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 equally
indicative 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 discove