"dropping the pigeon", 1895

[Joel S. Berson]

      "Droppng the pigeon, 1895, a bracketable interdating between
1850 and 1955,  of "pigeon dropping" (a "confidence trick'), s.v.
"pigeon, n.", sense C.2.a.
      "Pigeon game" not in OED?
      "Pigeon" = the "game", not in OED?
      "Pigeon" = person performing the "game", esp. the one "dropping
the pigeon", not in OED.  Unless (dubiously), sense 9.,   "slang.
Originally: a person who cheats in a lottery. Later more generally: a
swindler; an embezzler. Now rare."
       "Pigeon" = the lure (the money in the dropped pocketbook) not in OED?

      "Pigeon" for the *victim* is in the OED, as 6.a., "A naive or
gullible person; a fool or simpleton; a person who is easily
swindled, esp. in gambling."
-----

PLAYING THE PIGEON GAME.
The Leading Confidence Racket Among the Negroes.
      The arrest of Mark Davis, alias Nine-Fingered Matthew,
yesterday, for pocket-book snatching, deprives a famous and
successful negro "pigeon" gang of one of its leaders.
      "Drapping [sic] the pigeon" is a pastime hoary with age, but
one which continues to be worked for all it is worth ...
...
    [The next three, lengthy paragraphs contain several uses of
"pigeon" in various ways).  But if you're familiar with the variant
illustrated in an episode of "Golden Girls," and can take account of
inflation, you may skip them.]
      The procedure is as follows:  Two men, who work together, find
a man, generally one who has come in from the country, who has some
money on his person.  One of the pigeons [perpetrators] has a purse
in which there is a greenback or some sort of a counterfeit of paper
money.  After the victim is sized up the two sharpers follow him as
he walks down he street.  One pigeon walks in front of his pal and
overtakes the victim.  The foremost pigeon has the purse with the
greenbacks in it.  Getting ahead of the man from the country he drops
the purse on the ground.  As he stoops to pick it up he looks at the
victim and remarks that he has found a pocketbook.  Opening it he
displays the bill.  The countryman is interested and stops to marvel
as the man from the fields is wont to do.  At this juncture the pal
comes up and catches on to what is going on.  He says he sees they
have found a purse, and won't be quieted when the man who found it
denies the fact or claims to own the property.  At length the finder
offers to compromise and settle matters.  There is, say, a $10 bill
in the purse.  He says he will give the countryman $2 and the other
man $2, and he will keep the remainder.  The victim thinks he has
fallen on a good thing, and is willing to pick up money that way
every day.  But when the $10 bill is to be changed there comes a
hitch.  It always happens when the pigeon [the lure in the
pocketbook?] is dropped that the right change cannot be made so as to
divide the greenback found in the purse.
      Finally the man who found the purse proposes that they go to a
grocery or some other store and get the money changed.  In order to
quite the victim the confederate pays over some money to the pigeon
in an effort to make the proper change.  So the party goes, say, to a
grocery store.  The pigeons have selected the store beforehand.  It
must be one with two entrances.  The pal and the victim are asked by
the pigeon to give him what money they have so when he goes in the
grocery he many use that money in helping to make the correct
change.  The pigeon enters the front door and the other two remain outside.
      Presently as the pigeon doesn't return, the third man becomes
suspicious and asks the countryman if he has ever seen that man
before.  The countryman says he hasn't, but would know him if he saw
him.  In the meantime the pigeon has left the grocery by side door
and made good his escape.  The pal becomes very uneasy, apparently,
about his money and proposes to the victim that they start on a
search for the man who has their money.  The pal takes the countryman
in an exactly opposite direction from the one he knows his partner
has taken.  Of course they don't find the man they are looking for,
and the pal gives the victim the shake, bringing the game to a close
with the stakes in his partner's hands.
-----

The Commercial Appeal (Memphis, TN) Monday, September 30, 1895; pg.
5; Issue 273; col C.  [19th Century U.S. Newspapers]

Joel

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