No. 868
Crime, Eccentricity, and the Sporting Life in 19th Century America.
June 02, 2026

A Female Card Sharp.

A female gambler detects an opponent cheating and rakes in the pot.
June 2, 2026
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Tag: Poisoning

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Early American Crime - 2/7/2019
Athletics. | Rip Roaring Fun.

A Female Card Sharp.

Female-gambler

A female gambler detects an opponent cheating and rakes in the pot.

She was the boss. She carried a revolver in her bustle and a pack of cards in her pocket, and she can beat any ordinary player out of a cool hundred in twenty minutes of draw poker. She is a scientific disciple of Schenck, and hails from Milwaukee. She appeared in Chicago a short time since and gave out that she had $25,000 pug on a game of draw. A couple of the knowing ones soon sought her out, and in a very short time, they were engaged over a green covered table in a lively game. She held an ace and four kings, but her opponent kept raising until she had planked her last dollar. Then laying her hand down on the table and placing a small sized bowie-knife over the same, she loosened a revolver in her girdle and then called her opponent’s hand. He hesitated a moment, and she seized his waist and turned his hand to view—it contained four aces and a king. The female relative of Schenck cast on the gambler a look of scorn as they gathered up the spoils, and revolver in hand, ordered him out of his chair where lay the card he had discarded for the extra ace. She departed from Chicago with her pile doubled, and in Jean Richter’s words, we might say “Honor women. They strew celestial roses on the pathway of our terrestrial life.


Illustrated Police News, July 6, 1876.