Joseph "Yellow Kid" Weil (1877-1975) was one of the most famous American confidence men of his era. Weil's biographer, W.T. Brannon, believed Weil had an "uncanny knowledge of human nature." Over the course of his career, Weil is said to have stolen over eight million dollars. A confidence trick, confidence game, also known as a con, scam, grift or flim flam, is an attempt to intentionally mislead a person or persons (known as the mark) usually with the goal of financial or other gain. ...

Weil was born in Chicago to Mr. and Mrs. Otto Weil. When Weil was seventeen, he left school and started working as a collector. Weil, noticing that his co-workers were keeping small sums for themselves, organized a protection racket: Weil wouldn't snitch for a share of his co-workers' dough. Under the tutelage of Chicago confidence man Doc Meriwether, Weil started performing short cons in the 1890s at public sales of Doc Meriwether's Elixir, the chief ingredient of which was rainwater.

The nickname "Yellow Kid" first was applied in 1903 and came from the comic "Hogan's Alley and the Yellow Kid." After working for some time with a grifter named Frank Hogan, Chicago Alderman "Bathhouse John" Coughlin associated the pair with the comic: Hogan was Hogan, and Weil became the Yellow Kid. "There have been many erroneous stories published about how I acquired this cognomen," Weil writes in his biography. "It was said that it was due to my having worn yellow chamois gloves, yellow vests, yellow spats, and a yellow beard. All this was untrue. I had never affected such wearing apparel and I had no beard." Mickey Dugan, better known as The Yellow Kid, was the lead fictional character in Hogans Alley, one of the first comic strips and the very first to be printed in color. ... Bathhouse John Coughlin, born 1860, died 1938 First Ward Alderman in Chicago, Illinois from 1893-1938. ... The cognomen (name known by in English) was originally the third name of a Roman in the Roman naming convention. ...

During his career, Weil worked with, among others, con men Doc Meriwether, Frank Hogan, Billy Wall, William J. Winterbill, Bob Collins, Colonel Jim Porter, Romeo Simpson, "Fats" Levine, Jack Mason, Tim North, and George Gross.

"The desire to get something for nothing has been very costly to many people who have dealt with me and with other con men," Weil writes. "But I have found that this is the way it works. The average person, in my estimation, is ninety-nine per cent animal and one per cent human. The ninety-nine per cent that is animal causes very little trouble. But the one per cent that is human causes all our woes. When people learn -- as I doubt they will -- that they can't get something for nothing, crime will diminish and we shall live in greater harmony."

References

• Weil, Joseph [1948] (1948). "Yellow Kid" Weil: The Autobiography of America's Master Swindler. Chicago: Ziff-Davis. ISBN 0-7812-8661-1.