The Helena independent. [volume] (Helena, Mont.) 1875-1943, 1890-08-30

hotel, in front of which a goodly company
was enjoying the summer night in discuss
leading Wing exclaimed: "Here is Chunky
Towles, now, and I'll bet him a hundred
dollars he never heard of Franklin Pierce
in his life, and can't tell who he is, or
where he's FROM" Chunky paused
moment, gazed compassionately upon his
posture and authority, said: Put up your
pocketbook. colonel. 1t amt good sport
ing rules to win on certainty. franklin
Pierce, sir, is son of Gen. Ben
Pierce, of revolutionary fame. He was
distinguished representative and senator in
congress from New Hampshire. He was
offered a seat in Mr.. Folks cabinet, and
declined it,, And he served calamity in
Mexico as the youngest and most brilliant
of New England's brigadiers. He is the
very man we wanted. | was for him from
the first. Hurrah for Pierce p
As is indicated by the dates of his birth
and death upon his tombstone, Chunky
Towels was still a young man when he
passed in his checks. In spite of his ASST
duty, his professional accomplishments
and his mother wit, he laid by none of the
goods Of this world. Il was with him as
%e as 0 81 i h% eoa
be said, as was said of the early lawyers of
his native old domain, that he lived high,
worked hard and died poor.
II.
OF ell methods of livelihood or dissipa-
ton, or amusepent, perhaps there is none
about which SO much untruth passes cur
rent as about gambling. Every now-and
then the newspapers take to run of
gaming stories, and it is the exception when
one of these has has the least element of
fact to sustain it. To the mind of a certain
crude reportorial youth, in whose eyes
the race course is paradise and every
turfman a. hero, all games of chance possess
a peculiar fascination, and, if he can fasten
to game of hearsay, some individual par
ticuiar. or personal anecdote, he fancies
that his fortune is made, and neither thinks
nor cares to discriminate in the matter of
accuracy or propriety. That there are
degrees in card playing or varying sensi-
biiities among those who with different
aims play at cards, or any virtue in sticking
to the truth, does not occur to him; and. rs
in this like other fairy tales it is as easy
to speak of millions as of pennies, the
amounts at issue are only limited by the
imagination of the recountant. Thus:
1.-The colonel went him a thousand dollars,
and the Judge raised him five thousand
better and the colonel called, and the judge
only had pair OF duces. ands-when If
there was any such passage at all, the
figures might be reduced to mills still large
" to exceed the amounts actually at stake.
Again, the writer's of these gaming stories
seldom have any knowledge of the subject,
and. writing at secondhand. fall into the
most egregious errors; and their readers,
being for the most part equally ignorant,
form the most fantastic notions of gam
bling, and of the gambler. both profess
sionai and amateur.
. The reputation for gambling long sur
wives the abandonment of the habit of
gambling 1t is not generally known.
though it is fact, that the most famous of
the non professional gamblers of history
Charles James Fox, did not play for money
after his forty-third year, deyoting the
most of his life to the most useful eminent
and brilliant public service, but never
eradicating his early reputation. Indeed,
it can be set down as a rule that nothing
does its work SO quickly and SO surely as
high play. He who persists in it, no matter
how deep his pocket. will soon find the bot
tom of it; for the essential principle
of gambling is that it shall reach a
least the measure of the PLAYERS capacity
to lose. In most cases it exceeds this. and
in all. where it is continued 1t outlasts the
| capacity to pay. involving debt and ruin.
Where these are not the tinalities among
amateurs, and men claiming to be gentle
men. the abatement is TO be found in an
eyer-increasing conservatism. narrowing
down to merely nominal stakes or counters;
and this is the history of every game that
does not end III more or less of hardship
and disgrace.
Of professional gambling. 1t can be said
that no avocation involves SO much of des-
potisnl, hckleness and squalor. Rare, in
deed are the instances where the profession
al gambler would not lead different life.
He will tell you. and truly, that he was not
born gambler; that he did not take to
gambling for its own sakei that he