Card sharps were a big problem on early 20th century ocean liners. Not only did they fleece their victims of their hard-earned money, they gave ships and their lines a bad reputation.
For these reasons, many lines employed detectives and various other employees to keep an eye-peeled for known dishonest card players.
Occasionally, however, there were incidents of mistaken identity. This clipping, taken from the 27 April 1907 edition of the Philadelphia Inquirer, describes a particularly embarrassing incident as Cunard Line’s Carmania (1905) prepared to depart from New York:
BTW, if you read nothing else in this clipping, run your eye over the last paragraph and try not to giggle.
August Belmont Jr., in case you were wondering was one of the 19th century’s great “robber barons.”
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