The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1899-04-09

in a row; otherwise he would have
won nothing. For instance. he would
have won on ALA or 4-13-7 or 7-22-44,
just so they were in row; but 711-64
would not have won.
Then take up the Saddle" For 10
cents it is possible to play a three
number gig" and a saddle" Say the
gig is 24-46-61; that calls for $40 if
those three numbers win, and so cents
If any two of them come out, the two
numbers being the Saddle"
The holder of the ticket reproduced
| above was playing thirteen numbers
at the afternoon drawing. The win
Ming twelve numbers We're 10, q, Is, 81,
SO, 53, Sc, go, 63. 81, 70, rs; so, of the
| thirteen numbers on the ticket but one
No. 19-came out, and that was value
less. AS an Illustration, however, of
the prohibitive percentage in favor of
the bank a little study of the ticket
will show that eight out of the thir-
teen numbers might have been drawn,
and still the holder of the ticket fail
to get anything. No wonder Shake
speare made Puck remark about NOR
tails being fools.
THE POLICY WRITER'S"
The ''policy writer" is the man who
sells the tickets. He gets, generally, 10
per cent on the gross amount of his
enough to live well and dress well and
enjoy life as they know it. They are
generally pleasant enough fellows to
talk to, for it pays to be, but it is to
| be noticed that very little money that
they receive as commissions is played
against the game they operate. A
faro dealer will frequently, at the end
of his watch, walk over to another
game in the same room and blow in
/ his days wages against it and still be
considered sane, but if a policy writer
were to blow in his days commissions
against policy, somebody would have
him locked up as crazy inside of twen-
tY-four hours.
DREAM Gigs"
Every writer has a dream book"
which his patrons may consult. Should
a. policy-player be fortunate enough to
| be able to buy mince pie at night, he
would probably dream of a battle with
savages and a race for life with a mob
| of blue. green and red devils; that
would be a sign" and he would at
| once consult the dream book" The
| book gives numbers for every dream,
and the sufferer from pie might turn
to battle and if he did not like those
4 numbers, he could turn to "devil'' or
blue or green or "colors" and find
something like this:
ITO dream of a battle signifies trou-
BILE. Nos. 12-16-75," and so on, page
after page of such dreary rot The
| different books give varying numbers,
but that makes little difference
dream is a dream and must be played,
and dream book is infallible.
THE Niger GIG"
The negro plays ALA; it is univer-
sally called the ''nigger gig" Why they
believe in it so no man knows, but they
| do, and it is a sad day for the policy
men when those numbers come out.
The African gets little consolation out
of them though, they come so seldom;
in fact, it is remarkable how seldom
/ they do come, and a coincidence is that
when at last they show up, it is on the
day when fewest are playing them.
There is one gig sacred to soldiers,
! to the negro soldiers at any rate, and it
is 3-5-7-its a dream gig" adopted by
! the dusky boys in blue, and is called the
louise gig"
There are other combinations and
| well-known plays, a world of them, and
! the faulty of many of the players is
| laughable, or would be if it We're not
| half sad. There are hundreds of good
dollars that go daily and weekly into
the maws of these policy sharks that
[ mean necessities lacking for many
| tears and determinations for others and
mental and moral degradation for still
more.
/ Policy has no redeeming feature: it
/ lacks the fairness of faro: it is without
/ the nerVe-tingling excitement, of a good
stiff game of poker, and has nothing of
! the dash and exhilaration of a horse
race; it is sordid, mean and mentally
Supplying, as we'll as morally damning