Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1904-01-22
POKER ON OCEAN STEAMERS.
Players Who Are Bad Losers Make
1t a Nuisance for the Ships
Omcers

Il WISH" said the purser OF one Of the
big transatlantic steamers, according to
the New York Sun, that there was some
way of stopping the game Of poker on
board ship The trouble which the game
is making for the officers cannot be ap-
preciated by landsmen.
$50 much has been printed and said
about sharpers on the ocean liners that
in almost every smoking room there is a
sign up for passengers tobeware OF these
swindlers. Now, as matter OF fact,
there is very little out and out swindling
done.
Real card sharpers are few and far be-
tween, and they are SO well known to
us that they rarely get chance to or
ganize game, or to break into one that
has already been started. The big card
cheats long ago stopped frequenting the
liners.
But the evil effect of so much talk
about card sharps on the steamers is
seen on almost every trip. In the very
smallest games, if the luck goes against
man persistently, he begins to make
remarks about how this man, or that
man, is winning.
IF one man wins right along some OF
the pikers begin to look suspiciously at
him. It has got to point where the
very smallest games, unless all the par
Elephants are known to one another,
breed trouble and Ill feeling.
about dozen times on a trip am
invited up into the card room by some
man who has lost few dollars, and
wants me to look over the man who won
It, to see if can recognize him as card
cheat. I remember less than month
ago, to give you an illustration, Bos-
ton man went into the smoking room and
tried to get up poker game almost be-
fore we had cleared Sandy Hook.
1T was a little too soon for most OF
the men. but he finally succeeded in
getting up quarter limit game. There
was a young New York man on board,
who reluctantly went into the game, and
in less than an hour he had won some
thing like $40. There were couple of
other small winners, and the man who
organized the game was loser about $50.
well, sir, he came to me, after utter
ing all kinds Of suspicious in the smok-
ing room, and insisted that he had been
cheated. When he pointed out the New
York man as the swindler, could hardly
keep my face straight. But when he
told me it was a 25-cent limit game, and
that his total losses were about $50. and
some one else Informed me that he had
fairly dragged the other man into the
game, I was very much disguised, and
took him down to my cabin to tell him so.
"All during the rest Of that trip he
talked about how he had been done up
In the poker game, and once or twice
thought the New York man was going to
punch his head. That Is the way It goes.
Everybody is on the lookout to sus-
pect some one of being crook, even in
the small limit games. One would think
that card sharps travelled first class on
big ocean liners for the sole purpose OF
breaking into 25-cent and 50-cent limit
poker games and robbing men of sums
ranging from $3.50 to $50.
1--WE do get an occasional sharp, but
most of the rows that occur are the re-
suit of the long tongues of poor losers
They never seem to think that anything
but crooked game could beat them.
wish we could stop the gambling alto
gether, for it is the biggest nuisance we
have to contend with"