El Paso daily herald. (El Paso, Tex.) 1881-1901, 1899-06-17
Gambling For a Life
How one Jury Decided the Fate OF Prisoner.

SIT sometimes happens that gam.
blers are drawn to serve on juries,"
said man. with q story, who was tell
public seldom knows just what occurs
while jury of this kind is deliberst-
ing on the life or death of q prisoner.
/ have not lived here always, and this
story, the facts of which are just as 1
give them, did not have it's foundation
in South Carolina. 1 will not mention
the place. 1 have heard of prisoner's
fate being determined By deck OF
cards, but in this instance l was q
member of q jury which allowed
guilty prisoner TO go free because OF
the lucky falling OF the jack OF clubs.
It was trial which had attracted at
tention in three states, and the strong
est of efforts has made to convict the
prisoner in question, while equally
strong Influences were brought to bear
to clear him.
81 was an insurance man in those
days." went on the story-teller. "and l
was sent to a western city to manage
an agency for my company. 1t looked
as if 1 would be fixed there permanent
ly, and 1 prepared to make myself
comfortable. Two years later 1 WAS
full-f1edged citizen, and, like every
good citizen of the town, was natur-
ally excited when the newspapers
printed the details of must horrible
murder. Briefly, the facts were that
Henry Seymour, wealthy oil man,
was shot and killed by Thomas Walker.
At least the coroner's jury said Walker
did the killing.
"He was engaged to the same woman
whom Seymour had been counting, and
while there was no direct evidence to
show that he Was guilty, public opinion
condemned him, and a number OF things
pointed to his having committed the
crime. In time the case went to trial
and was unfortunate enough to be
drawn on the jury. l did not want to
serve. but was forced to. The trial had
been In progress for six days before
the case went to the jury. It was given
to us at 8 p. M. on Saturday, and we
knew thai it meant weeks stay in the
Jury room. AS soon as we got together
q ballot was taken. Eight men stood
for a conviction and four demanded an
acquittal. For hours we wrangled.
Then we saw that no agreement could
be reached, so each side sat down to
freeze the other into su admission.
along about 10 o'clock that night,
Bosy Thames, the foreman. who gam
bled for the stuff when he was not
working, and he was never known to
hold any regular job, suggested that a
game of seven-up be started. There
was long table in the room, and pres
emily constable brought in several
decks, of new cards. Some of the
Juror did not want to play, and for q
time the seven-up game dragged
along without any particular interest
being shown in the run of the cards.
Thames finally proposed poker. Six
men agreed to play and the others got
in the grand stand and looked on with
as much interest as II they had big
ON the results, though they
were half asleep over the seven-up.
Thames was known IS q heavy gambler
but two OF the other oh Fps ~ the
ness. It was the queerest game 1 ever
saw. There were Ill kinds of draws
and more lucky hands fell than in any
other single game 1 have ever seen.
Matches we're used for checks and q
ringer would have meant fight. It
was q square gone, in which the
stakes got high during the course of
the night, and the players kept their
eyes open for anything that might not
be exactly proper.
"Finally the playing got down to
Thames and another star gamble nam
ed Wall. Wall owned q furniture fac
tory up the road and WAS said to be
He was q plunger when he
got the fever. and the fact that the
jury was watching bis nerve made him
anxious to show it. at any cost. There was
noslimit, and the bet iog went on till the
players were tired of showing over lit
tie matches. About daylight the crisis
came. There was q big jackpot and
Thames sopened it. Wall raised him