The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1883-10-25
4 More Than Thrlce-To Tale.

a more. 4hah IAfAce- lON 1aiee4B4.s
One of the comnlonest OF the stories
told in the daily papers is the story of the
frank gambler who contides to the re-
porter the methods of his class. In sub
Stance it is always the same story7-the
gambler leading the sucker or .spro-
ducern or victim" on until he, is
cleaned out and then seeking ng-or. wait
ing, rather, to be sought by a freshin-
stallment of victims, suckers. or pro
| ducers. And the point upon which the
confiding gambler insists most strong
ly is that the man who attacks a game
from the outside, whether it be a
brace game, a skin game or, a.
square game, is sure in the end to
lose.
As TO the truth of the story there is
no doubt 1t is attested by the expert,
ence of hundreds in every city in the,
land. 1t is in the nature of things, in
deed, that it should be true, Men who
engage in business as gamblers, who,
| deliberately embark in the pursuit, of
obtaining the money of other people by
games of alleged chance, are not at all
likely to trust to chance. So far as the
business can be made a certainty they
will, naturally, make it so. - /, 1.
The wonder is that with the natural
| probabilities against success. on. the
| part Of amateur gamesters in strug-,
1 Cling with the professionals and with
| the uniform record of just such failure
and loss as are to be expected, the num-
| Der of victims is constantly on the in;
| crease. Every new greenhorn, seems to
be fred with the belief that he has some
extraordinary gift denied TO his plueked
| predecessors, and that the unYarying
| DEGREES of fate are to be suspended in
| his case. His success, he thinks, will be
all the more remarkable because of the,
| long list of failures preceding it, And
| upon this belief and ambition the pro-
fessi0nal gambler thriyes 50, well that.
| he can afford every month in the year,
TO tell his story, and frankly. to confess
| that there really is no such thing. as
chance in the business. s. 80 n.
1 Most remarkable of all is the childlike
confidence of the sucker who chooses
| Wall Street as the place and stocks !,
as the method of parting with his, capi-
tai. The credulity demanded of him who
believes the banker at, faro takes his
/ chances with the players is very great.
But it is insignificant compared with
the credulity which looks forward to q
realization of profits in playing against
/ the game that is dealt in Wall Street.
I Yet such credulityl is common. 1t is
manifested every day by men who
seem, in respect to all other matters, to
/ be gifted with ordinary shrewdness and
intelligence. 4 u r.
I If total stranger had asked the
Ecashier of bank to let him have one.
or ten. thousand dollars. without securi-
lsty upon his declaration that he was goi
| ling into a profitable mercantile opera.
ton, and his promise to divide the
profits, he would have refused.ag He
would have felt that the stranger, if he
made a good thing, g,would probably
keep the profit, even if he returned the
7advance. He would have seen, in
word, thatlthe proposition was Ulnbusi-
nesslike and unsafe, and probably a
swindle. But because the total stranger
called himselfa a ''broker'' and proposed
to gamble with the banks fnonevAor
rather with the money intrusted to it =
instead of going into a mercantile OPP
Grafton, he turned it out to him as free
4 ly as if he had secured return of fifty
per cent. on it. 1t never oceurrrd to
him that the interests of the
''broker," so called, iwere wholly an
tagonistic to his, or that he could do
far better for himself with the money he
sent him than to return it increased
thousand fold. On the contrary, he
expected, with child-like confidence,
that he would so return it, and he con-
tinued to expect this until his defalca-
tions could no longer be concealed. ~
The case of this bank official is the
case of hundreds of others tits ease
| of almost daily occurrence. There
seems to be no such thing in this mat
ter Of stock gambling as learning from
the experience of others. But it does
seem as though the stockholders and
directors in the banks of the country
I might profit so far by the common ex-
I tperience as to keep a better watch over
their servants in places of trust.-De-
trott Free Press.
1 al