Greensboro, June 1—Ed Wharton, charged with the fatal shooting here early this morning of Clarence Lane during a gambling game, and Wharton’s brother, Clarence Wharton, who is alleged to have handed Ed the pistol, are being sought by the police. All the parties are negroes.
It is alleged that during a “skin game” Lane reached for the pot of $6 before his hand had been played, when Clarence Wharton is alleged to have handed Ed the pistol and Ed, according to the police, shot Lane through the heart. Both negroes escaped in an automobile.
Editor’s Note: A “skin game” in a 1926 newspaper means a crooked gambling game designed to cheat one or more of the players. It was a very common term in the early 1900s, especially in the rural South, and everyone reading that article in 1926 would have understood it instantly. That’s what Copilot says, but I thought it would be good to explain the term here, because I didn’t know what it meant in 2026.
From the front page of the Concord Daily Tribune, June 2, 1926
newspapers.digitalnc.org/lccn/sn92073201/1926-06-02/
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