Roseburg review. [volume] (Roseburg, Or.) 1885-1920, 1885-04-17
THE GAMBLER.
How Hls Presence In Community De
vastates It.

How His Presence In Community De-
vastates It.
The gamblers OF New York have led q
precar1ous and on the whole q Wretched
existence for two or three years past
These places have been raided by both
the public and private police, and whom
ever the attitude of the law is decided
toward them they read the handwriting
on the wall and take holiday. Per
haps the least self-satisfied countenances
to be seen around our hotels and public
resorts are the old gamblers who long
had complete Immunity, and to this day
preserve q little hold on the police and
even the police justices. Cases are not
infrequent of gamblers sitting on our
minor benches or being clerks the
courts. Hence certain latent SYM
pathy in the prosecution of these men
and even on their being surprised. The
best thirg the gambler can do to satisfy
himself is to get out OF the business al.
together. The occasional funds OF
money he raises by his dangerous and
outlawed trade hardly ever stay by him,
and good deal of it goes to the police
and lawyers aud other parasites who
hold vice to be their natural banker and
side patron. Our hotels are also often
indifferent to the presence of the gam
bling community right among their
guests, and it seems to me to be a poor
thing to do with a guest who comes to
town with money which he might other
wise spend in the proper Office of hospi-
tality, to allow him to be taken in hand
by some gambler roper-in and escorted
to some place in the neighborhood
where he can be picked clean and has
to draw his check, more or less uncer-
tain, to pay his bill and get speedily out
of town.
A sufficient number of gamblers will
devastate any territory on the globe.
Long Island City, though it is the cap
ital of county and with the seat OF
justice, has been kept back notwith-
standing long -witted men like Eliphalet
Mott thought it had such admirable OPP
portnnities that half century ago or
more they made investments there for
the benefit of Union College and other
trusts. The gamblers found it con-
yenient spot to halt between the rows
| of tracks and the oity, and in little
| while the whole city government be-
came the creature of gamblers. Defal-
cations began, violence was not un-
| common, and the tone of that suburb
began to grow lower. There is hardly
an old racing track on Long Island or
in the general vicinity of New York
which has not collapsed and left behind
it a long pile of old board fences and
some old hotel over which fate and
| ghosts seem to hover here are at
least two such courses on Long Island,
and in every old city their yestiges are to
be seen; and the Elysian Fields in Ho-
boken seem never to have recovered
from the gamblers visitation there half
a century ago In truth, there can be
no occupation SO unworthy of right
thinking man as to live by temptation
and advantage, refusing work, being in
! perpetual watch for men of means or
youths with legacies orprospects, and
thus cofrupting at the fountains of
society lives meant to be fully lived out
with credit and composure. A man
who expects to play this kind of game
and be a permanently happy man is
fortifying his wretched conscience with
apparent examples in regular life which
he will find on investigation he has
never understood.-N. T. Tribune.