This is an exceedingly ingenious and very delicately constructed piece of mechanism. The accompanying cut affords a view of its appearance, but cannot be understood without some explanation. It consists of three parts. The outer rim, which is stationary, contains thirty-two metal grooves, or pockets, numbered, apparently without special arrangement, from one to thirty-two. Inside this rim, is a circular piece of wood, resembling a wheel, but without spokes, which is covered with cloth. Above this, and of about equal size with it, is a saucer-shaped piece of wood, in which are bored three holes. On the table on which the wheel is placed stands a wooden box, containing thirty-two compartments, numbered consecutively from one to thirty-two. In these compartments are placed sixteen money prizes, which the players believe they have a chance to win. Apparently, the chances are exactly even, the number of prizes and of blanks being equal.
When the game is played upon fair-grounds, and the directors of the fair insist that it shall be operated as a gift enterprise in which there shall be no blanks, articles of cheap jewelry are placed in the compartments, which under other circumstances are left blank.
The mode of playing is as follows: One wishing to win a prize pays fifty cents or $1.00 (in proportion to the size of the crowd) for the privilege of making the attempt. He then places a marble in the upper wheel or saucer, which is given a twirl, either by himself or the proprietor, the lower wheel being usually set in motion at the same time, but in an opposite direction. As the upper wheel revolves, the marble flies around and finally falls through one of the holes on to the lower wheel. The latter slopes gently from centre to circumference and the marble naturally rolls down to one of the compartments in the outer rim, where it stops. If it has fallen into a winning number, the player receives the prize placed in the compartment of the box or case, having the corresponding number. If, on the other hand, it has fallen into a blank number, he receives nothing.
To the uninitiated, this appears very fair. The “fake” element consists of the apparatus which is concealed beneath the table, the existence of which is not even suspected by the players. Running up through the middle of both wheels is a rod ornamented with a knob on the top. This knob actually operates a thumb-screw which sets in motion a system of sixteen wire levers, lettered “b, b, b,” on the diagram, which force up through the cloth covering a like number of fine needle points, “c, c, c.” One of these points (none of which are larger than the point of a fine cambric needle and cannot be detected by the eye) rises in front of each winning number, and when the marble is in danger of entering a lucky compartment it strikes against one of these points, its course being thus deflected into one of the adjacent pockets, resulting in the players inevitably drawing a blank.
Naturally, after a greenhorn has lost several times consecutively, he grows suspicious, and in order to induce him to venture still farther, it is necessary that some one should appear to win. Just here comes in the “capper,” whose assistance in all games of this description is indispensable. When he makes his appearance, he is at once recognized by the manipulator of the machine through giving a pre-arranged signal. As soon as he buys a chance, the proprietor relaxes the tension of the thumb-screw; the wire levers fall; the needle points sink below the surface of the table; and the marble is allowed to go where chance dictates. If the confederate fails to win the first time, he perseveres until he succeeds. The result is that the waning confidence of the crowd is restored, and the poor, deluded fools once more press eagerly forward to “try their luck,” in a game where “luck” is an utter impossibility.
This is a favorite game for playing “doubles or quits,” or, as gamblers sometimes say, “representing.” By this is meant doubling a stake once lost; thus, if a man loses $1.00, he risks $2.00 a second time; if he loses again, he stakes $4.00, then $8.00, $16.00, $32.00, and so on. The author has himself won $1,300 under this system of betting by means of this device from one man at a single county fair.
The services of the “capper” are of great value in inducing players to adopt this system of betting. When he makes his appearance, he ordinarily asks some bystander to twirl the wheel and drop the marble for him. When he has won, he usually buys another chance for the benefit of the “sucker” who has kindly performed this office for him. The victim is, of course, quite willing to play at some one else’s expense, and is not infrequently induced, after losing the $1.00 which was put up for him, to continue playing, with his own money, on the system of “doubles or quits,” as explained above.[above.]
CORONA OR MASCOT.
This game is of recent date as compared with the needle wheel and squeeze spindle, of which it is, in effect, but a modification. I first saw it in the autumn of 1884, while I was traveling with “Mexican Cortenas’ Wild West Show.”
