The daily morning journal and courier., 1902-09-15
THREE CARDMONTE'
THE CAREER OF THE MAN WHO
 INVENTED


 Many Men of High Standing in the Nation, Made a Barrel of Money With l His swIndling Game and Died Pauper. Lew Houck was the inventor of the notorious three card monte trick and about the cleverest card sharp in the world. Houck was well known in Kan sas City, where he operated on and off for twenty years, making the city sort of way station on his trips east and west.
 The last time Houck was here he had just returned from a European trip. He produced papers and letters to show that while he was in London he was feted and dined by some of the upper crust of English society. He had passed there as wealthy and travelled American He had letters, too, from Secretary Olney, Secretary Carlisle and other leaders of the Amer ican political world which recommend ed him in the highest terms not only to the American representatives abroad, but to any friends of the writ CTS who might meet him. And these letters were genuine. Their authentici- ty could not be doubted. Houck had a way of getting entrance into the ex- elusive clubs of Washington, Philadel- phia, New York and other cities, and in his role of gentleman of leisure" he had so imposed on men of high stand ing in the nation that they thought him all he represented himself to be and gave him the letters of introduc- tion that helped him to fleece the aris- tocracy of Europe.
 Houck invented the three card monte game before he became of age. This is trick with cards that has fieeced more people out of money than any other games ever practiced. The trick is played with three aces, two black ones and one red. It is always played with confederate to help, or stall for the game. The operator takes the three cards between his fingers, show ig them to the victim, and then snuff f1es them about and drops them face E any amount of money that no one can pick out the red ace.
 At this point the operator turns his head a moment to spit or to speak to some one in the crowd behind him, and in that moment the confederate picks up the red ace card, shows it to the victim, "crimps'' the corner of the card and slyly lays it down again, ap- parently all unseen by the operator. The operator again shuffles the three cards and throws them upon the table face down. There lies the card with it's crimped corner. The victim sup poses, of course, that it is the red ace and bets and pick it up to find that it 2 is a black one, and he, has lost his money.
 The operator, when he picked up and shuffied the cards carelessly the sec ond time, with delft movement of his fingers removed the crinp in the red ace card and put similar crimp in a black ace card. That was all there was to the trick. Houck worked it for years in hotels, on billiard tables, at fairs and circuses and on railroad trains and steamboats. He taught the x trick to Canada Bill, a noted gambler, and the two worked together over all the country. They paid thousands up- on thousands of dollars to railroad men in the old days for the privilege of working the game on trains, and they made money.
 Later, when nearly every state in the Union passed laws aimed directly against the working of the three card Q aI,l.& and was given up by Houck But about that time an ingenious English cockney invented the "three shell' game, which was even more productive than three card monte, and Houck took it up. The three shell game is modern improve ment on the ancient thimblerigging game that was worked at English fairs for many years The old way was for the operator to crook his knee over the head of a cane that stood upright on the ground and move a small seed around between three thimbles on top of his leg, offering to bet that no one could pick the thimble under which the seed was hidden.
 The, lesson taught by the lives and deaths of Houck and Canada Bill and all the rest of their kind is that it never pays to be dishonest or to live by ones wits. These men may get great sums of money by sharp practices in the < course of a 1ifetime but they all die poor, and most of them die in prison. Canada Bill, who worked with Houck on trains out of Kansas City and made probably $1,OOo,OOo in his life died pauper in the almshouse in Lebanon, Pa., and is buried in a pau per's grave. Houck dropped dead on the street in Durango, Mexico, and his widow in Ohio had to solicit aid to get his body home to give it decent burial
 Kansas City Star.