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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Michael K, post: 2591914, member: 78298&quot;]PT Barnum never said that. Although it has been attributed to him.</p><p><br /></p><p>&quot;<b>There&#039;s a sucker born every minute</b>&quot; is a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phrase" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phrase" rel="nofollow">phrase</a> closely associated with <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P._T._Barnum" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P._T._Barnum" rel="nofollow">P. T. Barnum</a>, an American <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Showman" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Showman" rel="nofollow">showman</a> of the mid-19th century, although there is no evidence that he said it. Early examples of its use are found instead among gamblers and confidence men.</p><p><br /></p><p>When Barnum&#039;s biographer, Arthur H. Saxon, tried to track down <i>when</i> Barnum had uttered this phrase, he was unable to verify it. According to Saxon, &quot;There&#039;s no contemporary account of it, or even any suggestion that the word &#039;sucker&#039; was used in the derogatory sense in his day. Barnum was just not the type to disparage his patrons.&quot;</p><p><br /></p><p>Some sources claim the quote is most likely from famous con-man Joseph (&quot;Paper Collar Joe&quot;) Bessimer, and other sources say it was actually uttered by David Hannum, spoken in reference to Barnum&#039;s part in the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cardiff_Giant" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cardiff_Giant" rel="nofollow">Cardiff Giant</a> <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoax" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoax" rel="nofollow">hoax</a>. Hannum, who was exhibiting the &quot;original&quot; giant and had unsuccessfully sued Barnum for exhibiting a copy and claiming it was the original, was referring to the crowds continuing to pay to see Barnum&#039;s exhibit even after both it and the original had been proven to be fakes.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>Early uses of the phrase refer to it as a catch-phrase among gamblers. In an 1879 discussion of gambling in Chicago, an &quot;old-timer&quot; is quoted as saying, “[G]oodness knows how they live, it’s mighty hard times with the most of them; in the season they make a bit on base ball, or on the races, and then, you know, ‘there’s a sucker born every minute,’ and rigid city legislation drives the hard-up gambler, who would be a decent one of the kind, to turn skin-dealer and sure-thing player.” The use of quotation marks indicates that it must already have been an established catch-phrase.</p><p><br /></p><p>The phrase appears in print in the 1885 biography of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confidence_trick" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confidence_trick" rel="nofollow">confidence man</a> <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hungry_Joe" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hungry_Joe" rel="nofollow">Hungry Joe</a>, <i>The Life of Hungry Joe, King of the Bunco Men</i>.</p><p><br /></p><p>In a slightly different form, the phrase shows up in the January 1806 <i><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Magazine" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Magazine" rel="nofollow">European Magazine</a></i>: &quot;It was the observation of one of the tribe of Levi, to whom some person had expressed his astonishment at his being able to sell his damaged and worthless commodities, &#039;That there vash von fool born every minute.&#039;&#039;[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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