Wheeling Sunday register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1882-1934, 1888-06-03

for alb ace, and leaves little ridges On che
back Of the card entirely invisible to the
eye, but instantly perceptible to the touch.
II may be two or three games before the
cards are all scratched, but when it is done
the gambler In dealing them can plainly
tell each one as it passes under thu cushion
of his thumb, and it gives him an immense
percentage. By the way, casino is becom-
ing more and more great gambling game.
1t used to be left for women and children,
bat is played at present for stakes all over
the country, and in the West, especially,
it even crowds poker. There is q great
deal Of science about it,"
decline, is it not ?"
"oh, bless your soul! yes" Mcclellan
answered with sigh. "It began to dwin.
die when the big river boats stopped run.
ming, and to-day there are not more than
five or six really first class men travelling
over the country making living ont Of
the pasteboards. They are all very shy,
never associate with gamblers, and have
soas ostensible business that enables them
to get the entree of gen tlemen's clubs
I suppose as good as any, if not the best of
all, Is DIR. Lake. Years ago he had hard
ware store In Cleveland, O., but got in
trouble with somebody else's wife and had
to leave. He told me he became q gam
bier BY being friend of gamblers. One
showed him one thing and one another,
and he picked up q good deal himself,
until finally he could give them all points.
He represents himself to be a min
ing man, and although he has
been exposed time. and again, he
is such genial, whole-souled, COM
panionable fellow that his dupes, in nine
cases out Of ten, refuse to believe anything
wrong about him. He went to Australia
a few years ago and won $4,000. Before
he started he called at place in Chicago,
where they sell gambling tools, and filled
= small leather trunk with nearly every
known device for cheating. I saw him i'll
California on his return, and one of the
first things he showed me was this same
leather trunk, still unopened. He never
had the key in the lock. A simple deck
Of cards had been all that was necessary.
The doctor is one of the last of his tribe,
think; they are becoming extinct, like In
dams and buffalo"
''Did any of the old time card players
accumulate much money!"
swell they made great deal and then
threw it away with both hands, and
usually died poor and miserable. can
scarcely recall an exception. Gal Somers,
who must have made and spent a quarter
Of million, died in poorhouse in Salt
Lake City. Jake Henderson was shot in
brawl near Mobile, and we took up q
collection to bury him; he used to charter
steamboats, to get on drunk with his
friends. John Waters, Leonard Wells and
Charles H. Roy were all high rollers in
their day, and thought nothing of passing
$40 piece to the darby who blacked their
boots. They all died broke, and Roy, who
had been a perfect prince in his prime, is
thought to have actually starved. He be-
came very much broken down old man,
aud when he was finally found dead in his
room.-a miserable den-there were some
little pieces Of bread in his wash basin, and
the snpposition was that he put them there
to soften before eating. His stomach was
entirely empty.