Policy dealing is one degree lower in infamy than the lottery business. There were at one time about 200 policy shops in the city, whose principal customers are negroes, sailors and foreigners. The mazes of policy are not well-known to the general public. Few games are so well devised for a sure loss to the player, even when honestly played, and the more influential sellers make this assurance doubly sure by playing to suit themselves. The game consists of betting on certain numbers, within the range of lottery schemes, being drawn at high noon or night-drawing. Seventy-eight numbers usually make up the lottery scheme, and the policy player can take any of these numbers and bet they will be drawn, either single, or in such combinations as he may select. The single numbers may come out anywhere in the drawing, but the combination must appear as he writes it in making his bet. He pays one dollar for the privilege of betting and receives a written slip containing the number or numbers on which he bets. If a single number is chosen and drawn, he wins $5.00, two numbers constitute a “saddle,” and if both are drawn the player wins from $24.00 to $32.00, three numbers make a “gig” and win from $150 to $225; four numbers make a “horse,” and win $640.00 A “capital straddle” is a bet that two numbers will be among the first three drawn, and wins $500.00. The player may take any number of “saddles,” “gigs,” or “horses,” paying $1.00 for each bet. Now all this seems very fair, but the policy managers are equal to the emergency. As soon as they receive the drawings, they change the order of the numbers, and thus condemn the players to a total loss. These alternated numbers are printed on slips, and distributed to the various policy shops. In some cases, after these copies have been sent out, it is discovered that the players have even then won too much to suit the managers. The copies are immediately recalled as misprints, and new copies, altered to suit the managers, are distributed. All sorts of people engage in this wretched game, black and whites, rich and poor. The grossest superstitions are indulged in respecting “lucky numbers.” Such numbers are revealed by dreamers, which are interpreted by “dream books.” To dream of a man is “one,” of a woman “five,” of both “fifteen,” and so on. Thousands of copies of these “dream books” are sold every year, and among its purchasers are said to be many shrewd operators on the Board of Trade. So great is the rage for policy playing that men and women become insane over it. The lunatic asylums contain many patients who have been brought there by this species of gambling. Criminal Operations