Audubon Republican. [volume] (Audubon, Iowa) 1894-1925, 1895-11-28
GAMBLING IN MEXICO.
Characters Met with in the Gaming Rooms
of the Capital City.

Characters Met with in the Gaming Rooms
of the Capital City.
Enter Mexican gambling saloon
when things are little slack, and you
will see the habitues of the monte
table discussing the topics of
the day, while they roll their cigar
cites and loll back in their chairs as il
they had met for no other purpose.
Seated on chair little removed from
the table is man who has probably
inhabited the gambling saloon for
days past. He is now overcome with
sleep, and as he sits with his legs
crossed and his head rocking from side
to side, one wonders how he can keep
his seat or how it is that his greasy
tall hat dees not topple off.
Then you will see an unshaven, ILL
kept fellow, nursing his knee and
moodily gazing at the roulette table
for hours, while the little ball spins
round and the croupier ralles in the
coin and hands out the winnings with
machine-lilSe dizziness and accuracy.
No one ever suspects the croupier
Nine out of ten of those who bet and
win have no idea of what is coming to
them. But they take what the
croupier gives them as matter of
course. He has no inducement to
cheat, for the bank is not his, and any
way the bank must win in the long
run, come what may.
A Chinaman may saunter in to give
some animation to the table. He asks
for no chips, but wagers hard, cold sill
yer. Where the Mexican lays one dol
lar he will lay FIVE. and oftener than
not he wins. With the absence of un-
dignifed hurry and eagerness peculiar
to the oriental, he does not take in
his winnings at once, but produces a
cigarette, rolls and lights it, and then
lays hold of his dollars. You will be
sure to see at any table u mild lunatic
with paper and pencil he fore him, not
ing each point, and slowly laying the
foundations of a new and infallible
system" As if there were any way of
obviating law of nature.
Now and then young gambler will
enter, bringing with him into the
heavy-laden atmosphere gust of
fresh air from the street. He will bet
and have a run of luck that will draw
to him the attention of all the lack
lustre eyes that surround the table.
One or more will gradually side up to
him, and with parched, trembling lips
ask him where he is going to place his
money and ask leave to follow his
lead.
Where but round the gambling table
do you see so many and such striking
examples of statuesque immobility?
You count not by minutes, but by
hours, the time that gray-haired vo-
tary of chance has sat with his hands
folded on the table and his eyes fixed
on vacancy And how much longer
will he stay in that posture? Perhaps
until the lamps are turned off in the
gray morning or until he summons up
energy enough to stagger off to the
pawnshop to raise a pittance. And
that man who has sat so long with his
head buried in his hands, what is he
thinking OFF Perhaps of the home as 1t
was once, and as it might have been
still.
A sprinl1ling of Anglo-Saxons is gen.
orally there to give heightened piquan-
cy to the scene A sporty" railroad
conductor just in from his run perhaps
goes there to try his luck, and you
may see the tattered, demoralized spec
linen of his race, who, il sheer pity.
has been given a trial and turned off
by all the American enterprises in
Mexico. How does he get a living
now?-Mexican Herald