A sucker born every minute

On a sidewalk the other day, a hawker beckoned me,

“Oh! Would you not buy this original branded watch for one third the price?”

The watch supposedly was genuine, the price was enticing, and so, I fell for the bait,

The new watch was proudly worn for the next few days and I cleverly boasted to my friends,

If there were only three people in this world who know how to snatch bargain deals, those will have to be I, me and myself.

The watch stopped working in flat two months time,

And I was correct to predict that I will earn a new moniker from the same friends,

Out went the former claimant status to being smart and suave, and in rang the new name – sucker,

In a conscientious move I set out to research if I was the only one of the sucker species, or if I had fraternity brothers and sorority sisters in this tribe where I gained new membership,

Pure Joy! And an absolute relief to have discovered that the sucker tribe is thriving and prospering, in this day and age when most tribes go the other way and are becoming extinct.

“There’s a sucker born every minute”  is a quote which establishes without any doubt that the sucker tribe is vastly expanding and filling out the world, the interesting story behind this quote is as follows,

The “Cardiff Giant” was one of the most famous hoaxes in United States history, the giant was purportedly a ten foot petrified man discovered in 1869, petrifaction is the process by which organic material gets converted to stone,

Upon its discovery, it was hailed as a contemporary proof that giants once lived on Earth; and so, people came by wagon loads to see it,

But behind the scenes, the giant was just an eyewash and humbug; it was actually the creation of a New York tobacconist named George Hull who hit upon the idea after an argument about giants in a Methodist revival meeting,

George Hull hired men to carve the ten foot tall man out of a Gypsum block, made the giant appear old and weathered, and arranged for it to be discovered upon chance by another set of workers who were ostensibly digging for a well in Cardiff, New York,

The Cardiff Giant gained popularity amongst masses and became a star exhibit for thronging crowds who didn’t mind paying small fees of fifty cents and upwards to catch a glimpse of the petrified man,

Such was the marketing and financial success of the hoax that it compelled another showman, P. T. Barnum, to make a plaster replica of the giant when his plans to forge a partnership with Hull and his new partners led by David Hannum failed,

Barnum also put his replica giant on display in New York, and claimed that his was the real giant and the Cardiff Giant was a fake,

As the newspapers began reporting Barnum's version of the story, David Hannum was quoted as saying, "There's a sucker born every minute" in reference to the spectators paying to see Barnum's giant; over time, the quote got misattributed to Barnum himself.

As the story further goes, Hannum sued Barnum for calling his giant a fake, but the judge told Hannum to swear on the genuineness of his own giant in court if he wanted a favorable injunction,

Confronted with an endgame that was increasingly becoming difficult to manoeuvre, Hannum and Hull confessed to the press and both the giants were revealed as fakes in the court,

There is a common saying amongst con men - "There's a mark born every minute, and one to trim 'em and one to knock 'em"; here 'trim' means to rip off, and 'knock' means to persuade away from a scam,

The meaning is that there is no shortage of new victims, nor of con men, nor of honest men.