Public ledger. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1865-1893, 1879-02-28

With this capital he started a game
on his W account. The benignant
spirit Of the lucky shrimp watched
over him. He prospered steadily, and
when he retired had ished a hand
some competence out Of that tide,
which, taken at the flood, leads on to
fortune"
THE REAL HEAVY GAMBLERS.
The real heavy gamblers are not the
m%illionaires who sit down and lose
thousands at a game, but the unfortu-
nate wretches who stake all, and who,
having lost, walk away without a
murmur, to suffer in silence till they
make another strike. The Dispatch
reporter once saw a handsome but
very seedy man enter a faro-bank and
buy three 50 chips. The money was
evidently the last he had. He was
shabby, dirty-shirted, wan from want.
There were unlimited uses he could
make Of the money, but he chose this.
lie sat down and bet a chip on the
jack. In doing 30 his elbow Knocked
one of the other chips off the table.
There was a crowd behind him, and of
course the check vas snapped up be-
fore it reached the floor. The man
stopped to look for it, and one of the
" heck-charmers around him spirit
cd away his second chip, at the same
time his jack lost, and his third and
last was swept off. The poor wretch
only rose and walked away, muttering:
Well, I'm id if that isn't
mean luck!"
Goal Oil johnny" is a constant
patron of a certain ten-cent faro game
in the Bowery. He gains his title
from his business. lis retails coal oil,
which he carries about in a ram
shackle push-cart, among the very
poorest denigens of the East Side.
One day last winter this man fell
senseless at the door Of the gaming
house in which he had just lost his
last cent. He was carried to a neigh
boring drug store and a physician sent
for. The practitioner declared that
he was dying of starvation. He him
self afterward acknowledged that he
had eaten nothing for seventy-two
hours.
This is a fact in the knowledge of
the writer.
GAMBLING HIS FATHERS FUNERAL
AWAY.
There is a hanger-on of the uptown
games on Sixth venue who is pointed
out as the man who gambled his
fathers funeral away, Inquiry by the
reporter developed the story to be ac-
tually true.
Heis a jew. His father, a member
Of the aristocratic Portuguese con-
gregation, met with business mis-
fortunes and became very poor. The
congregation, as is usual in such cases,
supported him and his family, and
when he died subscribed SIS to defray
the expenses of the funeral.
This money the mother handed to
the son. He set out for an under
takers establishment to order the
funeral and settle for it.
AT midnight he had not returned.
The anxious mother dispatched one
of his friends in search of him, and
the latter found him in a faro bank.
He had been there all the afternoon
with varying fortune, and had just
lost the last half dollar which should
have been devoted to the interring of
his deceased sire.
The son of the we'll known ex-alder-
man and politician of this city is so
besOtted a gambler that his family
never allow him any money, even for
necessary expenses. They feed and
clothe him, and buy everything he
needs, down to a pocket handkerchief
or a shoe lace. Still he manages to
overreach them. He did so completely
last summer. They went to the sea
shore, he being with them. One day
he disappeared, and was absent nearly
a month. In that time he had tramped
back to New York and sold every
stick and rag of furniture out of their
elegantly appointed mansion, not
sparing even the gas fixtures. Of
course the money all went in the one
way.