Word: bunco
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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...cities among metropolitan cities of the world. We have never had racketeers or gangsters here; we have not had a kidnaping for ransom since the turn of the century; sex crimes of violence are lower per capita of population than any city of comparable size in the U. S.; bunco-men and pickpockets fight shy of San Francisco; robberies and burglaries are constantly decreasing; in short, no less an authority than Director J. Edgar Hoover has described San Francisco as the "white spot of the nation," so far as crime is concerned...
...both Bulls & Bears and Jury Box is realism, which recurs in parlor sports at 30-year intervals. Monopoly, based on real-estate tradings, and G-men, invented by onetime G-Man Melvin Purvis, were the first non-escapist parlor sports since just after the turn of the Century when Bunco and Pit, based on Chicago's wheat trading, were highly fashionable. Bulls & Bears, played on a parcheesi-like board, concerns stock purchases, pools, dividends and taxes. The object is to acquire corners on as many stocks as possible, force other players into bankruptcy. Dice determine stock prices...
...Bonanza Creek in Canada's Yukon Territory, Skagway became the port of entry for the trek up over White Pass toward sudden wealth. Friends warned Soapy Alaska would be a tough proposition, but to Soapy it looked like his big chance. With his time-tested crew of bunco-steerers, con men and cappers he started a saloon in Skagway, set out to captivate that leaderless town. He did it, but it was hard going. The thugs and strong-arm men he could not control gave Skagway such a bad name that the law-&-order element grew restive. Finally, when...
...audacious," "crafty," "lusty," "flamboyant," "hot-tempered." Other words, complimentary or vituperative, might occur to commentators biased one way or the other. For instance the Scripps-Howard Express (now the Rocky Mountain News) six years ago chose these brands for Publisher Bonfils and his Post: "shame," "disgrace," "bandit," "brigand." "lawless," "bunco," "scaly monstrosity," "mountebank," "... a blackmailing, blackguarding, nauseaus (sic) sheet which stinks to high heaven and which is the shame of newspapermen the world over." But neither friend nor foe could call Publisher Bonfils "sensitive." Journalistic rough-&-tumble was his particular meat. He was an able name-caller himself. The battle...