The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1890-10-12

no foreign minister lays ON the table money
be has borrowed TO take him to Germany
| as IN one well-known case by a diplomas
! who Is Still alive, aud hence unnamed by
me-in short. nobody is ruined"
IL is "A tr dItion here that Henry Clay OBJ
tanned ons OF the fiuest corner lots in Wash
ington az the roulette table, having stakec
{ for it a drove of AndalHsien jacka-ses ther
( on tEeir way to kentucky. When Eclipse
I broke the rec lrd and maie his mighty run
/ here il 1872. $500, 900 changed hands, and
oae Congressman won 600 slaves from an
other. The winner, 1t is said, was a Penn
/ sylvanlan, 50 su JpOSe he scaled 1t down and
| took the cash.
The most pre- tentious and gorgeous faro
bank ever IN Washington was Ned Pendle-
I tons, established in the forties On congress-
ional patronage 1t was on Pennsylvania
avenue, not ia from Four and-a-half street
and 1t punished trOpically and long. Ii
was gorgeous palace-a temple erected 30
the haphaZard Muse. A few statesmen OF
his time ventured to call him Ned" but he
was really Mr.. Edward Pendieton. scion of
a stately Virginia house and brother of a
foreign minister. In his superb dining
room, at g o'clock each day. he set a COM
plimentary dinner of twenty-four plates for
the most distinguished men in Wash
ington. In full dress hs sat az the head of
the opulent board, and presided lie a
prlnce-around him as guests members of
the Senate and House, generals, commo-
dores and ambassadors. There was the
rarest food, the most precions wines, the
most elegant service Those invited came
1t was quite ''the thing" aud SO reputable
that when Scott, PrenC!ss, Paulding, Mar
shall, Scbeack, Bayard, Wentworth, Wood
and Yuiee went into Peldleton's, no
passer by thought OF observing tho
newspaper thought OF chronlcling it, any
more than if taey had stepped into Will
lard's.
GEORGE LAW AND THAD STEVENS.
Some of these men and their colleagues
played very high stakes, George Law beng,
it IS said, the heaviest gameSter ever seen in
Washington. 1t is understood here that
one Of the steadiest and most methodical
players ever known was Thad Stevens.
he was never tired of il. He would go
directly from his seat in the House to his
seat at the green table and stay
there till a late bedtime. He never haz-
arded large sums, buo he kept at it and put
10 one small stake after another, never
surfelted whether the tide was with him or
against him.
Mrs. Pendleton was daughter of Mills,
the architect and artist. and very Gull
tured and refined lady. Her husbands &C.
centric profession did not even menace her
high position in society, and she escorted
cabinet ladies' to her box at the opera while
her husband was entertaining their hus-
bands at the theater of chance. She was
highly esteemed, and when she died, at the
head of her pall-bearers stood James
Buchanan, President of the United States,
and Col. j. e. Berret, mayor of Washing
ton, the latter still residing here, a very
vigorous and versatile veteran of politics
and society.
After the two hospitable Eds came chaos
and black night for gamblers. The green
table put on mourning and retired forever.
The Fifty first congress is probably the
soberest the country has ever known; and
1t does not gamble enough to hurt And
these who think taat its public men are
conspicuously Violent should recall the time
when Andrew jackson horse whipped
Thomas II. Benton III the hall room, " hen
Senator Bagley assaulted President Tyler
and when Clay aud Gen. Scott had a scrim-
mage in Boulanger's res aurant, so little to
the credit of either party thai its details
have never been in print.