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Street Philosopher

Paltering In Paris

Seán Moran watches a street con to find where deceiving is not lying.

The ‘Find the Lady’ scam entices passers-by on the street into giving away substantial amounts of cash to petty crooks. Sometimes three playing cards are involved, one of which is the queen of hearts (‘the Lady’); or, as my photograph taken on the banks of the River Seine in Paris shows, three matchbox trays can be used, one covering a pea-sized ball. What all variants of this scam do is to capitalise on certain aspects of human nature. In particular, they manipulate both our epistemic and ethical susceptibilities so that the scamsters always win and the punters always lose.

‘Find the Lady’ (a.

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