Juniata sentinel and Republican. [volume] (Mifflintown, Juniata County, Pa.) 1873-1955, 1888-06-06
ARTS OF GAMBLERS.
Loaded Dice and Marked Tools of
Amateurs.


''I want to knock two gambling
myths on the head-loaded dice and
marked cards."
The gentleman who made this re-
mark to me Is known among the fra
ternity as Billy Mcclellan, and he has
recently been employed by a club
house in Baltimore to 'protectn the
poker game. HIS duty was to stop any
'work"-that is the generic term Tor
all anderhaDd practice-and to keep
professional card players out of the
house, and he did both SO quietly and
so well that nobody except the culpritS
knew the real character of his employ
ment. A tap on the shoulder, an inter-
view in the hall, and a man who went
down stairs and never came up again
that was all there was TO It; but to do
this, and never make a scene or mis-
take, required a wide and checkered
experience.
1t is not to be presumed that MIR.
Mcclellan learned how TO spot a poker
sharp by frequentIng church sociables;
on the contrary, he acquired his art
through career that began on the
Mississippi river steamboats, in the rae
ing days, extended all over the frontier
from Butte City, Montana, to Tomb
stone, Arizona, and included numerous
trips across the big pond, until transat-
lantic gambling was discouraged few
years ago. In short, he is an expert,
and as entertaining a gossiper as ever
made the needle OF the weighing ma
chine fly around to 210. L ran across
him the other day returning from his
Baltimore engagement, and we fell
into a m nhiinn uarlafinn
mo, SIR" he went on to say,
'sloaded dice and marked cards are
supposed to be the favorite tools of
gamblers. Its all a fairy story, like
Lady temperance workers talk about
the curse of rum.' Now nobody
drinks rum.''
''Do you mean there are no loaded
dice?''
"Yes. Years and years ago there
, may have been some very large dice
! made heavier at one face, but with
the small dice made nowadays it would
do no good A round object, of course,
rests on the heaviest side, but with a
| cube, like dice, the pressure would be
| Just the same, no matter in what posi-
tion it lay. If you will think just a
| moment you will see that the loaded
| side would be exactly as apt to fall on
top as below, and even were it possible
to construct dice so it would fall
| infallibly on, say, six, it would be use
less in poker dice. the popular way of
| throwing, where the recurrence of any
number would excite suspicion at once.
| L will venture to say that if you would
| cut open all the dice in the United
States you would not find twelve loaded
| ones"
~ . 4 f1T1 . r -, a
THAT dice throwing is universally
| honest"
''Not at ALL 1t is universally
| crooked. The way to cheat at dice is
| to be able to have them fall on any face
at will. This is done by holding them,
two at a time, between the second
| finger and the edge of the box. When
the box Is turned over they appear to
come out right side up. 1t requires
| great dexterity, but once acquired, it
| battles detection. The best man at 1t in
| the country is John Mcdonald, of San
Francisco, and, by the way, there is an
| Interesting story connected with him.
| When Maxwell, the st. Louis trunk
murderer. was'fiylng toward Australia
after killing Preller, he stopped a day or
two at San Francisco. and in the even
| ing iropped into The "Mirrors, a
sporting saloon on Kearney street,
Johnny Mcdonald happened TO be
there, and regarding the stranger as "a
promising sucker, proceeded to conf
dence him out of $50 of his blood
money The game that caught Max
well was dice swindle known as ''top
and bottom"
| Mr.. McCIelland coaxed the shoulder
| ing end of his Havana into lamtent
coal and took up the thread of the talk
| again.
Now, as far as marked cards are
concerned" he continued, ''there are
plenty of them, but they are made to
sell, not to use. 1t Is an astonishing
fact that nine men out of ten, who are
| otherwise perfectly Straightforward and
honest, turn into thieves when they sit
down to play poker with their friends.
They are continually on the lookout for
some advantage, and they are the peO-
pie who buy marked cards. / suppose
that thousands of decks of marked
cards are sold every month, but no gam
blers buy them"
GLOW does the modern short card
player do his work." / asked, little
! reluctant to let 60 Of the time-honored
marked card theory.
| SWELL" said the veteran, "there has
been a great change in card playing In
the last five or SIX years. The old-time
poker sharp was not we'll equipped un-
less he had a vest hold out. That was
black satin vest with claws inside that
came out of the bosom, seized the
necessary cards and slid In again. 1t
was worked by a chain that ran down
the trousers leg and hooked to the heel
of the boot, ana was such a clumsy and
complicated apparatus that l would as
soon think of carrying a threshlng
| machine around with me. Then there
! was the sleeve hold out, nearly as bad,
and different hold ouls to fasten to the
edge of the table. Strippers were also
great favorites-that is to say, decks
in which the high cards were a little
wider than the rest, and cut slightly
wedge shape, SO that they could be
glass work was done.
"What on earth Is glass work."
"The use of convex mirror about
the size OF silver dime. 1t is fastened
with shellac to the lower corner of the
left palm, opposite the thumb, and re-
fleets the cards as dealt. Gamblers
generally made them by buying those
little silvered glass globes used for
children's Christmas trees and break
ing out piece. Sometimes the mirrors
were set in silver dollars and laid care
lessly on the table; but that Is all gone
by now, and to-day man must be able
to take a square deck of cards and do
all his work without apparatus. In
poker the expert short card player will
make up the hand he wants out of the
discards, or else hold out the necessary
cards until he gets enough and it is his
deal. Then he drops it on the top of
the deck and performs a very neat
little piece of work known as top
shuffling,' which consists in shutting
the lower half or the deck over the
upper half without disturbing it. When
this Is over the hand he wants is still
on top. The cut, OF course, buries it,
but by very simple movement he get:
the cards back in their original condi
tion. This is called shifting the cut.