Public ledger. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1865-1893, 1882-10-07
IN
Chicago Times.


alley after business hours yesterday.
There's nothing in it, replied the
scribe. besides the Times is a daily pa
per. And furthermore, l am not paid foI
m~oralizing. IA large force of men art
paid prinoely salaries for doing that sort
Of thing. they are called editors and
have nothing else to DO"
But did you know persisted the cap
italist as he cOmplacently stroked his alb
domen and glanced around with an air OF
proprietorship, ''that there is no other
place like il in the world?N The reporter
expressed languid establishment and the
nabOb proceeded:
II have visited every money center OF
consequence in the world, and nowhere
have1 seen such a spectacle as is here pre-
sented day after day. Look at III Back
ofus is the Board of Trade; further on is
the Call Board, while here in front Of us is
half Il dozen bucket-shOps, an open board,
two or three pool-rooms, with halfa dozen
gambling houses close by, and billiard
rooms and saloons thrown in for variety.
Men and boys gamble here in sums rang
ing all the way from twenty-five cents to
ten millions. The game that is going on
in this alley has practically no limit. Its
votaries are divided into classes or grades.
A few work up from the little boards and
bucket-shops. but for one who gets on the
floor of the big board by that route, FIVE
TAKE THE DOWN TRIP.
The histories of four-ffths of the men
whose faces you see in the neighborhood
are so nearly alike they could DO stereo-
typed. They have lived in smaller places,
- ILL. rs,l, - sahar.t.l ..-.
They feel like sturgeon in a tiny stream
lei, and splash out into Chicago, where
they can employ their $4,000, $4,000 or
100000 to better advantage, and become
rich and powerful quicker. They go on
the Board and speculate. Some last for
years, and Others only a few weeks or
months, but sooner or later they are laid
out. II they are fortunate enough TO be
frozen out quickly, they usually find their
way back to where they came from, and
ifthey have anything of the man about
them, begin oyer among their friends. If
the process is slow they cannot leave.
Excitement has become indispensable, and
they linger around the scenes Of their ex-
oleits until literally starved out. They
haunt the bucket shops, and whenever
they get hold of a S. or $40 note they bet
it on the market fluctuations, and watch
the ticket with rs much sOlicitude as
though they had half @ million in money
staked. They are more deeply concerned,
for they have wagered their all, and the
man who bets half a million generally has
n margin left to play behind his hundreds
ofthousands. The alleys thronged with
ghost like "reminiscences of former sue
ooecar opd uaopx- rf fha eaad.- ln,l,r-
specimens you see about this neighbour
hood have histories full OF romance and
pathos. They have made and lost for
tunes, and not a few have names that
were once famous in the speculative histO-
ry of the Board Of Trade, by reason of
brilliant and daring achievements. To
be sure, in a majority Of instances, the
performance that made them famous was
the leap from the pinnacle of success into
the abyss of penury and humiliation, but
the
MAN WHO HAS LOS A FORTUNE IN
an unsuccessful corner has enjoyed an ex-
p%erience that gives him something to think
and talk about for the remainder of his
natural life. If the cards had come out
differently they might have been Goulds,
or Armours, or '0ld Hutchs,n but fate
ordered it otherwise. These broken grain
and pork merchants can tell you exactly
how the market is going for a day, month
OF year ahead, and ifthey only had a little
money they could win back all they had
lost and more. They are the touts' of
gamblers alley and can give a man
pointers at any time on anything that is
bought or sold on the board. Some of
them are encyclopedias of information on
special subjects. They have specialties
and are 'cranks' on certain points, and
are wrong in their predictions nine cases
out of ten
"But what becomes ofthsse old fellows?"
put in the reporter.
THE Lord only knows. They hang on
as long as they can, doing odd Jobs for the
grain handlers when they are driven 10 il.
and finally they disappear. They go of
somewhere and die, / suppose. Nobody
ever inquiries after them, and they are not
missed long. Only the other day l buried
a man who had run his course in Paris.
and Chicago. He had a million dollars a
half dozen times, and died a beggar, after
a career Of unexampled yicissitudes. He
was less than fifty years old, and was lite
rally consumed by the fever of gambling.
he would bet the last shirt on his back on
anything. He had a brief career on this
board and then sank into the oblivion of
the alley. l was the only mourner at his
funeral.
These pool aud gambling rooms are
educating the boys to become grain and
card gamblers. The very settling clerks
are saturated with a spirit Of speculation.
and every dollar they can raise is hazard
ed. The cheap institutions are patronized
by clerks. collectors and loafers, and are
veritable schools for instruction in thiey-
ing, defaulting and embezzlement. l
would like to see them wiped out, but they
never will be. They are a part and par
eel of the whole system, and are as indis-
pensable as the big cards. When the
Is done away with it will be time TO
talk Of r~emedying the evil effect. You
cannot kill a noxiOus vice by looping off
a few Insignificant branches or shoots"
and the lecturer, who had grown rich
handling ''customer's'' money on the
board, turned sadly away.