1903: Prisoners Play Cards to Spank Each Other

“Prisoners confined in jail with nothing to occupy their efforts usually find some way of killing time. The ingenuity shown is often remarkable. To some these means may savor of the childhood, make-believe play, but that charge does not bother the adults who may be guilty of it.  In the county jail the other day a reporter saw an instance. The game was at cards, Seven-up. There were no chips to pass for forfeits--and here the inventive genius came in. Two men had sat vis-a-vis on their cell hammock for hours and until the tally list of games won reached several times across a slip of paper. At the close of one game the winner reached behind him and pulled out a paddle or spanker. ‘Here, take your medicine,’ he called to his opponent, whereupon the latter presented the seat of his trousers for a bastinado of the number of strokes equal to the margin of points by which he had lost the game.  ‘Nosy poker’ is similar. In this case the beaten man presents his nose for receiving strikes from the deck of cards. ‘Those two fellows sometimes have noses so red that they look like electric light bulbs,’ commented the jailer.” 

~The Spokane press. (Spokane, Wash.), 13 July 1903. Chronicling America. Lib. of Congress.