Clarksville weekly chronicle. (Clarksville, Tenn.) 1873-1890, 1885-02-14
HcDowelr, Attempt to Beat Draw Poker

Nashville cor. Cincinnati Enquirer.
1t is the determination OF one man
at least that Nashville in particular, and
Tennessee in general, shall become
purely moral in all respects There is
to be no chance for any mistake in all
this. Mr.. Mcdowell, the gentleman
who has undertaken to fix up the NOR
ais OF the Tennesseans, is going to do il
in such way that the folks shall have
the choice of morality or penitentiary.
There is to be no hallway ground.
Mr.. Mcdowell is a member of the Leg
islature of the State, and he is loaded
with a bill that is TO beat his famous
faro bill all hollow. This one is a
corker. It's awful. His other bill
knocked faro out OF the city complete
ly, and to-day there are not over a
dozen professional gamblers in Nash
vile. 1t used to be that Nashville had
more professional gamblers than any
other city in the country, all things
else being equal. But now the boys
have gone away. There is no use talk
ing, there is no faro played in this
town. 1t usually happens that when
the better class of houses are closed,
then the skin-games reap harvest, but
a man couldn't even get skinned here
at faro if he wanted to- Nothing but
poker goes. A great deal of draw is
played here, there being several large
houses devoted exclusively to short
cards. The games are rather big ones,
too, the most of the players being mer-
chants, clerks, officials, and bank peo-
pie.
"What is the prospect of the Ten
nessee gambling law being repealed?"
ii proprietor of poker-room was
asked.
at will not be repealed. There
never will be any more faro in this
State. Nobody wants to go to the
penitentiary, and that's the size of it il
you fool with the thing. The gamblers
know this, and we are not going to take
chances. 1t is a terrible deprivation
here where gambling was formerly so
much of a business. You see it is
radical change, and those who a short
time ago were proprietors of large faro
banks are now scattered all over the
country or running poker-shops."
Are these poker-shops more profit
able in the long run and a great deal
less expensive to run, as well as being
less risky ?"
Faro is the best all the time. II a
man loses all he has at faro and you
kick him down stairs, he will, should |
he find quarter at the bottom, come |
back and play the game, and you can
afford to be independent. In running
a poker-room you have to bow and |
scrape TO get custom. The utmost
care has to be exercised to keep in the |
channel, or your game is gone. The
profits are slow coming in. You grind |
in $50 or 800 day, and fritter it away |
before it can accumulate to anything. |
In faro you may win by the single turn |
of card more than you can make at |
running a poker-room for a month. |
Now, this is too slow for us. We want |
the good old game of faro, which is |
rapid and swift and popular"
But to return to MIR. McDowell's bill. |
His old bill merely referred to faro,
keno, roulette, hazard, &c. 1t didn't |
touch poker. Mr. Mcdowell now pro-
poses to make it penitentiary offence |
to play poker in Tennessee. He pro-
poses to send to the penitentiary any
DOuy anu eNeTyDOuy WliO pldys BuinS |
of cards for any stake-even for the
beer. He takes in dice throwing,
pedro, seven-up, euchre, Boston, whist,
all hearts, pea nuckies, sixty-six, crib
bage, casino, black jack, black maria,
base ball, hop-scotch last tag,
foot ball, pussy wants a
corner, leap-frog, flip, mumbly-peg,
tunk, backgammon, dominoes, check
ers, billiards, pool. last one over the
fence is nigger, bunko, wheel OF for
tune, film fams, bluff, kite-fying, bur-
glary, jug distemper, and all the other
popular games OF the day 1t is alto
gether likely that this bill OF Mr.. Nc
Dowell's will go through, and then the
boys will not have chance to even
hang on by their eye-lids.