Morning journal and courier., 1892-04-15

the money that he won with his three It.
 tie cards during half dozen years, chiefly on the Lake Shore railroad, would buy bank and pay officers salaries for twenty years. Whenever arrested Bill would plead guilty when srraigned, and no mat
 ter how large fine might be imposed on him he would dash up 6 bundle of green
 backs, count out the amount of the fine.
 thank the court for doing its duty and
 bow himself into the street. As an exam
 pie of his audaoity may cite the instance
 of his offering the Union Pacific railroad
 company ten thousand dollars 6 year for
 the exclusive right of operating his game
 on their road, and furthermore, he said he
 would agree not to fleece any one but min
 isters of the gospel. Needless to say, his
 generous offer was not accepted by the
 railroad company.
 ''In the spring of 1874 was on e Lake
 Shore train, between Toledo and Chicago,
 bound west, when Canada Bilr suddenly
 appeared in the smoking-csr where l was
 sitting, and after few desultory remarks
 produced his three cards and began care
 lessly throwing them around on the seat
 facing him. In few minutes he had crowd around him, and after two of his
 'cappers' had won fifteen or twenty dol
 lars apiece picking the right cards, e rus
 tic-looking fellow with a pipe in his
 mouth, who had been iutently watching
 the game, produced a fat pocketbook,
 from which he took ten dollars and bet
 that amount he could pick the right card.
 He doubled his money in less time than 1t takes to count five and ventured again.
 He kept on winning and evidently thought luck was with him, whereas sBlP was merely striuging him, and in a few min u'es he had won six bets. Flushed with success he became reckless, increased the size of his bets. and in less than a quarter of an hour Canada Bilp had drained him of every cent he had, something over six hundred dollars. The greenhorn reeled out of the car completely dszed, went for ward to where his wife was and told her that he had lost all the money they pos sess-d. The woman hastened back to the l smoking car, and with tears streaming down her cheeks told Canada Bilp that | her husband, h.rself and their two small | children had sold out everything they had | down in Mercer county, Pa, and were on | their way to Kansas to start anew in life. | All the money they had was the six hum dred and some odd dollars that her hus- band had just lost at three-card monte, | and concluding, the heart broken creature | exclaimed as she sank on her knees in the | aisle beside Bills seat, the children and | l must starve, mister, just because my man was a fool Canada Bills stoical | expression never changed a psrticsl, but | he put his hand in his pocket. drew forth | a big wad of money, counted ont just the | .mount the man had lost and handed it to the forlorn woman by his side, saying: Here's your money, madam. I never rob ! women and children, but I want you to | keep it to yourself in the future, as that | husband of yours doesn't know enough to go out without a guardian Then giving her twenty dollars more, he continued: Here's present for the babies. Now run back to them and stop your crying.' So | you see, swindl-r and scoundrel that he | was, the king of monte men had some re- deeming qualities. and maybe they will be | remembered when his final account is | made up. Canada Bills full name was | William Jones, he came originally from | down Montreal way and has been dead ten years or more."