Soapy Smith 



Pass for the Klondike. This city, as it was 

 termed, consisted only of a single street with 

 wooden houses or shacks built throughout its 

 short length of perhaps a quarter of a mile. 

 Goods from the wharf and steamers were loaded 

 on a tram-line which traversed the centre of the 

 street. The captain of my steamer had publicly 

 warned his passengers to beware of a " bad " 

 man named " Soapy " Smith and his gang, as 

 he was a notorious desperado and blackguard. 

 He had been " fired out " of Dawson City by 

 the North- West Mounted Police, and had made 

 Skagway, as it were, his own. The sobriquet 

 of " Soapy " had been acquired in this way, not 

 that he failed in any respect as to " slickness," 

 but from the fact that when he was in Cali- 

 fornia, where he was wanted badly for various 

 swindling tricks, he was in the habit, when 

 almost on his " beam ends," owing to lack of 

 money, to have recourse to the following dodge 

 to obtain it. He bought a bar of common yellow 

 soap. This he cut up into tiny cubes, wrapping 

 up each piece of soap in a two-dollar bill (or note), 

 which were mostly counterfeits, and having then 

 walked out with one or more of his confederates, 

 he would, at some quiet corner of a street, 

 collect a crowd and hawk these lumps of soap, 

 and sell them for fifty cents each. Occasionally, 

 as a draw, he would give a genuine " greenback " 

 for his victim's money, but in the vast majority 



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