BEATTIE'S Minstrel.
This fraternity of artists--whether they were to be denominated

rooks,[5] sharps, sharpers, black-legs, Greeks, or gripes--were
exceedingly numerous, and were dispersed among all ranks of

society.
[5] So called because rooks are famous for stealing materials out

of other birds' nests to build their own.
The follies and vices of others--of open-hearted youth in

particular--were the great game or pursuit of this odious crew.
Though cool and dispassionate themselves, they did all in their

power to throw others off their guard, that they might make their
advantage of them.

In others they promoted excess of all kinds, whilst they
themselves took care to maintain the utmost sobriety and

temperance. 'Gamesters,' says Falconer, 'whose minds must be
always on the watch to take advantages, and prepared to form

calculations, and to employ the memory, constantly avoid a full
meal of animal food, which they find incapacitates them for play

nearly as much as a quantity of strong liquor would have done,
for which reason they feed chiefly on milk and vegetables.'

As profit, not pleasure, was the aim of these knights of
darkness, they lay concealed under all shapes and disguises, and

followed up their game with all wariness and discretion. Like
wise traders, they made it the business of their lives to excel

in their calling.
For this end they studied the secret mysteries of their art by

night and by day; they improved on the scientific schemes of
their profound master, Hoyle, and on his deep doctrines and

calculations of chances. They became skilful without a rival
where skill was necessary, and fraudulent without conscience

where fraud was safe and advantageous" target="_blank" title="a.有利的；有帮助的">advantageous; and while fortune or
chance appeared to direct everything, they practised numberless

devices by which they insured her ultimate favours to themselves.
Of these none were more efficacious, because none are more

ensnaring, than bribing their young and artless dupes to future
play by suffering them to win at their first onsets. By rising a

winner the dupe imbibed a confidence in his own gambling
abilities, or deemed himself a favourite of fortune. He engaged

again, and was again successful--which increased his exultation
and confirmed his future confidence; and thus did the simple

gudgeon swallow their bait, till it became at last fast hooked.
When rendered thus secure of their prey, they began to level

their whole train of artillery against the boasted honours of his
short-lived triumph. Then the extensive manors, the ancient

forests, the paternal mansions, began to tremble for their future
destiny. The pigeon was marked down, and the infernal crew began

in good earnest to pluck his rich plumage. The wink was given on
his appearance in the room, as a signal of commencing their

covert attacks. The shrug, the nod, the hem--every motion of the
eyes, hands, feet--every air and gesture, look and word--became

an expressive, though disguised, language of fraud and cozenage,
big with deceit and swollen with ruin. Besides this, the card

was marked, or 'slipped,' or COVERED. The story is told of a
noted sharper of distinction, a foreigner, whose hand was thrust

through with a fork by his adversary, Captain Roche, and thus
nailed to the table, with this cool expression of concern-- 'I

ask your pardon, sir, if you have not the knave of clubs under
your hand.' The cards were packed, or cut, or even SWALLOWED. A

card has been eaten between two slices of bread and butter, for
the purpose of concealment.

With wily craft the sharpers substituted their deceitful
'doctors' or false dice; and thus 'crabs,' or 'a losing game,'

became the portion of the 'flats,' or dupes.
There were different ways of throwing dice. There was the

'Stamp'--when the caster with an elastic spring of the wrist
rapped the cornet or box with vehemence on the table, the dice as

yet not appearing from under the box. The 'Dribble' was, when
with an air of easy but ingeniousmotion, the caster poured, as

it were, the dice on the board--when, if he happened to be an old
practitioner, he might suddenly cog with his fore-finger one of

the cubes. The 'Long Gallery' was when the dice were flung or
hurled the whole length of the board. Sometimes the dice were

thrown off the table, near a confederate, who, in picking them
up, changed one of the fair for a false die with two sixes. This

was generally done at the first throw, and at the last, when the
fair die was replaced. The sixes were on the opposite squares,

so that the fraud could only be detected by examination. Of
course this trick could only be practised at raffles, where only

three throws are required.
A pair of false dice was arranged as follows:--

{Two fours
On one die, {Two fives

{Two sixes
{Two fives

On the other, {Two threes
{Two aces

With these dice it was impossible to throw what is at Hazard
denominated Crabs, or a losing game--that is, aces, or ace and

deuce, twelve, or seven. Hence, the caster always called for his
main; consequently, as he could neither throw one nor seven, let

his chance be what it might, he was sure to win, and he and those
who were in the secret of course always took the odds. The false

dice being concealed in the left hand, the caster took the box
with the fair dice in it in his right hand, and in the act of

shaking it caught the fair dice in his hand, and unperceived
shifted the box empty to his left, from which he dropped the

false dice into the box, which he began to rattle, called his
main seven, and threw. Having won his stake he repeated it as

often as he thought proper. He then caught the false dice in the
same way, shifted the empty box again, and threw till he threw

out, still calling the same main, by which artifice he escaped
suspicion.

Two gambling adventurers would set out with a certain number of
signs and signals. The use of the handkerchief during the game

was the certain evidence of a good hand. The use of the snuff-
box a sign equallyindicative of a bad one. An affected cough,

apparently as a natural one, once, twice, three, or four times
repeated, was an assurance of so many honours in hand. Rubbing

the left eye was an invitation to lead trumps,--the right eye the
reverse,--the cards thrown down with one finger and the thumb was

a sign of one trump; two fingers and the thumb, two trumps, and
so on progressively, and in exact explanation of the whole hand,

with a variety of manoeuvres by which chance was reduced to
certainty, and certainty followed by ruin.[6]

[6] Bon Ton Magazine, 1791.
CHEATING AT WHIST.

In an old work on cards the following curious disclosures are
made respecting cheating at whist:--

'He that can by craft overlook his adversary's game hath a great
advantage; for by that means he may partly know what to play

securely; or if he can have some petty glimpse of his partner's
hand. There is a way by making some sign by the fingers, to

discover to their partners what honours they have, or by the wink
of one eye it signifies one honour, shutting both eyes two,

placing three fingers or four on the table, three or four
honours. FOR WHICH REASON ALL NICE GAMSTERS PLAY BEHIND