Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1890-07-26

q gentleman may enjoy his customary Cigar,
is. from port to port no less than q veritable
gambling hell of the most pernicious and
vicious sort. 1t is all very we'll for the hu-
morous weeklies and the wit columns of our
great dailies to have their occasional skits
at gambling in general, as though the vice
were q national weakness of the most iniml-
tably funny character, or for the telegraph
columns of our dailies to now and then give
a quarter column account of how the brill
liant editor of brilliant journal has had q
sitting with some brilliant Senator from q
great American commonwealth State, with
interesting details OF the results of "bluffs, :"
''raises," and the seductive "jack-pot." :"
But in sober truth, gambler is a gambler,
whether he be an Honorable" or otherwise,
an editor or a shilling shocker; and I
modestly venture the statement that there
are 80 million or go million of American
people who like neither gambling nor gam
blers, on land or sea. One il therefore at
loss to understand why 95 per cent. of the
passengers OF an Atlantic liner are COM
PEELED to be imprisoned for six or seven days
in what is simply huge floating gambling
hell, conducted, as far as the rapaciousness,
cruelty and persistency of swindling is con-
cerned, on quite the same principles as the
lowest bum-boat of the Ohio and Mississippi
rivers.
The bland agents and blander officers of
these agents will point with Pecksniffian
JUNCTION to the little placsrds in the smoking
rooms which read: ''No gambling allowed"
and assert solemnly that all that sort of
work is thing of the past But they know
better. Every passenger knows better. 1
have instances, and proof, where scores of
men have been all but ruined on these
steamships. 1 also have over dozen letters
from ships captains and ex-commanders de-
ploring tine evil and protesting that any
movement for its abolition would meet with
their hearty support. But this is all nom
sense. Anyone with common sense knows
that any ships commander could abolish it
on his ship in an instant with a single SEN
tence. But he does not. One can hardly
believe he profits from it. The company
itself is in small business to permit, with its
cognizance, organized bands to travel on
their vessels for the purpose OF robbing those
it is their duty to protect. And yet they do.
ROBBERY HINTED AT.
There is not recorded passage between
Liverpool and New York of any steamship
upon which one or more men have not been
robbed at cards. Every effort is made by
ships officers and agents to suppress not the
robberies themselves but public information
concerning them. Not content with the
plunder of ordinary card-sharks and sweat
cloth devices in the smoking-rooms of the
cabin, the most gorgeous suites of state
rooms are engaged by publicly known swim
dlers for extra hazardous and profitable
work. They secure access to advance pass
enger lists, select their victims, attend to
every little detail OF information regarding
their quarry with the incest calculation,
and, with what practically amounts to con-
nivance by the ships officers, have their
man in hand by the time he steps aboard
the ship. They even know how much
ready money he has with him, the amount
OF his bills of exchange, in what form they
are, and on what banking houses they are
drawn. II by some inexplicable mischsnce
he is not well done for aboard ship, their
confederates are ready to accompany the
wealthy traveller to London, Paris, Berlin, or
even Florence and Naples.
An affair of this kind had its sequential
while was in Algiers in the
early part of the present year, where flock
of this species of bird of prey, after winning
nearly 81, 900 at cards from their victim on
shipboard and securing twice that amount
in London and Paris, finally, by downright
forgery, possessed themselves OF the last
dollar the brilliant American possessed,
to some s., 700, at Algiers.
NOT CONFINED TO CLASS.
Nor is this the worst feature of this organ
lied ocean swindling; for these large booties |
usually fall from the purses of those mem
bers of our later American aristocracy who
can afford the loss, and prefer to do SO in
silence rather than suffer the humiliation of
exposure. In the second class cabin and
also in the steerage are the same seductive
smoking room" and bar. Villains of a
lower order conduct precisely the same kind
Of robbing in these. After the second day
out, at any time of day or evening every |
device for swindling at cards, |
with besottiug Accomplishments, is in prog |
ress. 1t is saying little to assert that dozens |
Of poor fellows are thus utterly ruined. |
There are perhaps four remedies |
for this shameful state of |
things. The companies officials could at
any moment drive the whole gang from |
every one of their vessels. The press of the |
United States could in three months time |
compel the abolition of the growing evil. |
Ships officers, could, at will, reduce the in
'ulting ofensiveness of it all to decent |
passengers by at least restricting its opera
ions to the plucking of rich fools in private
uites, the character of whose occupants
hould be made known to apparent victims.
And if 10 per cent of all those to which
in any form is abhorrent should |
latly refuse to take passage on liners where
Ipon it is universally known to be allowed,
r, make condition of such patronage that
t should be vigorously prohibited in all
abins and smoking rooms, an end to the
Thole nefarious business would come at
nee. As the matter stands, ocean gam
ling and swindling exceeds in shameless
ess and enormity the darkest chapters and
pochs of piracy ever known upon the high
eas. EDGAR L. WAKEMAN.