Evening star., 1922-12-17

player may become an expert dice
thrower in few months or less time
AS a result Of this feminine famili-
arity with bridge and craps, New
York city has lately been afflicted
with a number of apartments where
attractive women have lured the cele-
brant out-of-town buyer and done
him to ruin with their patent cheats
There was such a case in the news
papers within recent weeks. Any
man about broadway knows Of a
dozen other such webs of the feminine
spiders.
* x *
MEANTIME, \ in the last twenty five
1Vl years. there has been a change
I. in the kind of women available to the
gambler for his involved proceedings.
First Of all, the gradual refinement"
Of the methods of gamblers and the
atmosphere about gambling has made
en-. Aain. the sexual underworld. from
which women are constantly recruit
! ed for the purposes OF all sorts of
lawbreakers, has been abolished as a
geographical area and profoundly
changed otherwise. The same women
who once inhabited these zones under
degrading conditions now live in the
| casual eye no different from others
! There Is. too. a constant contact of
the gambling world with that of the
stage, the result being that certain
types Of theatrical women are often
available to the cheats, entirely diff
ferent kinds of women from the old
burlesque and honkytonk chorus girls
sometimes employed by the forerun-
ners of our present-day sharpers.
There are also constant recruits to
this quasi-felonious world from the
ranks of better educated and better
situated women whom disasters Of
various kinds have overcome.
Thus there is now plenty of fem
inine gambling talent available, but
that is yet far from saying that the
woman has displaced the man as chief
gambler either aboard the liners OF
elsewhere. AS a matter of fact, she
is simply the confederate of the man,
as she is in various types of con-
fidence games, and the same women
who are used in the winter season as
lures for victims of the wiretappers
and other swindlers operating at the
Florida resorts, are to be found on
the ships going to Europe and COM
ing back in the warmer seasons.
Frequently these women act as
lures and nothing more. They drspe
themselves on deck and permit the
approaches OF selected victims. whom
they then introduce to card sharpers,
just as they pick UP moneyed. swains
on the beaches and golf links of the
south and turn them over at the right
mement to their male confederates.
who continue and complete the opera
ton of fraud.
On shipboard. however; because of
the sharp watch that has been posted
for some years, these women often
sit into the games with the victims
and their own principals. Jerome
Blatz of Oshkosh. who is going to
Europe to spend little excess
money, catches sight of Miss dish
on deck and manages to get her eye
and attention or to bring about an
Introduction. Miss dish shortly pre-
sents the infatuated Blatz to her
gambler. whom she has previously
'talked up" as a big Boston financier,
a wealthy southern manufacturer, or
whatever character seems to suit the
occasion or the mimetic talents of
the gambler. This gamester, called
the steerer. is not too pleasant or
receptive to Blatz, who catches the
idea that he is considered inferior
and Immediately sets out to win his
way into the graces of people who
don't want him. He forces himself
upon the steerer, through the kind
Intervention of Miss dish. a game
of bridge is suggested in the most
casual way. The woman admits she
likes to play. Another player is soon
found in the person of another gam
bier. who is likewise introduced as
person of Importance. One session
leads to another and the last finds
Mr.. Blaz sadly denuded of cash. 1t
is a fact that women whose names
enjoy some kinds Of celebrity on the
musical comedy stage and in motion
pictures have been employed in the
role of Miss dish.
+ X
THE latest plan OF the gamblers
J. and their woman confederates is
a bit more intricate and was born
of a necessity imposed by the in
creasing watchfulness of ships Of
ficers and, their direct methods of
dealing with gamblers. 1t involves
no crooked gambling aboard the