A LITTLE GAME OF “GRAB.”

South Canterbury Times, Issue 2470, 17 February 1881, Page 4

A LITTLE GAME OF “GRAB.”

At the last Melbourne general sessions a man named Edward Tiigens was charged with larceny as a bailee under peculiar circumstances. The offence alleged against him was that he had sold on his own account certain shares in the Kingston Hill Mining Company, which were said to belong to one David Clifton, a mining investor. The defendant and a person named Joseph Brown, a compositor, were on the evening of Nov. 18 lust playing at the Earl of Zetland Hotel, Swanston street, a game with dice commonly known as “ Yankee grab," in which the highest number that can be thrown is 18. Clifton made a bet with Titgens of £1 that 15 cr more than lb would not be thrown. The defendant won, and as the game continued he won £4. Clifton not having any money about him, agreed to stake, as security for the,next throw, scrip', f>>r 2b shares in the Spring Hill Lead Companj, Kingston ;he went on losing till he hud lost £32, for which he gave defendant scrip for 200 shares .in the company, which he was to redeem. The shares were worth from 10s to 12s each. Next day, when he went to the defendant to redeem them by paying the £32 he owed, he found that the defendant had sold the shares at 10s 7d each. The defence was that the prosecutor at lirst bet £l, but when he had lost £b and had no more money to give the defendant staked an equivalent in value against 25 shares in the company,which he won. That then one lot of 25 shares was staked against another, the prosecutor sometimes winning and sometimes the defendant, till the game finally ended by Clifton losing 200 shares. The defendant denied having begun the game by agreeing to stake 10s with the others to buy a pair of gloves for the young woman who was behind the bar. But evidence was given by this witness and by Brown that the game began in that way, the dice being handed to them by a daughter of the landlady of the hotel. The defendant’s case was generally corroborated by Brown, and Mr Purves who appeared for the defence, urged that the betting was fair ; that the de fendant was not accused of cheating at the game; that defendant’s story was the more probable, that one lot of 25 shares as won by the defendant was staked against a lot retained by the prosecutor, than that the shares were given as security. The jury returned a verdict of not guilty, and the defendant was discharged.