No. 599
Crime, Eccentricity, and the Sporting Life in 19th Century America.
March 27, 2023

The Old Shell Game

July 18, 2011
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The Scottish-born James Oliphant worked as a surgeon in Newcastle.  In 1755, he married one Margaret Erskine, and the pair went on to have two children.  From all appearances, the family was one of solid 18th century middle-class respectability.This seemingly ordinary household took a very dark turn in May of 1764.  One of Oliphant’s two maidservants unexpectedly became so ill she had to quit her
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Strange Company - 3/27/2023
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When Patrick  H. Doherty joined the Fall River Police Department in 1885, he might have been astounded to learn that he would be involved one day in two notorious murder cases- both involving hatchets and axes.  Patrick Doherty was born in Peoria, Illinois on August 10, 1859 to John and Mary Walsh Doherty.  Later the family moved east to Fall River, and we find Patrick Doherty living at 104 Columbia St. (off South Main) and working as a laborer for a time employed by Fall River Iron Works and the Fall River Line steamboat company.  He married Honora (Nora) E. Coughlin on April 25, 1887 at the age of 28, when he was employed at the Fall River Police Department as a patrolman.  The couple would have seven children:  Charles T., Frank., Grace, Robert, Helene, Margaret (called Marguerite), and John. Doherty, (as were several other patrolmen), was promoted to the rank of captain after their work in the case of the century, the Borden Murders of 1892.  Doherty had arrived at #92 after George Allen on the morning of the murders, and was very quickly in the thick of the action, questioning Lizzie upstairs, looking at the bodies with Dr. Dolan, running down to Smith’s pharmacy with Officer Harrington  to question Eli Bence, prowling the cellar for weapons with Medley, Fleet and Dr. Bowen, and making note of Lizzie’s dress.  Doherty stayed on the job on watch at the Borden house until he was relieved at 9 p.m.  When it came time for the inquest, it was Doherty who slipped down to 95 Division St. to collect Bridget, who had been staying with her cousin, Patrick Harrington after the murders.  He would testify at the Preliminary and the 1893 trial in New Bedford. In the midst of the excitement in New Bedford as Lizzie’s trial was about to get underway, yet another hatchet killing took over the front page, the murder of Bertha Manchester on May 30th.  It was a brutal attack to rival the Borden’s with the weapon being most likely a short-handled axe or possibly a hatchet. Doherty went out to the Manchester place with Marshal Hilliard, Captains Desmond, and Connors and Inspector Perron  on June 6th with the  suspect, Jose Correa de Mello, who revealed his hiding place for the stolen  watch taken from the victim and her purse at that time.  De Mello served time and then was sent back to the Azores, banned from stepping upon U.S. soil again. The Dohertys moved to 1007 Rock St. in 1897 and Patrick was pleased to walk his daughter Margaret (Marguerite) down the aisle in 1913. Patrick Doherty retired from the force in 1915 and succumbed to interstitial nephritis on June 28, 1915.. He, and some of his children are buried in St. Patrick’s Cemetery in Fall River. Resources: Ancestry.com, Parallel Lives,: A Social History of Lizzie A. Borden and her Fall River, Find-a-Grave.com. and Yesterday in Old Fall River: A Lizzie Borden Companion Fall River Globe June 28, 1915
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Lizzie Borden: Warps and Wefts - 3/3/2023
Bernard Gussow was born in Russia in 1881. But by 1900 he’d made it to the Lower East Side, where he was described as an “East Side artist” in a New York Times article about paintings he displayed at an art show at the Educational Alliance settlement house on East Broadway. [“Subway Steps”] Gussow would […]
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Ephemeral New York - 3/27/2023
An article I recently wrote for the British online magazine, New Politic, is now available online. The article, “The Criminal Origins of the United States of America,” is about British convict transportation to America, which took place between the years 1718 and 1775, and is the subject of my book, Bound with an Iron Chain: […]
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Early American Crime - 12/17/2021
 17-year-old James E. Nowlin murdered George Codman in a Massachusetts stable in January 1887. Then he took an axe and chopped Codman’s body into pieces. As he traveled home in a sleigh, he threw the pieces into the snow along the road.Read the full story here: Massachusetts Butchery.
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Murder By Gaslight - 3/25/2023
Roped-inOmaha Daily BeeJune 25, 1884(Click image to enlarge)  OSSIBLE VICTIM OF THE JEFFERSON R. SMITH GANG.  Omaha Daily Bee June 25, 1884 COLORADO. Col. Fletcher, a tourist from Boston, was roped-in by the bunko men of Denver and relieved of $1,000. NOTES: $1,000.00 in 1884 is the equivalent of $33,472.95 in 2023. According to the Rocky Mountain News there were at least two,
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Soapy Smith's Soap Box - 3/12/2023
Youth With Executioner by Nuremberg native Albrecht Dürer … although it’s dated to 1493, which was during a period of several years when Dürer worked abroad. November 13 [1617]. Burnt alive here a miller of Manberna, who however was lately engaged as a carrier of wine, because he and his brother, with the help of […]
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Executed Today - 11/13/2020
“I’ve Taken Poison, Maudie!” | The Swindling Beggar

The Old Shell Game

Shell Game

America - The shell game is the oldest and simplest of the short cons.  Known for centuries in Europe, if it did not come to America with the pilgrims, it certainly arrived soon after.  In the classic shell game, a pea, or other spherical object, is placed under one of three walnut shells or thimbles. The shell man shuffles the shells around a flat surface, trying to confuse the player. The player wagers on which of the three shells contains the pea. The miracle of the shell game - from the conman’s point of view - is that everyone knows the game is crooked, but everyone thinks he can beat it.[more]

The most important fact pertaining to the shell game is that it is not a game. It is a tiny bit of theatre, a magic show presented at your expense.  If you see someone picking the correct shell, or if the player chooses wrong but you, as an observer, can always pick the correct shell, you are not watching a real player. The shell man and the shill are putting on a performance to make you feel confident enough to bet. When it is your money on the line, you can’t possibly win. The shell man palms the pea early on and can make it appear, or not appear, under any shell he wants. The shell man and the shill, and maybe one or two others-whose job it is to watch for the police and to make sure you stay interested-will split the winnings.

Three-card-monte

Three Card Monte

The most common form of this game in the United States is three card monte, in which three playing cards are used instead of shells and a pea.  The dealer will show three cares-two black aces and the queen of hearts, or two red deuces and the ace of spades, etc.-and he will toss them back and forth across the table. When the dealer is not trying to conceal its location, a careful observer can follow the money card, but when a real bet is placed, a simple flick of the wrist will swap the cards, unnoticed by the player. The selected card is turned over and amazed player is now a little bit poorer.

George-Devol

George Devol

Three card monte allegedly originated in the California gold fields in 1849 and spread rapidly across America. Though notoriety was not something a monte dealer would actively seek, by the end of the 19th century there were several whose names would forever be associated with the game. George Devol was a gambler on Mississippi riverboats. Contrary to the romantic image, a professional riverboat gambler was not a well-dressed, but adventurous, gentleman, in pursuit of lady luck; if he made his living gambling, he was a cheater. Only two types of men gambled on riverboats; cheats and their marks. When there was time, Devol would organize a crooked poker game; when there was not he would play three card monte. He did this for over forty years.

Canada-Bill

Canada Bill

Some said the best three card monte man was Devol’s longtime partner, Canada Bill Jones.  Though famous for his good heart and habit of giving away his winnings to those in need, Canada bill is also famous for saying, “suckers have no business with money, anyway.” Herbert Asbury described Canada Bill this way:

"The greatest Monte thrower on the Mississippi was Canada Bill Jones, probably the cleverest operator who ever “pitched a Broad,” and one of the few men who could display the Monte tickets and, in the very act of tossing them on the table, palm the queen and ring in a third ace, thus reducing the sucker’s chances to minus nothing."

He was also known as the worst dressed gambler on the river, wearing clothes that were too big, and looking more like a hayseed than a card sharp. No doubt that helped him succeed.

Soapy-Smith

Soapy Smith

Others say the greatest three card monte man was Soapy Smith. Jefferson Randolph Smith earned the nickname “Soapy” by selling soap in mining camps (he was portrayed in the recent television series, Deadwood, as the annoying little man always hawking “soap with a prize inside.”) He became one of the greatest American conmen, with one of the largest bunko gangs in history. But three card monte was his passion. He would be constantly working the crowds and when a crowd didn’t exist he created one. In 1892 he exhibited the body of a petrified man, known as McGinty, in Creede, Colorado,  with the express purpose of playing three card monte with those standing in line. Soapy Smith was killed in the Klondike in 1898, by a man who did not want to pay his three card monte losses.

As incredible as it seems, three card monte, and the old shell game, are still found on the streets of America’s cities. The fact that this particular hustle, despite frequent and persuasive debunking,  has thrived in our cities for over a hundred and fifty years, is pretty much all you need to know about America.


Sources:

  • Asbury, Herbert. Sucker's progress: an informal history of gambling in America from the colonies to Canfield. New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1938.
  • Devol, George H.. Forty years a gambler on the Mississippi. Cincinnati: Devol & Haines, 1887.