Knowledge of how confidence men and cheats operate is undeniably the best personal defense against them, and Eugene Villiod, the Parisian private detective, exposes about all we need to know for self-protection - and does so entertainingly. All the important cheats including short-changing, pickpocketing, three card monte, and others are covered.
Perhaps the most surprising aspect of this book, which was published in its original French edition in 1922, is that the same swindles are not only still with us today but that they are also perpetrated in the same ways.
Translated from the French by Russel T. Barnhart.
- Foreword
- Chapter 1: Thieves Who Prey on Retail Merchants
- Short-Change Artists
- Cash-Drawer Thieves
- Counterfeiters
- Shoplifters in Small Stores
- Shoplifters in Department Stores
- Delivery-Truck Thieves: Hijackers
- Phony-Address Crooks
- Crooked Salesmen
- Check Bouncers and Forgers
- Jewel Thieves
- Chapter 2: Newspaper-Advertising Swindlers
- Postage-Stamp Swindlers
- "Make Money in Your Spare Time at Home" Swindlers
- Job-Placement Swindlers
- Security-Bond Crooks
- Phony Sales Representatives (Black Mobs)
- Phony-Loan-Society Swindlers
- Debt-Collection-Agency Swindlers
- Stock-Market Swindlers
- Clairvoyants, Fortunetellers, etc.
- Hindu Charlatans
- Chapter 3 Pickpockets
- Petty Pickpockets
- Pickpocket Mobs
- Subway Pickpockets
- Sidewalk Pickpockets
- Race-Track Pickpockets
- Fetishist pickpockets
- Chapter 4 Burglars
- Burglar Mobs
- Lone Burglars
- Suburban-Home Burglars
- Chapter 5 Confidence Men and their Swindles
- The Pigeon-Drop Swindle
- The Short Con
- The Short Con: First Variation - The Switch
- The Short Con: Second Variation - The Tip
- The Short Con: Third Variation - The Poke
- The Coffer Swindle
- The Spanish-Prisoner Swindle
- Chapter 6 Crooked Gamblers
- Three-Card-Monte Mobs
- Under-and-Over-Seven Mobs
1st edition 1980, 131 pages; PDF 86 pages.
word count: 39991 which is equivalent to 159 standard pages of text
