The
magistrate before whom the party appeared on that day,
understanding that the affair took place at a gaming house,
dismissed both complaints, leaving the parties to their remedy at
the sessions.'
GAFFING.
Gaffing is or was one of the ten thousand modes of swindling
practised in London. Formerly it was a game in very great vogue
among the macers, who congregated nightly at the 'flash houses.'
One of these is described as follows:--This gaffer laughed a
great deal and whistled Moore's melodies, and extracted music
from a deal table with his elbow and wrist. When he hid a
half-penny, and a flat cried 'head' for L10, a 'tail' was sure to
turn up. One of his modes of commanding the turn-up was this: he
had a half-penny with two heads, and a half-penny with two tails.
When he gaffed, he contrived to have both half-pence under his
hand, and long practice enabled him to catch up in the wrinkles
or muscles of it the half-penny which it was his interest to
conceal. If 'tail' was called a 'head' appeared, and the 'tail'
half-penny ran down his wrist with astonishing fidelity. This
ingenious fellow often won 200 or 300 sovereigns a night by
gaffing; but the landlord and other men, who were privy to the
robbery, and 'pitched the baby card' (that is, encouraged the
loser by sham betting), always came in for the 'regulars,' that
is, their share of the plunder.
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