
object is under, and the odds here are super good
that they do not choose correctly. In addition to this
light of hand part of this scam, thimble artists often
also had shills, who were people they paid to help them.
Spectators watching shills win the game was often the boost
(09:36):
they needed to try that game themselves.
Speaker 1 (09:39):
Samuel's variation was usually played with three thimbles and a tiny,
rolled up paper ball. He claimed that he had played
this game since he was just a kid, true or not.
As an adult, he was so proficient at it that
he was given the nicknames the King of Thimbles and
the Napoleon of thimble Riggers. He was so good at
(10:01):
the swindle that in the early eighteen forties, in part
because of him, several states passed laws that specifically prohibited
this game. Sometimes he's even credited with inventing the thimble
rig but for certain he did not. He may have
popularized it during his lifetime, we will absolutely give him that.
(10:22):
But people were playing this game or running this con
dating back to the ancient Greeks and Romans, and of
course the magic trick even predates that. In Great Britain
in the early nineteenth century, it got the name thimble
rig from the words thimble the original containers used in
the game, and rig that's the obsolete term for trick.
(10:45):
You have rigged the game.
Speaker 2 (10:48):
This swindle was very popular throughout the nineteenth century, and
games were often set up in or around carnivals and
other large events. Games of chance also became popular on
America's new steamboats. In eighteen thirty six, historian and writer
Benjamin Drake, a writer of popular sketches for newspapers at
the time, introduced his audience to a new character, a
(11:11):
riverboat gambler of sorts, what he called an American rascal,
who rode steamboats up and down the Mississippi to take
advantage of unsuspecting passengers with various rigged games of chance.
These men, he wrote, quote, dress with taste and elegance,
carry gold chronometers in their pockets, and swear with the
most genteel precision. These men were in fact a real thing,
(11:36):
and our Samuel Bennett, based out of Shreveport, was one
of them.
Speaker 1 (11:40):
So we're going to take a break here for a
word from our sponsors. But when we return we will
talk about the rise and fall of steamboats in America
and what that meant for riverboat gamblers like Samuel Bennett.
Speaker 2 (12:06):
Welcome back to Criminalia. Let's talk about what happened when
gamblers and con artists got on board those steamboats.
Speaker 1 (12:15):
So we need to talk about riverboats for a minute.
In the early eighteen hundreds in the United States, this
is of course before rail travel. Transportation was limited. Mostly
you could go by horse and wagon, ox cart, mule train.
In the nineteenth century, rivers became the nation's kind of
unofficial highway system for both traders and travelers. New steam
(12:38):
powered boats could move upstream nearly as fast as downstream,
and could travel at what were astonishing speeds for the time,
as fast as five miles per hour or that's about
eight kilometers per hour. The Mississippi River flows through ten states,
and that river has long played a vital role in
American expansion. In the eighteen hundreds, the river carried just
(13:02):
about every trade good you might imagine from the time
first from the Great Lakes and the Missouri River region,
agricultural staples like corn and wheat from the Midwest, a
swell as cotton, sugar, and tobacco from the plantations of
the South. Because of its dominance and significance, the Mississippi
has often been called the lifeblood of American industry and commerce.
Speaker 2 (13:26):
So we can probably point a finger at Samuel Clemons,
also known as the legendary author Mark Twain, for the
romanticized Americana image of paddlewheel steam riverboats floating down the
Mississippi River. In his memoir, which was called Life on
the Mississippi, he wrote of his days as a steamboat
pilot in the years before the American Civil War. Twain
(13:49):
described the Mississippi River towns as quote comely clean, well built,
and pleasing to the eye and cheering to the spirit.
The Mississippi Valley is as a dreamland, nothing worldly about it,
nothing to hang a fret or worry upon. And he
described the riverboats as full of passengers playing card games
and enjoying live music and dancing, all true stuff. He
(14:12):
also wrote of gamblers and thieves, cheating travelers, out of
a bunch of money. Also true, and our subject today,
Samuel Bennett wasn't there for that live music or that dancing.
He was there for that bunch of money.
Speaker 1 (14:27):
While that five miles per hour was an astounding riverboat
speed for its time, it was still five miles per hour.
That meant that passengers weren't going anywhere especially fast. So
to pass the time, people began to enjoy various entertainments
on board, and with that need for diversion, it was
(14:50):
kind of as if the steamboats had hung out a
welcome sign for professional gamblers and swindlers to come aboard,
and they did go aboard, probably for a few reasons.
It was easy to keep a low profile when traveling
on the river. Plus there were likely plenty of passengers
on board who were gullible in the ways of games
of chance, especially when those games are rigged. And also
(15:15):
it was in part just due to the law certain
states prohibited gambling, but that only applied on land. Twain
once described the riverboat gamblers as quote, rough repulsive fellows.
He wrote of their presence on the river as quote
I could not help seeing them with some frequency, for
they gambled in an upper deck stateroom every day and night,
(15:37):
and in my promenades I often had glimpses of them
through their door, which stood a little ajar to let
out the surplus tobacco, smoke, and profanity. They were an
evil and hateful presence, but I had to put up
with it. Of course.
Speaker 2 (15:51):
Samuel Bennett's name had become so tightly linked to the
game of thimble rig that curious passengers on the riverboats
he frequented began and to approach him and ask for demonstrations. First,
he quite modestly feigned reluctance to do so. No no,
but thank you for the interest. Pressed a second time, well,
(16:14):
doctor Bennett would be happy to show off, and, considering
the passengers knew who he was when they approached him,
he would ironically walk away with pocketfuls of cash he'd
fleeced from them during his demonstration. In eighteen fifty seven,
gambler turned con exposer Jonathan Green described in his book
(16:34):
Gambling Exposed a quote merchant from Philadelphia, who, though a
very intelligent man and a shrewd businessman, was far above
intrigue and unwittingly lost over sixteen hundred dollars to gamblers
on the Mississippi to that point. Riverboat confidence man Canada,
Bill Jones was once quoted saying suckers had no business
(16:56):
with money, a sentiment said perhaps by every con artist
we've talked about so far this season.
Speaker 1 (17:02):
I would imagine, as you might imagine, riverboat gambling wasn't
without potential violence and other crime. Historians report people taking
the law into their own hands to punish accused cheaters, thieves,
and other criminals while floating on the river. In eighteen
thirty five, in Vicksburg, Mississippi, for example, five gamblers were
(17:25):
lynched after other passengers discovered them cheating at cards. Gambling
on a riverboat on the Mississippi, which was mainly unregulated
waters skirted local laws.
Speaker 2 (17:41):
The era of the steamboat began its rise in popularity
and prominence at the same time as the popularity and
prominence of card games, in particular poker. But card games
were really having a moment. By the eighteen thirties, more
than twelve hundred steamboats for carrying passengers and products around
America's waterways, and men like Bennett were eager to run
(18:04):
rigged games on all of them, and by all of them.
I mean all of the boats and all of the people.
Some of the earliest tales of poker games date to
this time period. Many accounts describe all kinds of games
played on decks, in parlors, bars, and in private rooms
aboard those riverboats on the Mississippi, the Ohio, and other
(18:25):
waterways around the country. After the American Civil War, the
railroad system grew rapidly. The first transcontinental line was completed
in Running in eighteen sixty nine. Travelers and of course
the cheats who followed them, began riding the rails, which
was now the fastest method of travel during the final
decades of the nineteenth century. By nineteen oh four, some
(18:48):
states began to soften their gambling laws, luring people from
the river back ashore. It's also the same year the
first legitimate riverboat casino, called the City of Traverse set
sail on Lake Michigan, and that's generally accepted by modern
historians as the start of riverboat gambling as an organized
commercial operation. Iowa went on to become the first state
(19:12):
to legalize riverboat gambling, but that didn't happen until nineteen
eighty nine.
Speaker 1 (19:18):
But that railroad expansion happened after Samuel's death. In his life,
he was both a legitimate businessman with an unmistakable influence
on the growth of Shreveport, Louisiana, and a man who
got really rich running confidence tricks on the passengers of
American riverboats. He died on September twenty first, eighteen fifty three,
(19:40):
in Shreveport. Aptly written by Twain about life on the
river and it seems like it might apply to Samuel
now and then we had a hope that if we
lived and were good, God would permit us to be pirates.
Speaker 2 (19:54):
Sometimes you got to go pirate sometimes. So what kind
of a drink would you bring to this occasion?
Speaker 1 (20:09):
It?
Speaker 2 (20:10):
Right, we're on riverbod. This is Newfound territory.
Speaker 1 (20:13):
Yes, but this is one of those ones that I
knew the second I looked at this what I wanted
to do excellent. So this is a drink that we're
just gonna call the thimble rig. And of course all
this talk of thimbles made me have to make a shot,
which we don't do very often.
Speaker 2 (20:29):
I think have we done one?
Speaker 1 (20:31):
Perhaps one? Maybe two? May so I wanted to make
a shot in reference to the cups or thimbles. But
I also wanted something that's very Louisiana. So I wanted
to do a drink that's very popular in Louisiana, and
there are several, but the one I focused on was
a sidecar. Okay, but in this case, it's a shot
(20:52):
version of a side car that also can transform into
something new as a cocktail, just as Samuel kind of
transitioned from role to role in his life. From legitimate
business too not so much. Yes, so this is a
very easy shot to make. You are just gonna pour
(21:14):
an ounce and a half of cognac and a half
ounce of lemon cello into your shaker with ice. You're
gonna shake. I add this is an optional a splash
of vanilla syrup or simple syrup. It just takes the
bite out of it and it makes it a little
smoother to drink. So you'll shake that all with ice,
strain it into a pre chilled shot glass, and you're
(21:36):
ready to go. This is where I mentioned it is
perfectly okay to sip a shot. You do not have
to down it all at once. If anyone tells you
you have to, there being a jerk. But the other
thing is that this is also a thing that you
can make into a proper cocktail that will be something
(21:56):
different from a sidecar but unique on a own. So
you can take this shaken up magic, pour it into
a glass with rocks, and then top it with ginger ale,
and it becomes this incredibly simpable drink, like just the
easiest drink on earth to drink.
Speaker 2 (22:16):
A very bright drink to have too. Like as spring starts,
I start thinking this has citrusy flavors in it.
Speaker 1 (22:22):
The citrus is light. The cognac is really driving the
flavor profile because there's so much more of it. It's
one part of the lemon cello to three parts of
the cognac. A nice, really full bodied but yet not
heavy drink once you add ginger ale to it. I
loved it. The mocktail is involves a couple extra steps,
(22:46):
nothing crazy, but to make a version of a substitute
for cognac. Here, we're going to actually start with a
very light version of syrup, similar to a simple but
not quite I boiled two cups of water with a
quarter cup of molasses. Oh okay, and let that just
(23:06):
all simmer a little bit and get incorporated. And then
I dropped a tea bag of English breakfast in there,
and I let that steep for a little while, and
then I pulled the tea bag out. That way you
have that little bit of sweetness that cognac can often have,
but it's not overwhelming. The flavor of the English breakfast
gives that sweetness a little more, a little more of
(23:29):
a layered flavor. It's not just like, oh, that tastes
like a little bit like molasses. It's the I can't
realize there's something else, but it's also not too terrific.
That's how you make your substitute for cognac in this version,
in lieu of lemon cello, you can use a lemon syrup.
You can't find a lemon syrup. Simple syrup, one cup
(23:50):
of water, one cup of sugar, some cut up lemons.
Let that simmer for a little bit, and then you
strain it off and you're good doo, and then you
can do everything else the same. So that is the
thimble rig, a drink that I think might carry me
through spring this year because it's easy to make. It
tastes really different and unique, but not in a way
(24:12):
that's especially as salted. Nothing is nothing. There are no
heavy flavors about it once you've made it into a cocktail,
and I quite enjoyed it for that reason. The shot
is also great. But if you don't want that much
concentrated ABV in your mouth, and you just back it
off with a little bit of jigger ale, and you're golden,
(24:33):
both literally and figuratively. As we sip our magical cocktails,
we're going to enjoy this one. We would like to
make sure we thank you for spending this time with us.
We will be right back here again next week with
another tail of a scoundrel who might want to take
your money and a yummy, delicious drink. Criminalia is a
(25:02):
production of Shondaland Audio in partnership with iHeartRadio. For more
podcasts from Shondaland Audio, please visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Welcome to Criminalia, a production of Shondaland Audio in partnership
with iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
You can't have a season about confidence artists and their
games without talking about one of the classics, the shell game.
It's been called a lot of things over the years,
and during the time and place we're going to visit
in this episode, we'll be calling it thimblerigg. Though it's
often portrayed as a gambling game, it's actually a confidence
trick used to perpetrate fraud. It is a long popular
(00:37):
game among confidence artists, some who became famous for using
this shortcun on many many marks. Sophie Smith, for instance,
was a renowned thimble rigger. William Lucky Bill Florington was
as well, and so was doctor Samuel Bennett, the confidence
artist in this episode's hot seat Welcome to Criminalia. I'm
(00:59):
Maria Tremarky.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
And I'm Holly Frye. Samuel Bennett was one of the
best known so called thimble artists, perhaps ever, depending on
who you ask, and he made a fortune playing the
game on steamboats along the Mississippi and Red Rivers in
the United States in the nineteenth century. Samuel was one
(01:21):
of thirteen children born in January of seventeen ninety one
in New Hampshire to Thomas and Sarah Bennett. We unsurprisingly
have very little detail about his childhood, but we do
know that before he turned confidence man, and actually during
his confidence career as well, he did legitimate work. He
(01:43):
worked as a fur trader, a merchant, and as a
tavern keeper. You surely noticed Maria referred to him as
doctor Samuel Bennett. The thing about that is he was
never actually a real doctor. He had no training whatsoever,
but he either tired or self styled the honorific title
at some point early in his adulthood. In eighteen twelve, Samuel,
(02:07):
at that point in his early twenties, became a father.
He and a woman named Comfort Batchelder had a daughter
named Mary Dole Silly Bennett and nicknamed Bammy in Chichester,
New Hampshire. Mary herself has a big life story of
her own. She's known as having been a shrewd business
entrepreneur and is known as the mother of Shreveport, Louisiana.
(02:31):
Although Samuel and his daughter had what seems to have
been a pretty good relationship, when her father died, the
rest of the Bennett sued to have Mary removed from
his will. If you're wondering what the problem was, Samuel
and Comfort never got married, which meant that Mary was
born in a non marital union. At the time, she
(02:52):
would have been called an illegitimate child, and for that reason,
Samuel's family wanted to disallow her inheritance. Samuel's family actually
won their suit.
Speaker 2 (03:03):
So let's go back to Samuel's life, not his death.
He may have spent the first twenty two years of
his life in New Hampshire, but Samuel was from Shreveport, Louisiana.
If you get what we mean, he spent most of
his adult life there and had a significant impact on
the growth of the city. In fact, he and several
(03:24):
other Bennett family members, including his daughter Mary, all played
roles in the history of Shreveport over many decades before
landing there, though, Samuel first moved from New Hampshire to Alabama,
where he became a landowner and enslaver. And for perspective
on the historical timeline, this was still a few decades
before the American Civil War would begin. Small local papers
(03:47):
occasionally wrote little stories about him, and it didn't take
long for them to report on the details of his
growing side gig his com career. To quote the press,
Bennett played checkers unusually well, and I truly liked to
play that game. Bennett considered it a wilful waste of
time to play only for the sake of the game,
and would not play except for a stake of not
(04:09):
less than ten dollars a game.
Speaker 1 (04:12):
In eighteen thirty three, give or take a year, Samuel
and his brother William found themselves back in New Hampshire,
and while there, William fell in love with his niece Mary.
By today's standards, that's problematic. Despite Samuel's concerns about the pairing,
the two did marry and moved to Shreveport. The Caddo
(04:34):
people called the area home before the arrival of Europeans,
and William and Mary Bennett were among the earliest white
inhabitants in the region. They set up post along the
river and also made money through warehouses they owned on
Cross Bayou. The Bennetts provided food and supplies to travelers
who were making their way west into Texas. The family
(04:55):
also operated a ferry to carry travelers across the Red River.
Many many early settlers came through this region on their
Way to the American West. By eighteen fifty, more than
two hundred wagons per week passed through.
Speaker 2 (05:11):
The area to be near his daughter, brother and eventual grandchildren.
Samuel too relocated to Shreveport. According to the Weekly Shreveport Times,
quote he was engaged in mercantile and farming pursuits, owning
the valuable body of Richland opposite the city, and for
a short while ran a private bank here. He may
(05:33):
have been involved in legit pursuits upon his arrival in Shreveport,
but Samuel was already pretty well known throughout the American South,
especially in cities in Alabama and Georgia, as a great
trick man a corn artist. The Weekly Shreveport Times began
to catch on and began to report that he quote
had the distinguished honor of either inventing or reviving the
(05:55):
game known as thimblerig, which has been calculated to capture
the ung Way. They continued, quote a recital of his
many sharp practices would fill a volume.
Speaker 1 (06:07):
We're going to take a break here for a word
from our sponsors. When we return, we'll talk about what
the game known as thimble rig is and how it's played.
Speaker 2 (06:30):
Welcome back, to criminalia. Shell game swindles are still in
vogue among con artists today around the world. But let's
talk about how thimble rig was played in the nineteenth century.
Speaker 1 (06:43):
The definition of a thimble rigger ever since the game's
popularity in the eighteen hundreds, has been one who manipulates
or controls, generally in deceptive or dishonest ways. The game itself,
thimblerig is related to another game called cups and balls.
That's a magic trick that's performed as entertainment. It's not
(07:06):
anything to do with gambling or anything scammy. It's also
pretty much the same swindle as three card Monty, just
the substitute for the cards. Some will tell you it's
a game of skill and not a swindle. Some people
will tell you it's all just an illusion. So let's
talk about how it's played.
Speaker 2 (07:28):
You'd actually probably recognize it if you saw it. It
can be identified by its three small overturned containers and
a small object for hiding. Over the years, the containers
have been everything from fimbles to walnut shells to bottle caps,
and the small object is usually a small ball, pebble, bead, button,
(07:48):
You get the picture. There are descriptions of the game
from the early eighteen hundreds, and though there have been
slight changes over the decades, it's generally run like this.
For simplicity, we're going to use thimbles and balls as
our object examples, as that would have been common in
nineteenth century thimblerig. It begins with the operator and this
(08:10):
is the con artist inverting the three thimbles on a
surface such as a mat or a table. A single
ball is placed under one of those three inverted thimbles,
and then then here's where they get you. The thimblerig
scam works because of an illusion. The secret is a
second ball. This involves an element of sleight of hand
(08:31):
to pull off the swindle. The secret ball is placed
under a second of the three thimbles, and the original
ball is removed from play palmed by the operator. The
operator quickly shuffles the containers with the replacement ball under them,
while the better otherwise known as the mark, and spectators
unwittingly look on. In his book Suckers Progress, An Informal
(08:54):
History of Gambling in America from the Colonies to Canfield,
Herbert Asbury describes the slow height of hand like this
quote ten times out of ten, unless the bet was
a come on, the object is between two of the
thimble rigger's fingers or has been shifted by a confederate
during the excitement of the betting. Now the action moves
(09:15):
to the better. The better then chooses which container the
object is under, and the odds here are super good
that they do not choose correctly. In addition to this
light of hand part of this scam, thimble artists often
also had shills, who were people they paid to help them.
Spectators watching shills win the game was often the boost
(09:36):
they needed to try that game themselves.
Speaker 1 (09:39):
Samuel's variation was usually played with three thimbles and a tiny,
rolled up paper ball. He claimed that he had played
this game since he was just a kid, true or not.
As an adult, he was so proficient at it that
he was given the nicknames the King of Thimbles and
the Napoleon of thimble Riggers. He was so good at
(10:01):
the swindle that in the early eighteen forties, in part
because of him, several states passed laws that specifically prohibited
this game. Sometimes he's even credited with inventing the thimble
rig but for certain he did not. He may have
popularized it during his lifetime, we will absolutely give him that.
(10:22):
But people were playing this game or running this con
dating back to the ancient Greeks and Romans, and of
course the magic trick even predates that. In Great Britain
in the early nineteenth century, it got the name thimble
rig from the words thimble the original containers used in
the game, and rig that's the obsolete term for trick.
(10:45):
You have rigged the game.
Speaker 2 (10:48):
This swindle was very popular throughout the nineteenth century, and
games were often set up in or around carnivals and
other large events. Games of chance also became popular on
America's new steamboats. In eighteen thirty six, historian and writer
Benjamin Drake, a writer of popular sketches for newspapers at
the time, introduced his audience to a new character, a
(11:11):
riverboat gambler of sorts, what he called an American rascal,
who rode steamboats up and down the Mississippi to take
advantage of unsuspecting passengers with various rigged games of chance.
These men, he wrote, quote, dress with taste and elegance,
carry gold chronometers in their pockets, and swear with the
most genteel precision. These men were in fact a real thing,
(11:36):
and our Samuel Bennett, based out of Shreveport, was one
of them.
Speaker 1 (11:40):
So we're going to take a break here for a
word from our sponsors. But when we return we will
talk about the rise and fall of steamboats in America
and what that meant for riverboat gamblers like Samuel Bennett.
Speaker 2 (12:06):
Welcome back to Criminalia. Let's talk about what happened when
gamblers and con artists got on board those steamboats.
Speaker 1 (12:15):
So we need to talk about riverboats for a minute.
In the early eighteen hundreds in the United States, this
is of course before rail travel. Transportation was limited. Mostly
you could go by horse and wagon, ox cart, mule train.
In the nineteenth century, rivers became the nation's kind of
unofficial highway system for both traders and travelers. New steam
(12:38):
powered boats could move upstream nearly as fast as downstream,
and could travel at what were astonishing speeds for the time,
as fast as five miles per hour or that's about
eight kilometers per hour. The Mississippi River flows through ten states,
and that river has long played a vital role in
American expansion. In the eighteen hundreds, the river carried just
(13:02):
about every trade good you might imagine from the time
first from the Great Lakes and the Missouri River region,
agricultural staples like corn and wheat from the Midwest, a
swell as cotton, sugar, and tobacco from the plantations of
the South. Because of its dominance and significance, the Mississippi
has often been called the lifeblood of American industry and commerce.
Speaker 2 (13:26):
So we can probably point a finger at Samuel Clemons,
also known as the legendary author Mark Twain, for the
romanticized Americana image of paddlewheel steam riverboats floating down the
Mississippi River. In his memoir, which was called Life on
the Mississippi, he wrote of his days as a steamboat
pilot in the years before the American Civil War. Twain
(13:49):
described the Mississippi River towns as quote comely clean, well built,
and pleasing to the eye and cheering to the spirit.
The Mississippi Valley is as a dreamland, nothing worldly about it,
nothing to hang a fret or worry upon. And he
described the riverboats as full of passengers playing card games
and enjoying live music and dancing, all true stuff. He
(14:12):
also wrote of gamblers and thieves, cheating travelers, out of
a bunch of money. Also true, and our subject today,
Samuel Bennett wasn't there for that live music or that dancing.
He was there for that bunch of money.
Speaker 1 (14:27):
While that five miles per hour was an astounding riverboat
speed for its time, it was still five miles per hour.
That meant that passengers weren't going anywhere especially fast. So
to pass the time, people began to enjoy various entertainments
on board, and with that need for diversion, it was
(14:50):
kind of as if the steamboats had hung out a
welcome sign for professional gamblers and swindlers to come aboard,
and they did go aboard, probably for a few reasons.
It was easy to keep a low profile when traveling
on the river. Plus there were likely plenty of passengers
on board who were gullible in the ways of games
of chance, especially when those games are rigged. And also
(15:15):
it was in part just due to the law certain
states prohibited gambling, but that only applied on land. Twain
once described the riverboat gamblers as quote, rough repulsive fellows.
He wrote of their presence on the river as quote
I could not help seeing them with some frequency, for
they gambled in an upper deck stateroom every day and night,
(15:37):
and in my promenades I often had glimpses of them
through their door, which stood a little ajar to let
out the surplus tobacco, smoke, and profanity. They were an
evil and hateful presence, but I had to put up
with it. Of course.
Speaker 2 (15:51):
Samuel Bennett's name had become so tightly linked to the
game of thimble rig that curious passengers on the riverboats
he frequented began and to approach him and ask for demonstrations. First,
he quite modestly feigned reluctance to do so. No no,
but thank you for the interest. Pressed a second time, well,
(16:14):
doctor Bennett would be happy to show off, and, considering
the passengers knew who he was when they approached him,
he would ironically walk away with pocketfuls of cash he'd
fleeced from them during his demonstration. In eighteen fifty seven,
gambler turned con exposer Jonathan Green described in his book
(16:34):
Gambling Exposed a quote merchant from Philadelphia, who, though a
very intelligent man and a shrewd businessman, was far above
intrigue and unwittingly lost over sixteen hundred dollars to gamblers
on the Mississippi to that point. Riverboat confidence man Canada,
Bill Jones was once quoted saying suckers had no business
(16:56):
with money, a sentiment said perhaps by every con artist
we've talked about so far this season.
Speaker 1 (17:02):
I would imagine, as you might imagine, riverboat gambling wasn't
without potential violence and other crime. Historians report people taking
the law into their own hands to punish accused cheaters, thieves,
and other criminals while floating on the river. In eighteen
thirty five, in Vicksburg, Mississippi, for example, five gamblers were
(17:25):
lynched after other passengers discovered them cheating at cards. Gambling
on a riverboat on the Mississippi, which was mainly unregulated
waters skirted local laws.
Speaker 2 (17:41):
The era of the steamboat began its rise in popularity
and prominence at the same time as the popularity and
prominence of card games, in particular poker. But card games
were really having a moment. By the eighteen thirties, more
than twelve hundred steamboats for carrying passengers and products around
America's waterways, and men like Bennett were eager to run
(18:04):
rigged games on all of them, and by all of them.
I mean all of the boats and all of the people.
Some of the earliest tales of poker games date to
this time period. Many accounts describe all kinds of games
played on decks, in parlors, bars, and in private rooms
aboard those riverboats on the Mississippi, the Ohio, and other
(18:25):
waterways around the country. After the American Civil War, the
railroad system grew rapidly. The first transcontinental line was completed
in Running in eighteen sixty nine. Travelers and of course
the cheats who followed them, began riding the rails, which
was now the fastest method of travel during the final
decades of the nineteenth century. By nineteen oh four, some
(18:48):
states began to soften their gambling laws, luring people from
the river back ashore. It's also the same year the
first legitimate riverboat casino, called the City of Traverse set
sail on Lake Michigan, and that's generally accepted by modern
historians as the start of riverboat gambling as an organized
commercial operation. Iowa went on to become the first state
(19:12):
to legalize riverboat gambling, but that didn't happen until nineteen
eighty nine.
Speaker 1 (19:18):
But that railroad expansion happened after Samuel's death. In his life,
he was both a legitimate businessman with an unmistakable influence
on the growth of Shreveport, Louisiana, and a man who
got really rich running confidence tricks on the passengers of
American riverboats. He died on September twenty first, eighteen fifty three,
(19:40):
in Shreveport. Aptly written by Twain about life on the
river and it seems like it might apply to Samuel
now and then we had a hope that if we
lived and were good, God would permit us to be pirates.
Speaker 2 (19:54):
Sometimes you got to go pirate sometimes. So what kind
of a drink would you bring to this occasion?
Speaker 1 (20:09):
It?
Speaker 2 (20:10):
Right, we're on riverbod. This is Newfound territory.
Speaker 1 (20:13):
Yes, but this is one of those ones that I
knew the second I looked at this what I wanted
to do excellent. So this is a drink that we're
just gonna call the thimble rig. And of course all
this talk of thimbles made me have to make a shot,
which we don't do very often.
Speaker 2 (20:29):
I think have we done one?
Speaker 1 (20:31):
Perhaps one? Maybe two? May so I wanted to make
a shot in reference to the cups or thimbles. But
I also wanted something that's very Louisiana. So I wanted
to do a drink that's very popular in Louisiana, and
there are several, but the one I focused on was
a sidecar. Okay, but in this case, it's a shot
(20:52):
version of a side car that also can transform into
something new as a cocktail, just as Samuel kind of
transitioned from role to role in his life. From legitimate
business too not so much. Yes, so this is a
very easy shot to make. You are just gonna pour
(21:14):
an ounce and a half of cognac and a half
ounce of lemon cello into your shaker with ice. You're
gonna shake. I add this is an optional a splash
of vanilla syrup or simple syrup. It just takes the
bite out of it and it makes it a little
smoother to drink. So you'll shake that all with ice,
strain it into a pre chilled shot glass, and you're
(21:36):
ready to go. This is where I mentioned it is
perfectly okay to sip a shot. You do not have
to down it all at once. If anyone tells you
you have to, there being a jerk. But the other
thing is that this is also a thing that you
can make into a proper cocktail that will be something
(21:56):
different from a sidecar but unique on a own. So
you can take this shaken up magic, pour it into
a glass with rocks, and then top it with ginger ale,
and it becomes this incredibly simpable drink, like just the
easiest drink on earth to drink.
Speaker 2 (22:16):
A very bright drink to have too. Like as spring starts,
I start thinking this has citrusy flavors in it.
Speaker 1 (22:22):
The citrus is light. The cognac is really driving the
flavor profile because there's so much more of it. It's
one part of the lemon cello to three parts of
the cognac. A nice, really full bodied but yet not
heavy drink once you add ginger ale to it. I
loved it. The mocktail is involves a couple extra steps,
(22:46):
nothing crazy, but to make a version of a substitute
for cognac. Here, we're going to actually start with a
very light version of syrup, similar to a simple but
not quite I boiled two cups of water with a
quarter cup of molasses. Oh okay, and let that just
(23:06):
all simmer a little bit and get incorporated. And then
I dropped a tea bag of English breakfast in there,
and I let that steep for a little while, and
then I pulled the tea bag out. That way you
have that little bit of sweetness that cognac can often have,
but it's not overwhelming. The flavor of the English breakfast
gives that sweetness a little more, a little more of
(23:29):
a layered flavor. It's not just like, oh, that tastes
like a little bit like molasses. It's the I can't
realize there's something else, but it's also not too terrific.
That's how you make your substitute for cognac in this version,
in lieu of lemon cello, you can use a lemon syrup.
You can't find a lemon syrup. Simple syrup, one cup
(23:50):
of water, one cup of sugar, some cut up lemons.
Let that simmer for a little bit, and then you
strain it off and you're good doo, and then you
can do everything else the same. So that is the
thimble rig, a drink that I think might carry me
through spring this year because it's easy to make. It
tastes really different and unique, but not in a way
(24:12):
that's especially as salted. Nothing is nothing. There are no
heavy flavors about it once you've made it into a cocktail,
and I quite enjoyed it for that reason. The shot
is also great. But if you don't want that much
concentrated ABV in your mouth, and you just back it
off with a little bit of jigger ale, and you're golden,
(24:33):
both literally and figuratively. As we sip our magical cocktails,
we're going to enjoy this one. We would like to
make sure we thank you for spending this time with us.
We will be right back here again next week with
another tail of a scoundrel who might want to take
your money and a yummy, delicious drink. Criminalia is a
(25:02):
production of Shondaland Audio in partnership with iHeartRadio. For more
podcasts from Shondaland Audio, please visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Hosts And Creators
Holly Frey
Maria Trimarchi
Popular Podcasts
40s and Free Agents: NFL Draft Season
Daniel Jeremiah of Move the Sticks and Gregg Rosenthal of NFL Daily join forces to break down every team's needs this offseason.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang
Ding dong! Join your culture consultants, Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang, on an unforgettable journey into the beating heart of CULTURE. Alongside sizzling special guests, they GET INTO the hottest pop-culture moments of the day and the formative cultural experiences that turned them into Culturistas. Produced by the Big Money Players Network and iHeartRadio.