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| Henri Nestlé |
Have you recovered from post-Valentine's Day chocolate withdrawal? Chocolate is a late-comer in the world of candy. Milk chocolate is the granddaddy of our modern day candy bars. It was invented in 1875 by Daniel Peter who merged his company with that of Henri Nestlé's company, and voila! We have chocolate! I had great fun with this new candy in Much Ado About Marshals.
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| Jefferson Randolph (Soapy) Smith |
Soapy wasn't into gambling so much as bunco, but I bet he played a little roulette. Then again, maybe not. Jefferson Randolf Smith II may not have been shy about divesting others of their money, but he was a very smart and enterprising man. He'd have known to stay away from the games with low or no odds for the player to win, and on top of that, roulette wheels were routinely altered to make the house odds even better. Check out Frontier Gambler's article, Roulette in the Wild Wild West.
Several of you enjoyed the articles from The Owyhee Avalanche. Here are a few more, but this newspaper has a whole column of historical articles every week, so I urge you to subscribe.
The Owyhyee Avalanche
February 17, 1872
SHOOTING SCRAPE. Two miners named Crawford and Dowry, had a row at the Skookum boarding house night before last, resulting in the latter being shot by the former. The bullet passed through the upper portion of the right side of the abdomen, penetrated the right arm on the inside above the elbow and lodged under the skin on the outside. It is a flesh wound and is not considered dangerous. Dowry was brought down to the War Eagle Hotel, where Dr. Beckett extracted the bullet yesterday. Crawford delivered himself up to Shriff Stevens, but up to the time of going to press, no complaint had been made against him, and no examination had.
Other bits of interest:
The heart of John Cable was made glad yesterday by the arrival of his wife and two babies from San Francisco.
"Poor, weak and erring man," says a religious newspaper, "what is he?" In this country he is either a Democrat or a Republican.
A woman writes to a literary weekly that the ladies are doing all they can to bring heaven down to earth. We had thought they would be content with "raising hell."
This week's guest: Meg Mims!
I always live reading your columns, I kearn something new each week.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Mercedes. I'm glad you dropped by--have a cuppa coffee!
Deleteshould read learn.....
ReplyDeleteThank you Jacquie! I appreciate the "steer" (bunco slang for one of the gangs jobs, enticing victims towards a swindle).
ReplyDeleteSoapy did indeed love gambling. Faro was his vice of choice as the odds were nearly 50-50, in an honestly run game. As you said, many of the games were rigged to put the odds favorably towards the house.
Naturally I'm just a little biased when it comes to Soapy but I can say quite accurately that he was once a very well known bad man. In fact. while the two men were alive, Soapy was more well known that Wyatt Earp (via newspaper articles between 1860-1900).
Jeff Smith
Jeff, thanks for stopping by and also for the message that his middle name was Randolph with a ph, not an f. I love your research into Soapy's life and that it sets straight quite a few misconceptions about the Old West.
DeleteFaro (bucking the tiger) was all the rage for several decades. I wonder why it's not all that popular today.
Hi, Jacquie. You are most welcome, it is a pleasure to be here.
DeleteFaro was very popular from the 18th century to well into the 20th century. I have heard of games being played in Las Vegas as late as the 1960s. I am surprised that players are not still interested in the game because it is very easy to play and the odds are the best of ANY gambling game. For that same reason it is no longer played in casino's.
Just want to say again how much I love your blog!
ReplyDeleteThanks, Caroline. Have some strawberry cheese cake and coffee--we could yammer the whole afternoon about this stuff. It's all so interesting.
DeleteI enjoy your blog. I don't write westerns, but I do write steampunk space westerns, and so am always looking for engrossing blogs and info about the Old West.
ReplyDeleteSteampunk space westerns--intriguing! I ran an article on Chicken Dinner about an aeroship, written in the Avalanche in 1872. I'll keep an eye out for more of that sort of thing.
DeleteGreat post, Jacquie. My upcoming release, A Love of His Own, has chocolate candy in it also. I loved the newspaper article. Will have to check it out along with your books. I hope they're on Nook!
ReplyDeleteYes, Much Ado About Marshals is on Nook, and so are my other books. Thanks for asking. And yes, I'm a huge fan of old newspapers, so it's cool that my hometown newspaper is such a treasure. I'll have to read your book and see how your chocolate turns out. :)
DeleteWho'da guessed, Jacquie, that a blog that started as a demo on how to start a blog would turn out to bring so much fun and learning to so many!
ReplyDeleteAh, Judy, rub it in. LOL! Now I have to give a little history...
DeleteI had no intention of starting a blog, but Judy was curious about how blogger worked, so I was showing her a few things. She asked me what would happen if someone had already taken the blog name. I told her I'd show her, and typed in "Romancing the West" because I thought there was a blog by that name. Well, there wasn't, so I ended up with a new blog. And here we are!
I love reading about characters like Soapy -- a real person, I mean, *and* a real character! ;-D Love the "altering" the wheel to make it better for the house. Wasn't that the REAL game in town? Any town, back then and nowadays too.
ReplyDelete