The Bolivar bulletin. (Bolivar, Tenn.) 1888-1946, 1897-08-13

day with but little money, and in one
night, so great was his luck he rolled
up hundreds and thousands of dollars.
If he got it, why not L? 1t is such dull
work, this adding up of long lines OF
figures in the counting house; this
pulling down of hundI ed yards OF
goods an I selling a remnant; this al
ways awaiting upon somebody else,
when l could put a hundred on the ace
and pick up n thousand.
This sin works very insidiously.
Other s. rs sound the drum, and faunt
the flag. and gather their recruits with
wild huzza, but this marches its pro
cession of pale victims in dead of night
in silence, and when they drop into the
grave there is not SO much sound as the
click of dice. Oh! how many have
gone down under it. Look at those
men who were once highly prospered.
| Now their forehead is licked by a
tongue of flame that will never go out.
In their souls are plunged the beaks
which will never be lifted. Swing
] open the door of that mans heart and
you see a coil of adders wriggling their
! indescribable horror until you turn
away and hide your face and ask God to
/ help you to forget it. The most of this
! evil is unadvertiSed. The community
! does not hear of it. Men defrauded in
gaming establishments are not fools
I enough to tell of it. Once in awhile,
| however, there is an exposure, as when
! in Boston the police swooped upon q
gaming establishment and found in it
the representatives of all classes of cit
liens, from the first merchants of
State street to the low Ann street
gambler; as when Bullock, the cashier
of the Central Railroad of Georgia, was
found to have stolen S1O3, 900 for the
purpose of carrying on gaming prac-
tees; as when a young man in one of
the savings banks of Brooklyn, many
years ago, was found to have stolen
$40, 900 to carry on gaming practices; as
when a man connected with a Wall
street insurance company was found to
have stolen $50, 900 to carry on his
gaming practices. But that is excep-
tional.
Generally the money leaks silently
from the merchants till into the game
ster's wallet. l believe that one of the
main pipes leading to this sewer of
iniquity is the excitement of business
life. Is it not a significant fact that
the majority of the day gambling
houses of New York are in proximity
to Wall street? Men go into the ex-
element of stock gambling, and from
that they plunge into the gambling
houses, as, when men are excited, they
go into Il liquor saloon to get more
L 4
in the stock market when the chair an
nounces the word Northwestern" or
Fort Wayne" or Rock Island" or
New y orlI Central" and the rat! tat!
tat! of the auctiOueer's hammer, and
the excitement of making corners"
and getting up pools" and carry
ing stock" and ''break" from so to 10,
and the excitement of rushing around in
curb stone brokerage, and the sudden
cries of Buyer three" Buyer tenw
Take emf How many?" and the
making or losing of SO, go by one OPP
Grafton units a man to go home, SO he
goes up the flight of stairs, amid bust
ness offices, to the darkly-curtained
wooden-shuttered room, gaily fur
nished inside, and takes his place at
the roulette or faro table. But l can
not tell all the process by which men
get into this evil. 4 man went to.New
York. He was Il western merchant.
lie went into a gaming house on Park
place. Before morning he had lost all
his money, save 81, and he moved
around about with that 81 in his hand,
and after awhile, caught still more
powerfully under the Internal infatua-
ton, he came up and put down the
dollar and cried ont until they heard
him through the saloon: Zone thou
sand miles from home, and my last dol
lar on the gaming table"
Many years ago for sermonic pur-
poses, and in company with the chief
of police of New York visited one of
the most brilliant gambling houses in
that city. 1t was night, and as we
came up in front all seemed dark. The
blinds were down; the door was
guarded, but after whispering of the
officer with the guard at the door we
were admitted into the hall, and
thence into the parlOrs, around one
table finding eight to ten men in mid
life, well dressed-all the work going
on in silence, save the noise of the
rafting chips on the gaming table
in one parlOr, and the revolving
ball of the roulette table in the other
parlor. Some of these men, we were
told, had served terms in prison; some
We're shipwrecked bankers and brokers
and money-dealers, and some were go
ing their first rounds of vice-but all
in te at upon the table, as large or small
g., L.
them. OH there was something awfully
solemn in the silen - the intense
gaze, the suppressed emotions of the
player. No one looked up. They all
had money in the rapids, and L have
no doubt some saw, as they sat there,
horses and carriages, and horses
and lands, and home and family
rushing down into the vortex.
4 mans life would not have been |
worth farthing in that presence had !
he not been accompanied by the police, |
if he had been supposed to be on a
Christian errand of observation. Some |
of these men went by private key,
some went in by careful Introduction, |
some were taken in by the patrons of |
the establishment The officer of the |
law told me: None get in here except |
b. police mandate, or by some letter of /
n patron" While we were there /
young man came in, put his money
down on the roulette table, and lost; |
put more money down on the roulette |
table, and lost. put more money down |
on the roulette table, and lost; then /
feeling in his pockets for more money, |
finding none, in severe silence he |
turned his back upon the scene and
passed out. While we stood there men |
lost their property and lost their