Before They Used Log Scales

Interesting read - Jos Vile's autobiography. I love the matter-of-fact style of writing from those days

http://archive.org/stream/yellowkidweilaut00weil/yellowkidweilaut00weil_djvu.txt

Obviously a scanned job - how fitting Vile should get ripped off in death after ripping off so many in life.

The part I find funny is the ridiculously large sums people bet on horses in those (?) days. He talks of the scams he ran in his early days when he went from farmhouse to farmhouse and conned folks out of about $3 a time. Then, at the races, he could make $10,000 in a day from an unwary stranger who walked in with his eyes open. Well, it wasn't every day obviously. But, think about it, even I don't bet that kind of money almost a hundred years later - maybe he hasn't done a good enough job of explaining how wealthy the people he swindled were - coz he does mention that some of them became his friends later after forgiving him and continuing to thrive in their legitimate businesses.

Then, all of a sudden :

With my chauffeur, I motored to Gray's Lake and attended the
picnic. During the height of the festivities there was a plea for con-
tributions to some charitable institution. The justice of the peace, a one-
armed man, made a strong exhortation for funds; then the hat was
passed. I contributed twenty-five dollars.

Of course, everybody wanted to see the man who had given twenty-
five dollars — a considerable sum in the rural areas.

That's the key word - rural.