The record-union., 1895-03-01
THE CHINESE LOTTERY BUSINESS.
1t is Steadily on the Increase in
This City.
Hundreds of Dollars Daily Poured Into
the Golfers of the Owners of
the Games.

The Chinese lottery companies were
for the time being badly scared on
Wednesday night, winnings to the
amount of $4,000 being made by Walter
Barrieu and young man named Butler.
But winning at Chinese lottery and
collecting the winnings are two different
matters, and the holders of the winning
tickets will esteem themselves lucky if
they recover any of the amount. The
chinese are fully conversant with the
TACT that the law cannot be called upon to
make them disgorge. consequently they
intend to take advantage Of the fact.
Chinese are proverbially cunning, and
it is stated as an instance of that faculty
that when the heads of the company dis
covered that the hated white men had
made such inroads upon their finances
they marked similar tickets to those held
by Barrieu and Butler and placed them
in the hands of some of their mongol
brethren for the purpose of reducing the
amount due the others to the sum OF ST.
500.
So much for the facts. The question
that naturally presents itself is, Why are
these Chinese lottery games allowed to
run in all parts of the city in defiance of
law and decency?
1t is probably no eXaggeration to say
that a fourth of the money paid in wages to
men and boys in this city goes regularly
into the Golfers of these sleek and fat
Chinese owners of lottery games. Now
and then some small winnings are made,
just enough to encourage those with a
passion for gambling to keep on piling in
their hard-earned money in the hope of
making big winning.
That portion of the community that
never INDUCES in any such speculation
would be urprised-indeed, it would be
amaZed-if informed of the full extent to
which men and boys indulge in this Chi
nese lottery craze. Many family goes
hungry because OF the money squandered
by fathers and sons in this way.
The proprietors of these thieving lot
terry games pay very little heed to the
operations OF the peace officers. They
don't mind being arrested now and then
and paying small fines for conducting
lottery joints. In fact, their games never
stop. even while they are detained tenn
porarily in the Police Court. There is
not only no cessation of these daily and
nightly drawings" but as a matter of
fact the number of joints is steadily in
creasing, and the city is to-day fairly
honey-combed with them.
Some are conducted under the guise of
stores, and only recently one was found
in operation in the Darkroom of a j.
street shoe store.
Now, is it not possible for the officers
charged with the suppression of these
thieVing dens to break them up? If they
cannot or will no: do it, cannot the
decent element of the community find a
way to put stop to this enormous drain
on the earnings of men and boys who
have Eot the moral courage to keep away
from the temptation?
1t is Illuminating to admit that the city
is in the clutches of a syndicate of Chi
nese robbers, who are growing rich off
the wage-earners, but such is the fact.
1t is not a new thing, and the RECORD
UNION does not claim TO have made
discovery. for the same condition of
things has existed right along, and time
and again the press of the city has called
attention to it. but there the matter ends.