Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1884-04-02


natural sequence of other games openly
tolerated, and which are more destructive
by far to pocket and morals, and the sooner
the well.intentioned people, who are
wasting their energies in endeavoring to
suppress banking games Inform them
selves of the details of these truths, and
are courageous enough to confess and preach
them, that much sooner shall we be graf
fled by recognizing the success of their
praiseworthy efforts. 1t is now simply a
case of misdirected ZEAL In every village,
town and city of this State games are run
in saloons, cigar stands and hotels, which
prepare, educate and train men, young and
old, for all other phases of gambling. 1t Is
sheer folly to say to GA !" that he must
not bet at faro, even fairly dealt, " but he
may play at the varieties of poker" in
which the keeper of the house risks no cap.
itel beyond rent and gas light whatever,
where the players play only against each
others capital, and where the regular and
frequent percentage to the keeper of the
rooms sooner or later absorbs all the capt.
tai of all the players.
a large number of the so-called cigar
stores and saloons do not exist upon the
profits of their business so much as upon
this exhaustive percentage. A San Fran
cisco contemporary says:
Two new modes Of gambling in public have been
started The one is only new IN so far as being a
public game, and is stud-horse poker IL Is played
in the same way as poker proper, except thSt the
first of the five cards is dealt face downwards, the
rest face up and you bet as each card IS turned up
The next game is high-ball poker, and Is a new
game on this coast Fifty balls are put in plnpool
hall shaker and each man having "antied IS dealt
a ball The men having high numbered balls bet,
raise, etc. lust the same in poker. There are
men who visit these tables with pal, whose OBJ
ec it is to look over other players cards. or see the
number OF their balls, and telegraph it to their
partners, Who of course bet accordingly. However,
fair or unfair there should be some law framed
that can touch these games. They are the training
schools for the gamblers OF the future and are ire
uuented by mere boys, who should be at home and
in bed instead of forming taste for gambling that
may lead them TO suicide or San Quentin. AS the
house takes ten cents each t1ue card is dealt aid
five cents every time the balls are rolled out, Of
out of it, Either, say, license gambling or stop
it altogether.
The card, dice and other games not pur-
sued by those sincere in the effort to sup
press gambling are the most dangerous,
and the banking games in upper looms and
conducted with some barriers interposed to
the approach of boys to the tables, are the
least harmful to public morality. Youth
cannot fail to note, as mature age does real
ize, the hollowness of pretending to be vir-
tuously indignant at the faro dealer, so long
as roulette may be and is openly and con-
stantly run at fairs in aid of charity,
church and moral objects, with the petted
daughters of our households as game keep
ers and peddlers of chances. 1t is sheerest
hypocrisy and cant to bemoan the existence
of the banking game and threaten it with
the penalties of the law, so long as ratfles
and lotteries are openly announced and
drawn day by day without word OF pro.
test from the conservators of coed govern.
ment.
While there can be given no consent to
the licensing of gambling, or to any COM
promise with it, we do not propose to make
fruitless raid upon it, so long as the COM
murity sits silent before the open peddling
and sale of lottery tickets upon the streets
OF our towns, for schemes that in the
main are sheer robbery, and have not even
the faintest blush of honesty about them.
Nor, go long as this and other communi-
ties apparently find no offense whatever
in the open and notorious advertising, in
leading daily papers, in defiance OF the
law, OF the vilest thieving lottery schemes
that stand black.hsted upon the official
postal records of the nation, and are for.
hidden the use Of the United States mailE,
The well-intentioned people whose war.
fare against banking games is and has
uniformly been proitless, should begin to
ask of themselves why it is so. They will
discover that fortunes from the people are
monthly carried out of the State and poured
into the lottery Golfers that Chinese lot.
tgries are daily drawn in all the cities Of
the State, and boys and girls from ten
years upward are persistent gamblers
thereat that the poker and dice game
schools of all grades, from those of the five
cent dives to the pretentious back rooms
where merchants and legislators, mature
manhood and shameless gray age, set vicious
examples to absorbent youth, handle quite
as much money, have a larger clientage
and work a vast deal more injury than the
faro BANKS fact the well-informed dc
not venture to deny. So long, then, al
lottery tickets are openly exposed for sale
SO long as our wives and daughters may
cloak gambling with the thin veil OF char.
ity, and initiate youth into the desperate
charm of the fatal circle of chances ; sc
long as lottery returns, and drawings ad'
vsrtisingly displayed, and paid accounts o
lucky" winnings may be freely pub
lished; go long as rascally schemes ar;
permitted, the sole purpose of which is tc
rob by cheating at gaming Of the most vi
cious character so long as rafiies and rou'
{ letse and drawings for "pure purposes" ar
winked at, and the plea of justification o
the ends by the means is set up, and al
which this journal long since and frequently
denounced, but which brought from tn,
well-intentioned no responsive action
we do not propose to confess the wisdom
of the policy Of looping off topmost branches
| Thus much is due the courteous correspond
ents who are solicitous to know precisely
what we think on this subject. We tax,
it that between their view and ours Their
is only the difference OF method, We pre-
fer the ak laid at the root of the tree
When the communities of this State ar
ready to remove the beam, we apprehent
no difficulty in plucking out the mote
When the opponents of gambling have tn
courage to act, as we have endeavored t
speak, gambling will be suppressed, ant
not till then.
MUNICIPAL REFORM.
The Committee of Fifty.three from tn
citizens meeting in New York to conside
proposed legislation for the city, hav
=