The Barre daily times. (Barre, Vt.) 1897-1959, 1912-05-14
A GAMBLING
DEVICE
BY JAMES B. BRlcE

Spaniards are natural gamblers. Ii
Mexico the little boys constantly pay
for coppers on the streets. and from
them up to the wealthiest there is one
continued chain of hazard. During thu
| railroad building that started In thai
| republic some years ago | was employ
ed as an engineer on one of them and
had an opportunity to witness this and
other Mexican characteristics.
There were railroad followers who
preyed upon the workmen. taking espe.
cial care to be on hand when pay day
came round. On an evening of one OF
these pay days | went into tent
where | had seen one of my men go. a
young Mexican whom | employed for
an axman. | was interested In him,
for | knew that he had a wife and
some babies who kept pace with him
as be passed from one end of the line
10 the other, for In Mexico there are
persons who have no homes. sleeping
in the open air. father. mother, children
and dog huddled together to keep one
another warm.
Manuel-that was my axman's name
was In the tent seated before table
shaking dice with the man who owned
the outfit. There were several other
workmen in the place who had within
a few minutes been cleaned out of the
pay they had that day received. /
stood looking on. Quite likely had /
not been there the proprietor would
have made short work of Manuel; but,
seeing me. he put Off the denouement,
permitting the axman to get a little
ahead
But l soon noticed that whenever 1t
was for the rascal's interest that the
dice should fall with large numbers up
they invariably did so. In short it
looked to me that he had some power
over the dice TO make them fall as he
wished. Manuers pay was very small,
and he had not much to lose. While
he was playing. a little woman, rather
pretty, came in with baby in her
arms and stood over him. He looked
up at her, and felt sure she was his
wife. She had not come there to get
him away. She was as infatuated as
he
Doubtless she had been living with
her little one for weeks in this way,
he losing his weekly wages every
Saturday night, both expecting that
the day would come when they would
have a run Of luck and win enough
money to go to bullhght.
After she came in the proprietor let
Manuel win a little. The gambler was
afraid that | might exert influence TO
have him sent away, SO he did every
thing temporarily to favor his victim.
| confess | was more interested in the
dice than the victim. II they were
simply loaded" be could not manipu-
late them as he did: they would al
ways roll high. At least 1t was my
opinion that no skill in throwing would
avert this. 1t occurred TO me that the
gambler had some way Of controlling
the dice that was not visible.
Living in scientific times, was not /
long in forming Il theory. There must |
be some electric connection between
him and the dice Then | bethought !
myself of q pocket compass which al |
ways carried and which | continually /
needed in ny out of door work. TAX
ing position back of the gambler, !
where he would not see me. took |
out my compass and looked at 1t.
The needle vibrated violently.
My theory was confirmed. There
must be a magnet somewhere near
STOPPING, looked under the table. 1t
had four legs, and in It's center was
box attached TO the underside. So far
so good That box contained the mag
net.
That I felt sure of. | knew very
well that By attaching a metal plate
10 one side OF die and rolling the
lie above the magnet while the cur
rent was on the metal face would be
held to the table, leaving its opposite
face up. If there was no current on,
he dice would roll by chance. Some
tines the current was on; sometimes
t was not.
/ now brought my watchfulness to
,ear upon the gamblers movements.
noticed that every time he threw
high there was slight movement of
lis right leg. The leg was not readily
ieen. being under the table. but was
Interested and did my best to see. Z
vas convinced that attached to the