The Romanticization Of Confidence Men By David W. Maurer

Movies, tv shows, and literature has a way of romanticizing con men, their cons, and even their victims too. Especially, confidence men in the United States during the 1900’s till the late 1920’s. But being a confidence man is not all that glamorous and romantic which David W. Maurer portrays in his book. Maurer, who was a linguistic professor at the University of Louisville was able to gain the confidence and respect of confidence men simply by talking to them. Which is one of the ways he gathered information about the different con games and information about the life of an confidence man. The second way he gather data is by looking at the information that was collected by detectives.
A con man must know how to talk to a mark to get the mark to trust him and give him all of his money, but there is more to just talking, a con man must also have a basic knowledge of variety of topics and basic understanding of human nature and psychology. Sometimes a con man will trail his victim for
Some confidence men have women, others have alcohol, and some need the thrill from gambling, while others use drugs even though it is frowned upon by the majority. Most spend their time and money in brothels where they can buy women and alcohol. However, the biggest problem is gambling, they will spend money as fast as they could get it. Con men can lose “a $100,000 touch … and [soon be] living on borrowed money” which shows how con men can fall into the same traps as regular people. And sometimes the younger con men will get addicted to drugs and this is where most of their money will go to, however, they do not openly show their drug use to other confidence men, especially, the older generation. Not only do confidence men have their own problems, especially, with the ability to control money, but they also fall victims into the hands of other con