The Birmingham age-herald., 1904-06-25
TOOLS FOR LOADING DICE ARE CAP PTURED Police Make Raid and Discover
 Interesting Devices OUTFIT WAS VERY UNIQUE Raid on Rooms Resulted Not Only In a Seizure of Dice Tools, But In
 Arrest of Young
OUTFIT WAS VERY UNIQUE

If some of Birmingham's young men of sporting proclivities could see the set of dice loading tools which were captured by the police department yesterday they would understand why 1t Is they can so seldom win when they get around the green cloth and beg for seven and eleyen.'
 Chief Wier. Policemen Murphy and Burke raided a room on the third floor of the Opera House hotel yesterday and captured about 200 pairs of dice and a complete outfit for loading the "bones." At the same time they arrested Jim Faunce. well known young white man on a charge of vagrancy. He was caught in an adjoining room, and the police be- lieve that tshe had been in the room where the process of loading the bones had been operated. They found him only partially dressed and they have information which leads them to believe he had been in the room where the outfit was discovered.
 The police gained entrance to the room by means e skeleton key. and the oc- cupant of the room barely had time to escape into an adjoining room before the officers got into the room where the devices were found.
 All the outfit was spread out on a table, and evidently some one had been at work on dice when the officers first reached the door. The outfit consisted of a small drill which Is used In drilling holes in .ka dtaa a email vice for hofdfnar tba dioa while they were being worked on, a small and very fine hack saw and file. There was also bottle of mercury which is used as loading for the dice, and some fine steel or iron shayings.
 There were many pairs of dice in the various stages of being loaded. There was one small case which contained only loaded dice and these dice were very much heavier than dice of the same size which had not been loaded
 The drill is used to bore small hole in the dice under the spots. This hole is then filled with mercury or some other heavy material and the hole Is plugged up with lead. This is then painted black to correspond with the other spots on the dice, and the uninitiated is unable to tell the difference. The hack saw is used to saw up dice, while the file is used to file off one side of certain kinds of bones so that they win not roll regularly and evenly. T.
 Ivory or>bone dice are easy to load, and it is these that are drilled and plugged. but the celuoid dice cannot be tempered with so easily, and practically the only way to make them "crooked" is to file off one side of them.
 There were several dice which had been tempered with, bored Into and sawed un- til they were merely skeletons. There was also found a small wooden mould which Is used in some of the operations. On this was scorched the six spots sim liar to those on one side of a pair of dice, and it is supposed to have been done in the preparation of one of the dice. This is the frse outfit of this kind captured by the police. and it attracted a great deal of attention at police head quarters. Many people had never seen loading outfit before.