Soapy Smith gambling house. Legend has it that above the entrance of the stairway leading upstairs to the gambling games was a sign that read "caveat emptor", Latin for "let the buyer beware". Smith's younger brother, Bascomb Smith, joined the gang and operated a cigar store that was a front for dishonest poker games and other swindles, operating in one of the back rooms. Other operations included fraudulent lottery shops, a "sure-thing" stock exchange, fake watch and bogus diamond auctions, and the sale of stocks in nonexistent businesses. Because of bribes, some of the police officers patrolling the streets would not arrest
A Caveat or Warning for Common Cursitors and later texts often describe Blunt as an Upright Man, which Harman does not in his text. See also examples in Thieves' cant The "Caveat" is available online to subscribers to EEBO, and at Google Book Search. (The latter comprises page-images of an 1814 reprint of the 1573 edition.) The text is included in: A Caveat or Warning for Common Cursitors A Caveat or Warning for Common Cursitors, vulgarly called vagabonds was first published in 1566 by Thomas Harman, and although no copies of that edition survive, it must have been popular, because two printers were punished by the Stationers'