The herald., 1912-05-09
A GAMBLING
DEVICE
By JAMES B. BRlCE

Spaniards are natural gamblers. In
Mexico the little boys constantly play
for coppers on the streets. and from
them up to the wealthiest there is one
continued chain of hazard. During the
railroad building that started in that
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 a tent
! where had seen one Of my men go, q
| young Mexican whom | employed for
an AMMAN. | was interested in him.
| for l knew that he had q wife and
some babies who kept pace with him
as he passed from one end of the line
to 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 a table
| shaking dice with the man who owned
the outfit. There were several other
workmen in the place who had within
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 rascars interest that the
dice should fall with large numbers up
they invariably did so. In short ii
! looked to me that he had some power
over the dice to make them fall as he
wished. ManuePs pay was very small.
and he had not much to lose. While
he was playing, a little woman, rather
pretty, came in with a baby in her
arms aud stood over him. He looked
up at her, and l 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
| af nd xtin
money to 60 to a bullfght.
After she came in the proprietor let
Manuel win little. The gambler was
afraid that / might exert influence 10
have him sent away, SO he did every.
thing temporarily to favor his victim.
l confess l was more interested in the
dice than the victim. II they were
simply loaded" he could not manipu-
late them as he did; they would al
ways roll high. At least it 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 a theory. There must
be some electric connection between
him and the dice. Then l bethought
myself Of pocket compass which al
/ ways carried and which 1 continually
! needed in my out Of door work. TAX
ing position back Of the gambler,
where he would not see me, l took
out my compass and looked at It
The needle vibrated violently.
My theory was confirmed. There
must be a magnet somewhere near
STOPPING, l looked under the table. 1t
had four legs, and in it's center was q
box attached to the underside. So far
so good. That box contained the mag
net.
That I felt sure of. 1 knew very
well that by attaching a metal plate
to one side Of a die and rolling the
die 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,
the dice would roll by chance. Some
times the current was on; sometimes
1t was not.
I now brought my watchfulness to
bear upon the gamblers movements.
1 noticed that every time he threw
high there was a slight movement of
his right leg The leg was not readily
seen, being under the table, but was
interested and did my best to see. l
was convinced that attached to the
leg of the table was an electric key
and that when he pressed his leg
against the key the current was turn
ed on.
So absorbed was in my puzzle that
I failed to notice that Manuel had but
a few coppers left when l had reached
my conclusion. whispered to him to
go to the chief engineers office and
ask him to send me few men. While
he was gone I sat down at the table
to play till he came back. On his re-
turn with the men lifted the top of
the table and exposed magnet and a
| drr botforv i1cf Uharo T. ayDootad