Saint Mary's beacon. [volume] (Leonard Town, Md.) 1867-1983, 1903-04-16
Games of Chance.
All tiae Worlds q Gambler and
Always Has Been.

When the District Attorney Of
New York City, William Travers
Jerome, announced that he had col l
lected evidence to prove that every
gambling-house, even the most Eek
elusive" was Stocked with applian-
ces to cheat the patrons, he surpris-
ed q great many otherwise sophisti-
Gated persons who still believed the
old dime novel story OF square gam
blers.
Yet historical tradition and arch
eologicai science both agree that
shen the first gambling game began
the first crooked" game began, too.
II Is of record that the District
Attorneys announcement checked
gambling in New York more than it
had been checked in years by SER
mons against immortality, and the
laws to punish those engaged in it.
The fact Is that all the worlds a
gambler. And more than that. gam
| bling appears 20 have begun with
primitive man.
Witnesses ThsSmithsonian In
stitute of Washington and the eth
nologicai, historical and ,Archeologi-
\ cal societies of specialists 4gf every
4 where.
In the famous French caves ,oAce
occupied by interglacial maH N q
period so remote that no one can es-
innate within several thousand years
| just when that period was, gambling
implements have been found. They
were found with the bones and stones
on which appear the first pictures
ever made by man. So man did not
learn art before he also learned to
'gamble.
These gambling implements ofthe
q, .ay past we're pebbles, each OF
wh ieh had designs on one face. The
desi, rus were stained with various
oolors and there is no doubt that
thew W, ,re she first dice. AT least.
tbey ", re the first dice SO far as
known. Perhaps so,r'e day IL VIII
be discovered that. epOchs before
| the missing link itssysf threw "iee'
too.
From these colored pebbles in the
cave OF Mas DAHL to the. art pal
ace of Garfield of New York, the bis
tory of gambling forms almost an un-
broken chain.
The gambler of today who talks
of going up against the Eagle Bird,
does nothing new. The cliff dwell
lers of Colorado went mp against the
Eagle Bird long before America was
discovered. They played with gam
bling reeds and bowl, and on the
bowls are the pictures of the bird
Kwataka, which means Eagle Man. :"
This bird was the patron of those
long vanished gamblers.
Crooked" Games Were Early.
That the Eagle Bird was as liable
to moral strabismus then as now is
shown by the fact that intricate safe
guards were thrown around the game
and became more complex with each
year in order to protec: the gamblers
from the dealer.
The Eagle Bird is not the "only
old one. In ancient East Indian
gamblers outfits are found ivory Ii
gers which were used as chips, such
as are now used in bucking the tiger
of 1903. The Chinese had game of
dice several thousand years ago in
which the most difficult throw was
known as the Tiger. In another
Chinese game there is Roaring Tt
ger.
The Lake dwellers were gamblers
like all the rest Of sinful humanity
In Bohemia and in Berne are sticks
marked with concentric rings which
were thrown like dice. They have
been found in the remains of manv
of the pile dwellers.
The famous knckle bones of old
Rome, made from the bones in the
ankle joints of sheep, were neither
original with the Romans nor was
the use OF bones for dice confined to
them. The ancient Peruvians used
the astragalus bone OF the COW or OK.
the North American Indians used
the bone from the bison, and bones
from sheep and other animals are
used today throughout Southern Eu-
rope, Spanish America, and In most
of the Mohammedan countries.
From the oldest times to the pres-
ent, one of the important rules in
throwing knuckle bones has been.
and is, that the bones must be chang
ed frequently. The crooked gam
bier loaded those simple dice ages
ago, and does now.
All the Worlds Dice.
Besides knuckle bones, the old
Romans used dice made from all
4 Cnr4- ~ g..