Cheating

“ He professes the art of cheating; but the art of cheating is to cheat without peril. He is teres et rotundas; strokes fly from the lubricity of his polish, and the shiftings of his circular formation. He who is insensible of the glory of his profession, who is open only to the profit, is no disciple of mine. ”

“ We may conclude the present chapter with a description of the system of cheating known as 'Counting-down.' This is a method which is not by any means so familiar to the masses as those with which we have just been dealing. It is one of those devices which seem to lie within the borderland between honesty and dishonesty; although, when one understands its real nature, there is no question as to the fact that it really is cheating, and nothing else. ”

“ All at once it struck him as mean and cowardly to frighten a lady who had traveled far among strangers and who had that tired droop to her mouth. It wasn’t a fair game; it was cheating. Only for his promise to the boys, he would have told her the truth then and there. ”

“ For me to accuse anybody whose cheating has not been found out would be useless, even if it were possible. All I do, all I have done, is to warn you that the men who have done the unfair work were acting together, and, I believe, acting under orders. ”

“ Stealing is punished with Restoring four-fold if able; if not, they are sold for some years, and so are poor Debtors. I have not heard of many Criminals of this sort. But for Lying and Cheating they out-vye Judas and all the false other cheats in Hell. Nay, they make a Sport of it: Looking upon Cheating as a commendable Piece of Ingenuity, commending him that has the most skill to commit a piece of Roguery; which in their Dialect (like those of our Yea-and-Nay-Friends in England) they call by the genteel Name of Out-Witting a Man and won't own it to be cheating. ”

“ Fix your eyes as you may, be suspicious even to certainty that the player is cheating you, I will defy you to detect the moment when, by the light if not elegant touch of the finger, your pea has been slipped from the right thimble to the wrong, or the right card to the wrong—yea, to the end, you could swear that no deception has been or could be practised upon you; and even when your watch is forfeited you could hardly think but that your misfortune lay on some defect in your power of penetration. ”

“ There might be something loathsome in it, or ominous, to an Englishman of the school of Shakespeare or Scott; who would fight with men only, and loved his hound. But for you—you carnivorous cheats—what, in dog’s or devil’s name, is there horrible in it for you? Do you suppose it isn’t more manly and virtuous to fight a bulldog, than to poison a child, or cheat a fellow who trusts you, or leave a girl to go wild in the streets? And don’t you live, and profess to live—and even insolently proclaim that there’s no other way of living than—by poisoning and cheating? ”

“ Cheating was elementary, and rarely did much harm but to the successful cheat; at times a neighbour passed a leaden dollar on a friend, was soon detected, and was branded as a thief; at times a man slaughtered a neighbour’s cow, and sold the hide, stole a good horse, or perpetrated some piece of petty villainy, sufficient by its transparent folly to reassure the world that he was quite uncivilized, and not fit by his exertions ever to grow rich. ”

“ Therefore, I confess to you, that I, who would not rob any one of a pin, have not only no scruple in doing my best to control fate, but, in cheating, I think I carry out a principle, eminently useful to humanity. ”

“ Given one or a dozen exposures of a fraud, and we settle instinctively into the conviction that its power has ended. It is barely conceivable to the honest mind that cheating has wonderful staying power, and that not one nor a thousand exposures will turn into straight paths feet used to crooked ones. ”

“ But may it not be hoped that we are their juniors in the art of cheating? We have among us some arrant cheats, but it is presumed that but a few will doubt that our white brothers bear off the palm in this department of human depravity. ”

“ The best plan was to astonish my man with the miracle of the augmentation of the mercury, treat it as a jest, and see what his intentions would be. Cheating is a crime, but honest cunning may be considered as a species of prudence. ”

“ You see, it is a frightful thing to accuse a man of cheating."
"I admit that it is not pleasant; but if a man cheats, and is found out, it is the duty of every honest man to denounce him, if they detect him.
"Well, if you don't mind, I will take Lindsay, Holmes, and Tritton into my confidence. They all play occasionally, and you must let me mention that you are altogether in his power; and that, unless he is detected, you will have to leave the regiment. Mind, don't you watch him yourself. Play even more recklessly than usual; that will make him a bit careless." ”

“ Walter laughed.
"And to feel one is likely to be cheated is the pleasantest way of passing one's time in town, Bunting, eh?"
"Augh! and in cheating too!" answered the Corporal; "'cause you sees, Sir, there be two ways o' living; one to cheat,—one to be cheated. 'Tis pleasant enough to be cheated for a little while, as the younkers are, and as you'll be, your honour; but that's a pleasure don't last long—t'other lasts all your life ”

“ And what will our customs be like, what will life be like, in the days when nobody any longer feels any remorse or scruple in cheating his neighbour, and when everybody becomes cheat and cheated turn and turn about, cheat in matters which he understands, cheated in those in which he has to rely on other people? ”

“ When he boggles outright, 'he is confused with the phenomena.' And when this has gone on for weeks, and he has been clothed and cosseted, and his patrons have staked their penetration upon him; how is he to turn round and say he has been cheating all the time? ”

“ We have seen a proof of the practice of cheating among the Hindoos. It existed also among the Romans, as proved by the 'cogged' or loaded dice dug up at Herculaneum. The fact is that cheating is a natural, if not a necessary, incident of gambling. It may be inferred from a passage in the old French poet before quoted, that cheats, during the reign of Charles VI., were punished with 'bonnetting,' (43) but no instance of the kind is on record; on the contrary, it is certain that many of the French kings patronized and applauded well-known cheats at the gaming table. ”

“ The public have occasionally an opportunity of peeping behind the scenes, but the cases of cheating which come to light bear a very small proportion to those which are condoned or hushed up, and the number of these again is nothing when compared with the infinity of cases which are never discovered. ”

“ When you want something from the public, throw the blame of the asking on the most sacred principle you can find. A common beggar can read you exquisite lessons on this the most important maxim in the art of popular cheating. “For the love of God, sir, a penny!” ”

“ Again, the jury must consider the accusation which the Duke of Denver said he had brought against deceased. He had accused him of cheating at cards. In the kind of society to which the persons involved in this inquiry belonged, such a misdemeanor as cheating at cards was regarded as far more shameful than such sins as murder and adultery. Possibly the mere suggestion of such a thing, whether well-founded or not, might well cause a gentleman of sensitive honor to make away with himself. ”

“ Do not talk about cheating. There will be no chance to cheat if you follow the plan just described. Deal with any flagrant case of cheating with extreme privacy; it is a disgrace to provoke children to cheat and you should try to hide the affair and save the culprit from yielding to a similar temptation should you be so unfortunate as to place another one in his way. ”

“ In the tract Mihil Mumchance, his Discoverie of the Art of Cheating, doubtfully attributed to Robert Greene (1560–1592) , we find that gamesters call themselves cheaters, “borrowing the term from the lawyers.” ”

“ I could not avoid sneering, "to most of us it would seem that the mischief was done when you accused a brother-officer of fraud to his face."
He seemed to reflect. "Yes, sir," he assented slowly; "it is done. I saw him cheat: that I must persist in; but I cannot say how far he was conscious of it. And since I cannot, I must take the consequences."
"Will you kindly inform us how it is possible for a player to cheat and not know that he is cheating?" ”

“ There was a general feeling of pity for the girl who was believed to be his daughter, but none for the man himself, owing to his having been detected cheating—one of the deepest of crimes in a community where all men gambled more or less. ”

“ It's hard not to, although I realize that Duggie was wise when he asked me to let matters take their course.
It just happened that the next day after Berri had delivered his thesis, the talk at luncheon turned on cheating at exams and handing in written work that is n't your own. The sentiment against cheating seemed to be strong, partly from a sense of honor and partly from a sense of risk. As a matter of fact, I don't see how fellows can very well manage to cheat here—during an examination, that is to say—even if they want to. ”

“ There are other forms of dishonesty not so open as stealing, and, in some cases, not so harmful, but generally degrading and destructive of high character. One of these is Cheating. If a coal dealer is paid for a ton of coal and delivers only nineteen hundred pounds, he is guilty of stealing. If, however, he gives full weight, but sells the coal as first-class, when it contains shale or other impurities, and is really of a cheap grade, then he is cheating. The schoolboy who copies his night-work from another, or gets help, and then presents the exercise as his own, is guilty of cheating. ”

“ Cheating is either a common-law or statutory offence. An indictment for cheating at common law is now of comparatively rare occurrence. The statutory crime of obtaining money by false pretences is the form in which the offence generally presents itself. Like embezzlement, this offence dates as a statutory crime from the last century. It now depends upon the Larceny Act. ”

“ If I don't marry Maud, sooner or later it will be found out I have made fraudulent uses of my power of attorney, and they will seize me, search the Bank and the Manor, and—hang me out of one of the crossbars of that tank—always supposing I do not take the liberty of cheating the hangman by making away with myself. ”

“ I believe if a man had ever been inclined to cheat he would have been sorely tempted in this instance, but the game was played absolutely square, and if a man had been caught cheating, the chances are that he would have been shunned by the rest of the officers as long as he was in prison. ”

“ Who has not remarked the readiness with which the closest of friends and honestest of men suspect and accuse each other of cheating when they fall out on money matters? Everybody does it. Everybody is right, I suppose, and the world is a rogue. ”

“ Wherefore, albeit you have related very fine stories, I mean to tell you one, which should please you more than any other that hath been told upon the same subject, inasmuch as she who was cheated was a greater mistress of the art of cheating others than was any of the men or women who were cozened by those of whom you have told. ”

“ Of course he had committed forgery;—of course he had committed robbery. That, indeed, was nothing, for he had been cheating and forging and stealing all his life. ”

“ You see, without making a public scandal, if it could be found that a man was discovered cheating, and the way in which he was doing it, one would be able to put so strong a pressure on him, that not only might he be forced to abstain from going to any club, but would be frightened into giving up any IOUs he might hold. ”

“ This system of cheating and adulteration is carried out in all ramifications of business; and if a man is not continually upon the alert, he is sure to suffer the penalty of his negligence, by having a worse thing than he bargained for thrust upon him, and that, too, without redress. ”

“ Cheating, in every kind of ‘sport,’ is as completely in the common order of things in England, among the highest classes as well as the lowest, as false play was in the time of the Count de Grammont. It is no uncommon thing to hear ‘gentlemen’ boast of it almost openly ”

“ I’ve often been cheated; the trick’s been repeated so often I cannot keep tab; but ne’er has the duffer who thus made me suffer been much better off for his grab. It pays not to swindle; dishonest rolls dwindle like snow when exposed to the sun; like feathers in Tophet is burned up the profit of cheating, the crooked man’s mon. The people who sting me unknowingly bring me philosophy fresh, by the crate ”

“ This book will show that not only is a thriving trade in cheating utensils carried on openly and unblushingly, but also that there must be an enormous number of swindlers at large, who live by means of unfair practices in connection with all forms of gambling; sharps who are still undetected, and, notwithstanding the vigilance of the authorities, are still pursuing their calling under the very eyes of Justice. ”

“ It would be of great Service to the Public, to extend this Statute to idle Persons and Sharpers in general; for many support themselves by Frauds, and cheating Practices, even worse than Gaming; and have the Impudence to appear in the Dress of Gentlemen, and at public Places, without having any Pretensions of Birth or Fortune, or without any honest or visible Means of Livelihood whatever. ”