The Sedalia weekly bazoo. [volume] (Sedalia, Mo.) 187?-1904, 1882-04-25
TRICKS AT CARDS.
Professional Sharpers and Their
Methods of Cheating.
iou.iou Saturday Review.

iou..ou Saturday Review.
People interested in tricks at cards
by which We do not mean amusing
physical experiments" as We have
seen the French phrase for conjuring
tricks translated, but tricks in the
worse sense of the word-may with
advantage turn to "Prof. HOffiman's'
translation, as he modestly calls it, of
Robert Houdin's Lies Tricheries DIES
Grecs," which was published not very
long ago under the title of card
sharping exposed" Houdin's book
was first published in 1861, and two
years later an English translation,
since out of print, was brought out.
ProfnHoffman has done more than
make a faithful translation of Robert
Houdin; he has brought down the
work to the present date by means of
consulting various subsequent works.
The preface i'm which Prof Hoffman
sets forth these facts Is not, perhaps,
the least valuable part of his own
share in the work. He says in this
that some of the feats described i'm the
pages of the volumn might well seem
incredible to those who had had no
personal experience in the matter.
He himself, however, has sometimes,
when these feats have been deliber-
ately performed in his presence, been
tempted to ask "whether they have
really been executed at all, or wheth-
er the professor has not this time play
ed fair, and won by some happy acct
dent" If. he goes on pertinently to
ask, this is the effect produced upon
person familiar with every general
form of card conjuring. and prepared
for the particular manner in which the
precise trick is to be executed, what
chance has the average card-player of
detecting unfair play at the hands OF
a practiced card-sharper? This is
question which bears upon the case
with which the average man can be
duped by any one who has a moder-
ate share of intelligence, and who is
prepared to take moderate amount
of trouble; and the fact stated by
Prof. Hoffman more than
sufficiently explains the success of
the clumsy enough tricks which are
constantly employed against their
dupes by the professors of various
forms of mysticism" The editor
observes, justly enough. that, so far
as card-playing is concerned, the true
moral of Houdin's work should be
found in some such expression as
Never play at any game whatever
for stakes large enough to tempt any
one to unfair play" On the face of it,
this may strike the general reader as
a somewhat CYNICAL view to express,
or he NAV be inclined to describe it at
best in Pepys' words as "devilish
saying, hut true;" but it may be
sslerably we'll supported by remem-
brance of the hardly doubted fact in
connection with enc of the very few
extinct public tables. that the heav-
lest losses. the only disputes as to fair
or unfair play, and the most horrible
cases of ruin are to be found, not
round the public table, but at the
private tables which are to be discoy-
cred by those who seek them not far
off.
Levers Jew in Davenport Dunn
was right when he said that gambling
was one of the things which men would
do as long as the world went on, and
it may be worth while to point still
more strongly the force of what Prof.
Holman advances. Wherever he
says, "the stakes are of such an
amount as to constitute substantial
gain or loss to any of the players. the
risk of unfair play begins.
The most exclusive of clubs, the
most watchful OF committees, will
never succeed in keeping out the
Grecian element so long as the temp
tation exists in the form of hig h
stakes. Granted that the great
majority among the classes where high
play prevails would play as honorably |
for thousands as for sixpences. So |
much the better for the Greek. The |
less fear of his market being spoiled
by competition" This, as a general
rule-of course there may be excep-
tions-is hardly contestable and no
doubt many of our readers will remem-
Ger cases within their own personal
which will confirm the
professors" conclusion. Whether
ne, on his own part, is not too sanguine
N thinking that retribution. sooner or
later, always overtakes the skillful
Greek, is perhaps an open question.
Indeed, the curious history which
Houdin gives of Raymond" the
gambler, is case in point, although
4 ia truo fhat he is ronrosoptod os how