The Providence news. (Providence [R.I.]) 1891-1906, 1894-08-24
LATEST
W Ant new DEAL
Poker Fiends Who Kick Over
the Tax on Cards.
Every Card Player Will Have to Chip
in After Next Monday.

"say, we've always been with the DEM
ocrats and put up our money for them,
an now sec what they're doing.
"They have thrown us down." said one
~ the men who live by their wits, this
morning.
~ play poker for living just as much
as those men over there lay stone for
living; an the Democratic party makes
big bluff that it stands in with the work
ing man.; continued the poker laborer as
he stood little west OF the Arcade, in
front OF gambling house square, where
the new building is going up on Weybos-
set street.
81 don't propose to be capper for
Democrats any more and will go for the
party that really does the workingman
the most good.
''Say, there will be great split In the
deal this fall, cause the Republicans are
going to play with marked cards. And
the people have got tabs on all the fellows
that are marked. Cleveland an the rest
of the buffers will be in the jack pot
with nothing to draw to.
Now, look here. This new law that
they've just passed puts tax of two cents
on every pack Of cards and it don't take
much OF a lightning calculator to figure
up an enormous sum.
Well, where is it to come from? out
OF us fellows.
1.-TWO cents pack. Whew, but it's a
ccrker. That infant industry out to
Pawtucket Will have to sweat because it's
about the only place playing cards are
made in this State.
"Then there's Fosters stock, that will
have to suffer; an il they get on to the
poker house stocks how the keeper will
holler.
1.-TWO cents pack. It's enormous.
81 understand that they are getting
ready for us over TO the revenue Office on
South Main street where they received a
copy of the law this morning. 1t doesn't
go into effect until next Tuesday morn
ing unless Cleveland vetoes it. But he
won't veto it. He dasn't. It's too much
OF snap.
"Why, what job those deputy collec-
tors will have. The must visit every store
where cards are sold, every place where
they suspect they are sold and every
place that they guess cards are stored.
THAT looks like work. don't it. It's an
other evidence of how much Democrats
care for workingmen. The deputies and
clerks in the revenue Office are all Demo-
Gratis, too, and how they will kick at this
new kink in the law.s
'.As 1 understand IL the tax is to be
collected upon cards already in stock.
"Every dealer and manufacturer, the
morning of the day on which the bill be-
comes law, will be called upon to make
a statement OF the number of playing
cards carried in stock and for every PACK
they will have to ante cents.
"Now, what's the sequence. Wen have
TO pay that two cents; US sports, because
we use heap OF cards in a year. Did YOU
ever stop to consider the number OF packs
used in Providence in one day. II the
fact could be learned accurately it would
astonish you.
You take the hundred or less poker |
joints In the city and the other sporting
places, and altogether they will average
three packs an hour, and the joints amt |
shut up many hours out OF the "a
"Then look at all the cards that are used |
in private clubs, railroad trains. whist |
parties and private homes, and you como
to a big thing on ice, tell you. Two |
thousand packs day is about the con- |
sumption of Providence and vicinity, and |
most Of them are used by gamblers in one |
form or another.
1--WE got good reason TO kick, aint |, at
the Democracy. AS / understand il,
after this two-cent game is well started.
future taxes will be collected from the
manufacturers and importers, the dealer
simply adding the increased tax to the
price and thus get even on himself from
the buyers. There's where we get it in
the neck"