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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you Missed in History Class from how

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Speaker 1: Stuff Works dot com. Hello, welcome to the podcast. I'm

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Speaker 1: Holly Try, I'm Tracy Wilson. Uh. And it's no secret

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Speaker 1: that we love a good con man story. We really

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Speaker 1: loved our Baron of Arizona episode. Uh. And today's topic

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Speaker 1: is right in that vein, and the gentleman we're going

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Speaker 1: to talk about is completely larger than life. He is

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Speaker 1: such a fascinating creature and he is famous for a

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Speaker 1: con of simply epic proportions where he sold a large,

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Speaker 1: iconic structure that he did not own. But we'll get

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Speaker 1: to that. I don't want to spit that out right

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Speaker 1: out of the gate, because we'll get there. And uh, you,

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Speaker 1: if you know anything about him, you have already seen that,

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Speaker 1: because that's often the thing that defines him when he's

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Speaker 1: talked about in historical articles. So first we're going to

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Speaker 1: talk about who this gentleman was, kind of his early

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Speaker 1: beginnings before we get into his life of conning people.

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Speaker 1: So that person we are talking about today is Victor

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Speaker 1: Lustick and he was actually born Robert V. Miller in

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Speaker 1: Bohemia and that's now known as the Czech Republic. He

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Speaker 1: was born January four, eighteen ninety and he was one

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Speaker 1: of several children who was born to the mayor of

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Speaker 1: the tiny, tiny town of Hastina. And while Lustick was

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Speaker 1: not his true name, it's the one he most commonly used,

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Speaker 1: and that's how it's reported. So we're just going to

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Speaker 1: call him that instead of calling him Miller. Yeah, we'll

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Speaker 1: read one text, a little news article where they refer

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Speaker 1: to him as Robert Miller, but beyond that, and we'll

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Speaker 1: use their their naming convention. But beyond that, we're going

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Speaker 1: to go by Lustick. And even as a child, he

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Speaker 1: was incredibly precocious, and as he grew into adulthood his

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Speaker 1: proclivity for trouble really grew with him. And he was

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Speaker 1: an extremely smart man, and he had a natural talent

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Speaker 1: for language, and he was fluent in Czech, German, French,

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Speaker 1: Italian and English. He attended the University of Paris, but

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Speaker 1: was not long into his higher education before he was

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Speaker 1: spending way more time gambling at games of chance than

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Speaker 1: he was hitting the books. During his college years, he

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Speaker 1: also got a scar from a jealous man in a

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Speaker 1: fight over a girl, and this would become his identifying

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Speaker 1: mark later in life, and after he left school, he

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Speaker 1: did not finish. He just took off. Lustick began traveling

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Speaker 1: throughout Europe under a number of aliases, and all the

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Speaker 1: while he was committing petty crimes to support himself and

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Speaker 1: kind of duping people out of their money. Uh. And

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Speaker 1: it's during this period that he first assumed the persona

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Speaker 1: of Victor Lustick, which became, as we said, his favorite.

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Speaker 1: He started introducing himself as a count and traveling around

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Speaker 1: on cruise ships so he would take advantage of the

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Speaker 1: wealthy passengers and then gamble with the less wealthy ones. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: He basically just saw cruise ships as a huge cash

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Speaker 1: cow on the water. Uh. And a con that he

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Speaker 1: worked on these trips was built around these small mahogany boxes,

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Speaker 1: which you know, it was basically just a small box.

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Speaker 1: It would have a slit cut on either end. Uh.

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Speaker 1: And additionally, one side of each box he would just

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Speaker 1: load up with mechanical bits, so it would have levers

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Speaker 1: and knobs and buttons and look very um complicated and

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Speaker 1: really mechanically engineered. And he would claim that this complex

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Speaker 1: looking box that he was showing people, because he would

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Speaker 1: only show one at a time, was in fact a

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Speaker 1: money duplicator. He had a lot of these boxes, but

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Speaker 1: he only ever revealed one at a time when he

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Speaker 1: was working a con. And so he would show the

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Speaker 1: victim a hundred dollar bill sticking out of one side

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Speaker 1: of it, and there would be a blank piece of

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Speaker 1: paper sticking out of the other side. He would turn

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Speaker 1: some knobs and throw some switches, and after a while

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Speaker 1: a second hundred dollar bill, which had been hidden in

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Speaker 1: the box the whole time, would come out. Yeah, so

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Speaker 1: it would look like that blank piece of paper had

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Speaker 1: then been printed on and become a hundred dollar bill.

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Speaker 1: And of course marks that were shown this amazing piece

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Speaker 1: of machinery wanted money duplicating boxes of their own, and

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Speaker 1: so Lustick would often entertain multiple interested parties and he

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Speaker 1: would kind of, uh seed the situation, so he would

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Speaker 1: get these people to bid against each other and drive

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Speaker 1: the price up. And because he used this con on

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Speaker 1: pleasure cruises. Uh, this is so smart, he would you know,

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Speaker 1: kind of keep this bidding going and and keep people interested.

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Speaker 1: And then finally near the end of the trip he

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Speaker 1: would finally accept one of the offers, like the highest

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Speaker 1: bidder and hand over the box. And then by the

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Speaker 1: time the ruse was revealed, he had disembarked and vanished.

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Speaker 1: They were out of their money, and he was gone

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Speaker 1: and on to his next adventure. World War One put

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Speaker 1: an end to pleasure cruising for a while, and so

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Speaker 1: that put an end also to count lustick source of income.

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Speaker 1: He didn't really have many prospects and no interest at

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Speaker 1: all in taking on a real job, so he decided

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Speaker 1: to set out for the United States. And before we

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Speaker 1: get into his uh first little adventure in the US,

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Speaker 1: let's have word from a sponsor, we're going to go

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Speaker 1: back to the world of a spectacular conman, Victor Lustick.

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Speaker 1: So heading into the nineteen twenties, m Luctick really started

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Speaker 1: to become more and more interested in bigger cons uh.

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Speaker 1: So in nine two he was in Missouri, and at

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Speaker 1: this point he was going by the name of Robert

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Speaker 1: Duval and Lustig had scoped out this piece of property,

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Speaker 1: which was a ranch that had been repossessed by the bank,

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Speaker 1: and he decided that it would become a central element

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Speaker 1: in this plan. He had to pull one over on

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Speaker 1: the American Savings Bank. He made the bank an offer

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Speaker 1: on the ranch of twenty two thousand dollars and liberty bonds.

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Speaker 1: He also asked them to trade cash for an additional

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Speaker 1: ten thousand dollars worth of war bonds. And when this

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Speaker 1: exchange of money was made, he did kind of a

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Speaker 1: slight of hand and replaced the envelopes holding the cash

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Speaker 1: and the bonds with two identical but worthless envelopes. And

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Speaker 1: after the envelopes were exchanged and the con man had

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Speaker 1: both the bonds and the cash in hand, Stick of

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Speaker 1: course made a run for it and he got as

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Speaker 1: far as Kansas City before he was arrested. But he

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Speaker 1: was so completely imbued with this gift of gab and

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Speaker 1: this sort of you know, ability to just disarm people

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Speaker 1: and convince them of complete falsehoods, he actually managed to

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Speaker 1: talk his way out of this particular kettle of hot

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Speaker 1: water and go free. And we don't have the details

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Speaker 1: on how that took place. Tracy was theorizing when we

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Speaker 1: were talking about it that probably any lawman involved were

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Speaker 1: too embarrassed to really recount the full episode after the fact.

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Speaker 1: But this will not be the first time he talks

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Speaker 1: himself out of trouble. He went back to Europe and

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Speaker 1: in he was once again running cons in Paris. At

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Speaker 1: this point, it was more than twenty five years after

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Speaker 1: the Paris Exposition, which was when the Eiffel Tower had

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Speaker 1: been built. This iconic structure had become kind of a

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Speaker 1: problem for the city. It cost a lot to keep

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Speaker 1: it up, and there weren't a lot of funds to

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Speaker 1: maintain the tower. They had planned to maybe move it,

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Speaker 1: but that plan had fallen through and it was kind

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Speaker 1: of becoming run down and unloved. There were a lot

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Speaker 1: of people, both in the public and among the officials.

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Speaker 1: He just wanted to have the whole thing removed or

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Speaker 1: torn down, being done with it. As a brief aside,

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Speaker 1: that sort of breaks my heart, like thinking about the

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Speaker 1: possibility that the Eiffel Tower could have been torn down.

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Speaker 1: But of course, when Lustig heard of these problems surrounding

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Speaker 1: the tower, it said that he read a news article

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Speaker 1: detailing all of the problems with keeping it standing in Paris.

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Speaker 1: He concocted this plan that he would profit from this

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Speaker 1: sort of source of drama amongst the Parisian people, and

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Speaker 1: so he assumed yet another identity. This time he posed

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Speaker 1: as Deputy Director General of the Minister of the Post

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Speaker 1: a telegraph. Using these new folk credentials. He set himself

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Speaker 1: up at the Hotel de Creole and he arranged to

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Speaker 1: meet with scrap metal dealers to pitch this idea of

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Speaker 1: them taking the Eiffel Tower off Paris's hands. To cover

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Speaker 1: his track, he explained to the potential buyers that they

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Speaker 1: had to keep it all on the down low initially

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Speaker 1: because city officials were naturally very afraid that the citizens

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Speaker 1: of Paris were going to be angry if they knew

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Speaker 1: their tower might just go to a scrap heat. He

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Speaker 1: demanded absolute discretion from anyone who expressed interest, and this

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Speaker 1: plan sounded quite good indeed to one of the scrap

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Speaker 1: metal dealers, whose name was Andre Poison. And Poisen was

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Speaker 1: not a Paris native, which was part of what made

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Speaker 1: him a perfect mark. I think, uh likelihood, Listig saw

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Speaker 1: him as a little bit of a you know, a

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Speaker 1: country bumpkin, even though he was really an accomplished businessman. Uh.

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Speaker 1: He definitely knew the scrap industry and he had money,

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Speaker 1: but he was not especially wiley. And to further bait

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Speaker 1: the hook, Listig uh did this little interesting move where

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Speaker 1: he kind of intimated to Poissons that he was just

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Speaker 1: a lowly government official and he didn't make much money,

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Speaker 1: and he kind of started hinting that his big decision

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Speaker 1: in on which scrap dealers should get this deal was

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Speaker 1: going to hinge on a bribe of some sort. This

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Speaker 1: faux bribe request really legitimized Lustic in Poissant's eyes. Clearly

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Speaker 1: this was a legitimate bureaucrat if he was hinting around

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Speaker 1: that he should be bribed. Yeah. Interesting thing that that's

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Speaker 1: how you convince someone that you're the real deal is

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Speaker 1: by doing nefarious things. But it worked, uh, And eventually

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Speaker 1: Poisson put down a cash deposit with Lustig of about

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Speaker 1: seventy thousand dollars, which is you'll see it broken down

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Speaker 1: in descriptions of the situation of like twenty thousand was

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Speaker 1: sort of for the bribe to get Lustig's favor, and

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Speaker 1: fifty thousand was like the guarantee that he would be

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Speaker 1: the one to get the rights to tear down the

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Speaker 1: Eiffel Tower. And at this point was seventy thousand dollars

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Speaker 1: in hand. Lustick left, he had headed to Austria, and Poisson,

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Speaker 1: for his part, went to city officials because at this

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Speaker 1: point he had been awarded the contract to the best

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Speaker 1: of his knowledge, and he wanted to arrang age the

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Speaker 1: tearing down of the famous structure. And when he went

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Speaker 1: to discuss this matter, he was met with blank stairs

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Speaker 1: and confused faces. Uh, And he eventually realized, of course,

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Speaker 1: that he had been duped, and he was terribly embarrassed,

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Speaker 1: so much so that he refused to get the police

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Speaker 1: involved and to press charges against Lustig. He just wanted

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Speaker 1: the whole thing to go away. And Victor Lustig, for

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Speaker 1: his part, from Austria, was watching the papers waiting to

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Speaker 1: hear news about this deception being revealed. But when nothing broke,

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Speaker 1: he slowly realized that Poissant had not wanted this to

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Speaker 1: go public and that he was basically in the clear. So,

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Speaker 1: even though he had already sold the Eiffel Tower once

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Speaker 1: and that was quite a feat, he loved that con

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Speaker 1: so much that he decided to do it again a

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Speaker 1: few weeks later. This time he suspected that police had

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Speaker 1: been talking to his new mark, and he just got

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Speaker 1: out of Paris, out of France and out of Europe

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Speaker 1: entirely to avoid being detained. Yeah, he got cold feet,

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Speaker 1: thinking he was never going to get that lucky two

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Speaker 1: times in a row after he had kind of started

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Speaker 1: the wheels in motion, and this is how he ended

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Speaker 1: up back in the United States in x where he

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Speaker 1: launched yet another series of money box cons. This time

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Speaker 1: he contracted a New York carpenter to make him special boxes,

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Speaker 1: and he also added some other layers to the con.

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Speaker 1: He would tell his mark that the replicator took six

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Speaker 1: hours to reproduce a bill. This gave the target some

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Speaker 1: time to WAPs rhapsodic about what they would do with

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Speaker 1: the machine, if indeed they were to get it. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: so he kind of gave him time to daydream about

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Speaker 1: all of the money that they could potentially make. Uh.

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Speaker 1: And after the six hours had passed, as Listic and

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Speaker 1: his mark waited together, they he stuck with them through

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Speaker 1: the whole time. The second bill would be produced, just

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Speaker 1: as it had been in his con on the cruise ships,

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Speaker 1: and Listick would then encourage Marks to take both of

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Speaker 1: the bills to a bank to have them verified as

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Speaker 1: legal tender. So once the bank verified yes, this two

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Speaker 1: bills are legitimate, the Mark would be willing to pay

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Speaker 1: a tidy sum for the box. And in the six

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Speaker 1: hours that they would spend waiting for their next bill,

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Speaker 1: Victor Lustick had plenty of time to vanish into thin air,

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Speaker 1: and this con came to be known as the Romanian

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Speaker 1: box scheme, and according to New York Police, one group

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Speaker 1: of marks pulled their money to purchase one of the

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Speaker 1: boxes for a staggering forty six thousand dollars. In one incident,

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Speaker 1: Victor Listick managed to police a Texas sheriff and tax

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Speaker 1: collector for a hundred and twenty three thousand dollars using

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Speaker 1: the money box scheme. That money should have gone to

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Speaker 1: municipal taxes. Once the Texan sheriff cornered him in Chicago,

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Speaker 1: Lustick returned the money and simultaneously convinced him that it

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Speaker 1: was his fault for not using the duplicator correctly. Again,

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Speaker 1: just a master of convincing people of things, the con

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Speaker 1: man took dozens of new aliases as he cycled through

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Speaker 1: this money box con over and over, and he was

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Speaker 1: actually arrested many many times in the process, and in

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Speaker 1: more than forty recorded cases, he either talked his way

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Speaker 1: out of the charges entirely, or he escaped from jail

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Speaker 1: before going to trial and just vanished into thin air.

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Speaker 1: Among his most brazen cons, he swindled al Capone out

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Speaker 1: of fifty thousand dollars, and he promised to repay the

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Speaker 1: loan twofold in two months. When it was time to

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Speaker 1: pay up, Lustig only gave back fifty thousand dollars, and

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Speaker 1: he blamed a scheme gone wrong for the forfeit of

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Speaker 1: the other fifty thousand. But allegedly Capone was quite impressed

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Speaker 1: with his stand up nature, so much so that he

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Speaker 1: gave him five thousand dollars. And it said the Capone,

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Speaker 1: who was known for both his pride and his temper,

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Speaker 1: was never told that he had been deceived in this

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Speaker 1: matter by the people who knew about it. Yeah, basically, Uh,

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Speaker 1: the thing here is that Listen, who was kind of

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Speaker 1: long conning him, he never had intention to do anything

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Speaker 1: at the fifty thou dollars. He just sucked it away

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Speaker 1: somewhere until the time had passed, somehow, knowing that he

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Speaker 1: would get this five thousand dollars or some monetary compensation

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Speaker 1: just for being so darn mist just kind of fascinating,

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Speaker 1: especially from Al Capo. So Listick continued these cons for years,

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Speaker 1: and then he got into counterfeiting. He joined up with

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Speaker 1: a chemist and the pair of them launched this full

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Speaker 1: tail counterfeiting operation, eventually producing more than one hundred thousand

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Speaker 1: dollars in high quality fake bills every month. Yeah, they're

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Speaker 1: uh foe. Money was by all accounts, really quite good,

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Speaker 1: like where they would even you know, imitate sort of

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Speaker 1: the fibers that run through actual currency to a degree

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Speaker 1: that it was really pretty hard to discern that from

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Speaker 1: the real deal, and his skill at producing fake money,

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Speaker 1: along with his partner, unfortunately gained the attention of the

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Speaker 1: Secret Service. Uh. They eventually assembled a special task force

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Speaker 1: to identify the source of this sudden influx of counterfeit

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Speaker 1: money into the economy. Because a hundred thousand dollars a

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Speaker 1: month is a lot. Their investigation led to the arrest

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Speaker 1: of a Texas lawman passing fake bills in New Orleans.

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Speaker 1: And if you're wondering, yes, it is the same Texas

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Speaker 1: lawman that Listick had returned money to earlier in this story.

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Speaker 1: That money was, at least in part, not the real deal.

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Speaker 1: The sheriff was more than happy to cooperate with a

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Speaker 1: Secret Service to provide all the info he had on Listing,

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Speaker 1: although he was still in trouble for having used taxpayer

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Speaker 1: money to pay Listick for the money box in the

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Speaker 1: first place. Yeah, it didn't get him out of hot water,

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Speaker 1: but I think at that point he felt so wronged

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Speaker 1: and angry about the whole thing, and he was like,

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Speaker 1: I will give you every piece of information I can,

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Speaker 1: please get this guy. Uh. And once Listick was identified

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Speaker 1: as a suspect, the Secret Service tailed him for more

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Speaker 1: than seven months, and finally in ninety five, he was

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Speaker 1: arrested in New York after his girlfriend actually tipped off police.

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Speaker 1: She was in a little bit of a jealous rage

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Speaker 1: over the fact that Listick had had a dalliance with

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Speaker 1: another woman who was allegedly the girlfriend of the chemist

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Speaker 1: that he was doing business with. Agents described his demeanor

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Speaker 1: as poised and serene throughout his rest, and when they

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Speaker 1: found a key in the pocket of his coat and

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Speaker 1: questioned him about what it opened, he met their questions

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Speaker 1: with polite shrugs and silence. The key, it was eventually discovered,

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Speaker 1: opened a locker at the Times Square subway station. UH.

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Speaker 1: The locker search yielded more than fifty thousand dollars in

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Speaker 1: counterfeit cash, as well as the plates that had been

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00:16:22,080 --> 00:16:25,720
Speaker 1: used to print it, and so Listick was imprisoned at

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Speaker 1: the Federal Detention House of New York City. The Count,

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00:16:29,640 --> 00:16:32,080
Speaker 1: as his captors liked to call him, was scheduled for

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00:16:32,160 --> 00:16:36,880
Speaker 1: trial on September two, five, but he was unable to

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00:16:36,920 --> 00:16:40,520
Speaker 1: attend due to having escaped. He tied his bed sheets

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Speaker 1: together into a rope and escaped out a window, and

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00:16:43,120 --> 00:16:45,720
Speaker 1: he pretended to wash the windows of the floors below

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Speaker 1: as he repelled down the building. This is very impressive

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00:16:50,200 --> 00:16:54,320
Speaker 1: to me. It is. It's quite ingenious. Um And the

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Speaker 1: Chicago Tribune has an account of the escape which is

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Speaker 1: dated on September two, and it says the escape actually

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Speaker 1: happened on the first, and it says, quote, mildly interested

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Speaker 1: street loungers today watched Robert V. Miller, reputed international swindler,

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00:17:08,440 --> 00:17:10,680
Speaker 1: slipped down a rope of bed sheets and flee from

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Speaker 1: the Federal detention prison. Miller, who police listed in an

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Speaker 1: arrest record in many American cities and several European countries,

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Speaker 1: had been held under fifty thousand dollars bail since arrested

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Speaker 1: May thirteenth on a charge of possessing counterfeit money and plates.

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Speaker 1: Prison officials did not know of Miller's escape until a

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Speaker 1: witness told them. Under various names. Police said Miller had

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Speaker 1: has been arrested in Los Angeles, Chicago, Detroit, Indianapolis, Oklahoma City, St. Louis,

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Speaker 1: and Miami frequently on confidence game charges. So the Federal

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Speaker 1: House of Detention in possibly the least secure holding facility

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Speaker 1: in the United States, and that was kind of like

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Speaker 1: the big thing around it is that it was allegedly

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Speaker 1: very difficult to escape from there, but he managed it

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Speaker 1: just fine, like he climbed out a window on bit cheats. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: the stereotypical method of escape. It's like the kind of

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Speaker 1: thing that comes right out of a Coen Brothers film,

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Speaker 1: and you can't believe that it could ever possibly work,

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Speaker 1: but it did work in this case. It's unbelievable. So

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Speaker 1: there was an all hands man hunt and Victor Listick

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Speaker 1: was recaptured several weeks later in Pittsburgh. At the end

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Speaker 1: of nineteen thirty five, his case finally went to trial,

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Speaker 1: with proceedings beginning on December five. The trial concluded with

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Speaker 1: a guilty sentence and fifteen years in prison as punishment.

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Speaker 1: Because he had also escaped while awaiting trial, an additional

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Speaker 1: five years were tacked onto the sentence, bringing it to

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Speaker 1: a round twenty yes, and he did serve time. He

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00:18:44,800 --> 00:18:47,600
Speaker 1: did not escape again, but twelve years into his sentence,

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Speaker 1: on March eleventh of ninety seven, Victor Listig died in

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Speaker 1: prison at Alcatraz at the age of fifty seven. And

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Speaker 1: what's interesting is that even though he was sort of this,

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Speaker 1: you know, international con man of some renown, his passing

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00:19:01,000 --> 00:19:03,720
Speaker 1: did not make news at the time, and nobody even

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00:19:03,720 --> 00:19:06,320
Speaker 1: really knew about it until his brother mentioned it to

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00:19:06,359 --> 00:19:09,280
Speaker 1: a paper two years later. But up to that point,

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00:19:09,359 --> 00:19:11,159
Speaker 1: no one even knew that the Count had died. So

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00:19:11,200 --> 00:19:14,600
Speaker 1: he almost kind of did yet another like vanish into

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00:19:14,680 --> 00:19:17,600
Speaker 1: thin air thing with his death, in that he just

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Speaker 1: died quietly and no one knew. Yeah, I'm also kind

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Speaker 1: of inwardly laughing at the fact that he had so

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00:19:24,400 --> 00:19:29,560
Speaker 1: many daring and and obvious escapes but did not also

356
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Speaker 1: escape from Alcatraz. That would have been like the cherry

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Speaker 1: on top of the legend Sunday you have not escaped,

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Speaker 1: sold the Eiffel Tower and also escaped from Alcatraz. So

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00:19:43,560 --> 00:19:46,480
Speaker 1: accounts really differ as to his cause of death. One

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Speaker 1: paper reported that it was a brain tumor, and others

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00:19:49,040 --> 00:19:52,600
Speaker 1: said it was complications of pneumonia. There's not really clear

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00:19:52,640 --> 00:19:55,960
Speaker 1: agreement on that. Yeah, especially because they were reporting it

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00:19:56,040 --> 00:19:58,600
Speaker 1: two years after the fact, it kind of left the

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00:19:58,640 --> 00:20:01,680
Speaker 1: door open for a lot of speculator shin. Presumably there's

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00:20:01,720 --> 00:20:06,320
Speaker 1: a death certificate somewhere, maybe, but you know it maybe

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00:20:06,359 --> 00:20:10,760
Speaker 1: not attentively filled out. And what's interesting too, is that

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00:20:10,840 --> 00:20:13,119
Speaker 1: for years after his death, he kind of had this

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00:20:13,240 --> 00:20:17,639
Speaker 1: legacy in that uh, Secret Service agents were reporting that

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00:20:17,800 --> 00:20:21,040
Speaker 1: his counterfeit bills would occasionally surface, or sometimes they would

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00:20:21,040 --> 00:20:23,040
Speaker 1: even be brought to the Secret Service by people who

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00:20:23,119 --> 00:20:27,960
Speaker 1: kind of suspected it might be a listic bill. So

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Speaker 1: there's a list of ten rules for aspiring conmen that's

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00:20:32,240 --> 00:20:35,480
Speaker 1: often attributed to Victor lou Stick, although we don't really

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00:20:35,520 --> 00:20:40,080
Speaker 1: have clear evidence that that attribution is correct, but even so,

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Speaker 1: we're gonna tell you what they are. Number one is

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Speaker 1: be a patient listener. This is more important than fast talking.

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00:20:46,359 --> 00:20:50,399
Speaker 1: Number two is never look bored. Number three is wait

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Speaker 1: for the other person to reveal their political opinions, then

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00:20:53,640 --> 00:20:57,400
Speaker 1: agree with them. Number four very similar, let the other

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00:20:57,480 --> 00:21:00,919
Speaker 1: person reveal their religious views and then have the same ones.

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00:21:02,640 --> 00:21:05,879
Speaker 1: Number five hints at sex talk, but don't follow it

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00:21:05,960 --> 00:21:09,720
Speaker 1: up unless the other fellow shows a strong interest. Yeah,

383
00:21:09,720 --> 00:21:15,399
Speaker 1: it's sort of establishing like a conspiratorial um friendship. Number

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Speaker 1: six is never discussed illness unless some special concern is shown.

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00:21:20,320 --> 00:21:23,760
Speaker 1: Number seven is never pry into a person's personal circumstances.

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Speaker 1: I'll tell you eventually. Number eight is never boast, just

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00:21:27,440 --> 00:21:31,680
Speaker 1: let your importance be quietly obvious. Number nine is never

388
00:21:31,880 --> 00:21:36,439
Speaker 1: be untidy, and number ten is never get drunk. So

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00:21:36,560 --> 00:21:39,600
Speaker 1: keep your wits about you and go along with everything.

390
00:21:39,720 --> 00:21:45,040
Speaker 1: The Mark says, Uh, it's sort of as just a personal,

391
00:21:45,280 --> 00:21:48,159
Speaker 1: semi hilarious coda to all of this. I did not

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00:21:48,320 --> 00:21:51,480
Speaker 1: know this before I started worrying on research for this episode,

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00:21:51,720 --> 00:21:54,040
Speaker 1: and I didn't actually realize it until I was almost

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00:21:54,119 --> 00:21:56,920
Speaker 1: done putting all my notes together. But there was an

395
00:21:56,920 --> 00:22:01,120
Speaker 1: episode of Chesterfield Presents which was like this half hour

396
00:22:01,240 --> 00:22:05,840
Speaker 1: drama the Chesterfield Cigarette sponsored that was made about Listi

397
00:22:06,040 --> 00:22:08,720
Speaker 1: in nine two, and it was called Count Victor Listig,

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00:22:08,720 --> 00:22:12,119
Speaker 1: The Fabulous Swindler. And what makes it personally funny is

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00:22:12,119 --> 00:22:16,520
Speaker 1: that it starred Vincent Price, who started the Baron of Arizona,

400
00:22:16,840 --> 00:22:20,120
Speaker 1: which is the other Swindler episode that we have done recently.

401
00:22:20,359 --> 00:22:22,760
Speaker 1: I did not mean to do. Uh. The Vincent Price

402
00:22:22,800 --> 00:22:26,119
Speaker 1: Follies of Conmon but it happened accidentally. So now I

403
00:22:26,119 --> 00:22:29,320
Speaker 1: want to see what other episodes we can find that

404
00:22:29,400 --> 00:22:31,879
Speaker 1: will tie to Vincent Price. Oh, I could do that easy.

405
00:22:32,800 --> 00:22:35,160
Speaker 1: I could do a lot of Vincent Price inspired episodes well,

406
00:22:35,200 --> 00:22:37,240
Speaker 1: because he was such a prolific actor. You know, he

407
00:22:37,359 --> 00:22:41,520
Speaker 1: was in everything, hundreds and hundreds of credits. So but

408
00:22:41,640 --> 00:22:45,160
Speaker 1: instead we're gonna go to listener mail. This particular piece

409
00:22:45,240 --> 00:22:48,199
Speaker 1: is from our listeners, Sabrina uh, and it is about

410
00:22:48,320 --> 00:22:50,840
Speaker 1: our feed Hua episode. And she says, high ladies, I

411
00:22:50,880 --> 00:22:53,280
Speaker 1: just listened to your show on a FI dua and

412
00:22:53,320 --> 00:22:56,560
Speaker 1: I was really surprised you didn't mention the casket girls,

413
00:22:56,680 --> 00:22:59,280
Speaker 1: uh so called because of the small chests that they

414
00:22:59,320 --> 00:23:03,600
Speaker 1: brought from ants of the Gulf area. The FI cassette

415
00:23:03,640 --> 00:23:07,960
Speaker 1: arrived in Mobile, Alabama starting in seventeen o four, then Biloxi, Mississippi,

416
00:23:08,000 --> 00:23:10,560
Speaker 1: and finally New Orleans. They were brought to the US

417
00:23:10,640 --> 00:23:14,280
Speaker 1: for the same reasons as the Canadians to marry. I

418
00:23:14,359 --> 00:23:16,720
Speaker 1: heard about these girls on the show The Originals last

419
00:23:16,720 --> 00:23:19,080
Speaker 1: season and looked them up, and it was real New

420
00:23:19,200 --> 00:23:21,720
Speaker 1: Orleans lores that they brought vampires to the area, which

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00:23:21,720 --> 00:23:23,840
Speaker 1: was of course played as fact in the show. The

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00:23:23,840 --> 00:23:25,760
Speaker 1: fact that many of the girls were sickly and gone

423
00:23:25,800 --> 00:23:28,159
Speaker 1: by the time they reached the colony is why the

424
00:23:28,200 --> 00:23:31,719
Speaker 1: vampire story ran rampants. Anyway, thanks for the show. I

425
00:23:31,760 --> 00:23:34,399
Speaker 1: didn't mention them one because it happened kind of after

426
00:23:34,800 --> 00:23:36,440
Speaker 1: the Pied Duoix. I had heard of them, but I

427
00:23:36,480 --> 00:23:40,159
Speaker 1: didn't know a ton about them. And also, unlike the

428
00:23:40,160 --> 00:23:43,520
Speaker 1: Fi Duhua, which was h like a royal decree that

429
00:23:43,560 --> 00:23:48,240
Speaker 1: was a whole French government uh set up this, my

430
00:23:48,359 --> 00:23:50,720
Speaker 1: understanding is that it was kind of like a private enterprise,

431
00:23:50,880 --> 00:23:55,080
Speaker 1: like it wasn't a big government sanctioned effort um. But

432
00:23:55,160 --> 00:23:57,480
Speaker 1: it is fascinating there. Also, I haven't found as much

433
00:23:57,560 --> 00:24:00,560
Speaker 1: information on them. I would certainly love to. Uh. But

434
00:24:00,600 --> 00:24:03,240
Speaker 1: that's another good story to think about, is you know

435
00:24:03,320 --> 00:24:07,040
Speaker 1: somebimes just see them listed as the casket girls, uh,

436
00:24:07,320 --> 00:24:09,480
Speaker 1: which makes it seem like a whole other thing and

437
00:24:09,520 --> 00:24:13,600
Speaker 1: ties into that whole vamporism, the secondary backstory and lore.

438
00:24:13,920 --> 00:24:16,640
Speaker 1: But that's the scoop on that. Uh. So thank you, Sabrina.

439
00:24:17,600 --> 00:24:19,960
Speaker 1: We always love a good tie in. If you would

440
00:24:19,960 --> 00:24:21,679
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441
00:24:21,680 --> 00:24:24,479
Speaker 1: about Victor Lustick. I'm sure there are cajillions of them

442
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Speaker 1: out there. You can write to us at History Podcast

443
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449
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Speaker 1: And if you would like to learn more about what

450
00:24:49,240 --> 00:24:51,160
Speaker 1: we talked about today, you can go to our parents

451
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Speaker 1: site and type in the words con Man in the

452
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Speaker 1: search bar and you will come up with an article

453
00:24:56,080 --> 00:24:58,919
Speaker 1: called how con Artists Work, which talks about kind of

454
00:24:58,960 --> 00:25:01,879
Speaker 1: some of these same confidence games that Listick was so

455
00:25:02,000 --> 00:25:05,480
Speaker 1: extremely adept at. If you want to research almost anything else,

456
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Speaker 1: you can do that at our parent website, which is

457
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Speaker 1: how stuff Works dot com. And if you want to

458
00:25:09,080 --> 00:25:11,119
Speaker 1: come and visit us at Miston History dot com, you

459
00:25:11,160 --> 00:25:17,159
Speaker 1: should do that as well for more on this and

460
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Speaker 1: thousands of other topics, because it how stuff Works dot

461
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Speaker 1: com