Salt Lake Telegram | 1938-01-08 | Page 6 | Amusement Devices!

Amusement Devices old question of when is a slot machine not nota T THE a slot machine but an amusement device or trade stimulator seems to arise in the plight in which a visiting gentlemen found himself when put under arrest late Thursday It may be difficult difficult difficult dif dif- to find the answer by conduct conducting Ig a postmortem postmortem post postmortem mortem on the corpus delicti for when it or it-or or better they were pointed out by the gentleman in trouble the machines were battered into pieces and contained no incriminating ng evidence The police tell the story this way A man who says he is Vern Phelan 34 of Coalville a laborer drives into town He has lias the bad luck of meeting or being met by a salesman for a marble game firm not firm not to be confused with racket In the back of the visitors visitors' car the salesman salesman salesman sales sales- man sees a number of slot machines asks about them is told by the visitor he represents the company handling them Checking with the company the salesman learns the visitor is not an The salesman tells the police about it ii and by checking the visitors visitor's auto license plates plates' they apprehend him In his car are found nickels 60 dimes dunes and several hundred sales tax tokens tokens but but no slot machines Under police urging he takes them to a remote ravine shows the remains The visitor is is' booked and held f for r Coalville authorities for police say he told them he had taken them from Coalville business houses To be continued continued we we hope The the story will have to come from Coalville Possibly it may turn out that the money and tokens retrieved merely constituted constituted constituted the take of the machines from amusement amusement amusement amuse amuse- ment seekers It would be more amazing if it developed that the money was the jackpot reserve re- re serve or the accumulated tokens of disappointment disappoint disappoint- ment left behind by unlucky players That seems improbable though because the law says that such machines which pay amusement seekers in coin of the realm in jackpots jackpots jackpots jack- jack pots or varying smaller sums are illegal The atto attorney at- at to torney ney general says it is a valid law even promising promising promising prom- prom ising to go after those who operate them We presume that if he ever hears of such machines machines machines ma ma- chines being operated the going after will start forthwith Curiosity arises as to why the marble game salesman felt moved to go to so much trouble to follow through on this case It could have been because a sense of civic duty prompted him to I give this aid to the police Possibly there may r 1 have been a suspicion that a newcomer newcomer was trying trying try- try ing ng to horn in on territory for which he had hadnot hadnot hadnot not obtained protection by paying the city license license li- li license cense fee or by some other payment We wouldn't know And while on the subject of amusement devices devices de tie vices where does the amusement come in Is Isit r it in anxiously watching the marbles as they Y go about from pin to pin in crazy fashion often e prompting amusement seekers to use pretty strong language or is the amusement found when they reach down and nd open the but all-but- concealed drawers and remove little metal disks about the size of a five-cent five piece from them smiling meanwhile as with satisfaction tion and uttering sentiments seeming to betoken anything but dismay We ought to take time off some day to satisfy our curiosity curiosity or or should we At the moment it seems that it would be better etiquette for us to leave such matters to duly constituted authorities authorities authorities ties who are paid out of public monies to do just that sort of thing We wouldn't want to commit a social error and times being what they are we wouldn't want to deprive anyone of a chance to do honest work