St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1894-06-03
WAEsTERN MONTE CARLO.
Butte the Greatest Mining Camp
in the World,
A FAVORI7E RESORT FOR GAMBLERS.

fAiUkllt kESUkl fUR GAMBLERS.
The Great Mining Camp by Night-A
Meeting Of Strange Characters
The Fierce Passion for Ganlb-
ling and Its Attendant Vices.
BUTTE, Mont, May 80.
Butte is one of the most interesting cities
on this Western continent, for not only is it
the greatest mining camp in the world. but
it is also the favorite resort of the Western
gambler. The knight of the green cloth is
omhipresent in Butte and he finds the hardy
miner an easy and willing victim. A round
half million in wages is paid out monthly to
the men employed in the mines in and about
Butte, and it is no exaggeration to say that
the greater part Of this vast sum finds it's
way into the pockets of the professional
gambler. Many of the miners spend all their
leisure time at the gaming table. and no man
is SO careless or prodigal of his earnings as
miner, except it be sailor. The gambling
houses of Butte are licensed and run faro
games and round the table poker. Roulette.
red and black, wheel of fortune, hazard, or
any game with a "kitty" or percentage draw
back are forbidden. Day and night shifts
of dealers are worked. Faro bank dealers
work for wages, Sc per day, and 'eat out of
the drawer" The limit in most houses is
$3.50, but some lproprietors allow their
patrons or victims to bet as high as they
wish. From dawn to dawn the clicking of
the chips is heard; there is hardly any cessa-
ton. Butte is essentially an aIl-night town.
1t is day all day in the daytime and there is
no night in Butte.
Let me describe life in Butte as have
found it. 1t is eleven O'Clock, on beautiful
starlit night. The street crowds have
gradually ebbed away and the life of the
camp is indoors. Step from Main street into
a prominent resort. On the left, as one
enters, is the drinking bar. Facing it, at two
gambling tables by the opposite wall, sit the
dealers; by each keen-eyed lookout in
high spiral chair. Around these tables some
times two or three deep and playing over
each others shoulders and under each
others arms, are young men, middle aged
men, miners working for 81 day, and mine
owners who may make cool 500, 900 out of
the years output. From the faro tables to
the bar: back and forth, the players circulate
as they please, the white chips of the game
being each good for twenty-five cent drink
the cheapest sold-to the white-aproned and
grave-looking bartender. Back of the faro
tables are poker tables on either side of the
room. Further back still at the other end of
the long apartment, is a refreshment counter
and an open ire at which one may have a
steak, or chop, or an omelet cooked before
ones eyes, with small dining tables scattered
opposite. There are no deadly weapons visi-
/ BILE, save now and then the. glimpse of a pistol
in the dealers drawer, and general good
order prevails. Further down the hill.
around the corner on Park street, are the
variety theatres-long wooden buildings,
with wooden chairs downstairs and boxes
upstairs communicating generally with the
stage. Some of the best variety troupes in the
country play in Butte. The audience smokes
and drinks as it chooses, and pays excellent
attention. A particularly taking act will
often bring down shower of silver quarters
and halves from the boxes to the stage,
gratuity not at all unwelcome to many
song and dance artist. Excellent perform
ances are given, prolonged sometimes till
after midnight, as they begin late. But there
are none of the low concert saloons or dance
houses which once disgraced the Michigan
timber peninsula, and even the pretty waiter
girl saloons are few and far between.
While the scenes I have described are
being enacted in the mining camp proper,
dozens of quartz mills are pounding away
with ceaseless roar and scores of shelters are
belching forth thick volumes of smoke. The
day shift of miners is at play, but the night
shift is at work hundreds of feet below the
surface of the shaft-house digging, hauling
and blasting for silver and copper. The
miners of Butte are never at rest, save for
cleanup or repairs at long intervals. Physi-
cally they are fine body of men, made up of
all elements. The English, Welsh and
Irish predominant, but there are many
Italians and not a few representatives from
the Slavic provinces of the Austro- Hungarian
Empire. They generally dress in long boots,
SLOUGH hats, wooden shirts, and blue overalls.
1t must be a very cold day that induces a
miner to bother with such trife as an
overcoat. They are the most careless of NOR
tails, and never take precautions against
catching cold. They come out reeking with
perspiration from the bowels of the earth
and brave the nipping blast with bare breasts
and necks. Pneumonia has been doing it's
deadly work among them since the advent of
the grip, four or five years ago, and the past
season has been no exception in the way of
mortality. The patient breathing thin and
vitiated air, has little hope of shaking off
pneumonia in Butte, and in consequence the
average of fatal cases is large. 1t is said that
men who abstain from strong liquors suffer
even more than those who drink heavily, and
nearly all seem to agree that alcohol, in some
form, is an absolutely needed mode of treat
ment under such conditions as exist here. NY
personal observation has been that good
sized majority of the male denizehs of Butte
seem to live in constant dread of pneumonia,
and thoroughly believe in fortifying them
selves spiritously, if not spiritually, against
all evil chances. At the same time I must
say that a more kindly disposed, pleasantly
behaved community does. not exist anywhere.
Hospitality is a municipal watchword in the
mountain city, and nearly everybody goes
around wearing an expression of "peace on
earth, to men good will" If any man of bad
will should, however, happen along he can
find plenty of accommodation in Butte.
Ten thousand tons day is no unusual out
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