The Portland daily press., 1867-07-31
MISCELLANY.
A Day Game Of Faro.

- 10y ~SosAAC "a = AEVs
George Alfred Townsend gives the follow
ing sketch of some of the lairs of the
"tiger": - l,'' 3" 'i44s' .sF
One half minute from Broadway finds you
in the second story of handsome building,
where the furniture Is OF walnut anl velvet,
massive and armorial, reproduced by mirrors
which might be priced like diamonds by
their carats. The gas is burning, as ii it
were midnight, the heavy curtains folded
close; the sunshine world OF business might
be twenty miles away, yet here Is business OF
its kind, grave and anxious, which we may
look upon. tns4li.- 30 gal
You win see at this midday game strange
people around the board Here, bending
with laughing face over his cheque, Is the
chief salesman of a great mercantile house
near by, who has come ont to saunter into
Delmonico's for lunch, and trade being
quiet, has stepped in here to try stake. Be
side him is the customer whose note he took
yesterday for $4,000, at six months. Speak
ing to both Familiarity is a man who has worn
the uniform OF Sing Slug, and can, if he
dare, tell how for the one time he suffered
shame, there were hundred that he escaped
1t. Here is boy, cigar between his teeth,
known by his fathers name among these
abandoned ones, while the cd man in Wall
street holds his gray hairs high, in the con
scientious satisfaction that his long lie is
without spot. s. EsAkR ~
and brandies distilled from the nobiest Bur-
gundy; bananas and pineapples to make fla
vor, and cigars that are in every roll Of the
rich leaf dream of sensual content folded
away. And all the while the money falls 10
stolid or eager countenances surveying, and
those who are ruined dare not for their
guilty vanity show despair, and those who
win are lured to come tomorrow. Here the
eXtremities of social life meet; the pick
pocket and the detective, ready to turn upon
each other like hyenas as soon as they have
passed their portals. 4tg@
Ii you will pass from the rear of the Fifth
Avenue Hotel at night, down Twenty-iourth
street, you will see all around you the palaces
OF gamblers. They psy the best OF rents.
1t you scruple to let your house to them, thes
will pay down full years rent in advance.
and bring You police assurance that you suf-
fer no blame. Here has long resided a celeb
rity in his profession" He possessed by ma
ture the gamblers two great qualifications,
bodness and plausibility. So glib and defer
ential is he, that you do not heed the coarse
ness of his English. Strange that such men
possess almost the friendship of the sage and
potent citizens here who are of venerable de-
scents, while all the day their associates are
the "cappers, ."strppers, '"ropers, "and 'sskin-
ucIr, WIN Walk Ou Glc uldISiu OF the rent
Tertiary -
l do not believe that among the more ie-
spectacle classes gambling is SO universal as
in European cities, bu. the American plays a
more desperate game. Among the lower Or
ders, however, gambling is the great vice.
There are 1900 policy shops in New York,
and 5000 dens and cellars and crazy tene-
ments where make ineis stakes the penny that
it begged. Five thousand is the estim ated
number of professional gamblers of the first
carat in New York, but this probably includes
the gamblers parasites, who are anxiousl to
pass for this rank. These professionals do not
acquire more income, upon an average, than
$4,000 a year, and must exc out living by
some other disagreeable course; $4,000 a
night is the estimated sum lost In the city at
games OF chance, but the fashionable clubs for
the most part permit gambling. Broadway
after midnight is dimly illuminated by the
lamps of gamblers in the second stories, and
yet all the games that are played, however
fair ostensibly, are nightly made dishonorable.
Holes are cut in the ceiling where spy reads
the ''hand' OF the dupe and telegraphs the re-
suit to his opponent Braces or false double
boxes are used in faro. What gambler can
be honest and consistent"