Evening star., 1898-10-15
SMOOTH SHARPERS
How the Gamblers Work the Trans
atlantic Liners.
ALWAYS Find PLENTY OF VICTIMS
An Effort is Being Made to Stop
the Business.
STORIES OF BIG LOSSES
OF BIG LOSSES
Special Correspondence Of The Evening Star.

! Special Correspondence Of The Evening Star.
NEW YORK. October IA, 1895
! The big ocean steamship companies
whose liners terminate the western pas
| sage at this port have, decided to make
! concerted effort to squelch the pro-
| fessional gamblers who make a busi-
ness of working the steamers. The Of
| fc1als of the companies realize that they
have difficult task on their hands
| but they are going to set about it with con-
! siderable unanimity and determination, for
| the evil has become very great. The first
gun in the anti-gambler campaign was
| fired in August last, when one of the larg-
| est of the steamship companies declined to
| furnish transportation on a liner in it's ser
vice to a well-known professional card
| player, who is alleged to have been work
| ing the gullibles on the steamers for more
| than two decades, and who is said to pos
| sess close onto S5O0,O00 worth of real es-
| tate in this city. When this man applied
in the latter part of August, for a cabin at
the main office of the company he was po-
htely informed by the agent of the line
| that he had taken his final ride on any of
| the steamers of the company
| Why" asked the gambler
| Because replied the agent, with all of
6ie courtesy III lne WOTlu, you nave long
| been known to us a professional manip-
ulator of cards. because for the past
| twenty years or so you are known to have
| waxed fat on the profits you have picked
| up at cards on our line and on other lines;
| because this company has finally wearied
of perpetual complaints respecting the ac-
commodaton it affords to men of your ilk-
! the facilities it extends to you for bleeding
| fool young men and Weaklings not so
young; and because were going to wipe
ut Nurr rr'he. sn lar travel on our line
is concerned. if it costs us cool million
to do it. That's lucid talk isn't it?"
How do you know I'm a gambler?"
asked the applicant for passage. How
are you going to prove it? No man that l
ever won a dollar from is going to publicly
squeal, you know
A Smooth Talker.
''Tn admit that you have bit of an edge
on us in that respect" responded the
agent, amiaby. However, if you want to
make an issue of it, we're willing to under
take to furnish proof that you're sharp
er. III go farther and say that it affords
me peculiar pleasure this occasion to
decline to sell you ticket for a ride on
one of our boats"
You're defamatory,' said the gambler
"Ill sue you You can't legally refuse to
furnish me with transportation. I'll sue
and let the courts decide the matter You'll
have sizable case on your hands, and /
promise you that eIll beat YOU
go ahead and sue replied the agent,
cheerfuly. That's what we want you to
do. If we don't lick YOU, it won't be be-
cause We haven't tried,'
The gambler was as good as his word.
He entered suit against the company for
refusing TO furnish him with transportation
on one of its steamers without good and
sufficient cause and he put in another
suit against the agent for defamation of
character. The cases have not yet been
called, and there is a lot of speculation
here as TO what the outcome is likely to be.
,,l.t; ,1,-
on the point as to whether the steamship
company will be able to produce as wit
nesses against the gambler men who have
been bitten by him on ocean voyages. The
steamship compal.y, the action of whose
agent was applauded by the agents of all
the other transatlantic lines and which has
received the assurances OF the other COM
panies that they will back it up in every
possible way, is confident of beating the
gambler in the courts decision.
Efforts to Call n Halt.
Many feeble efforts have hitherto been
made by the steamship companies to efface
the professional card players from their
lines, but never before did any of these ef-
forts contemplate the refusal TO furnish
transportation to men known TO be gam
blers. The companies had always been
afraid of that method. method generally
employed by the steamship companies in
recent years to knock as it were, the
operations of the card sharks on the liners
has been to instruct the higher officers of
the steamers, including the captains, purs-
ers and first and second officers, to quietly
pass the word around among the male pas
sengers when known professional gam
bler's name appears on the passenger list
of a vessel. This scheme was the source of
a considerable reduction in the earnings OF
the gamblers, but it never fully sue
cessful for the liner workers frequently
changed their routes and lines of boats,
and, moreover, the gamblers, becoming
aware of this plan, evolved the idea Of max
ing frequent runs across the Atlantic with
out ever once going near the card rooms,
thus throwing the steamship officers off the
scent and inducing them to believe that
they had abandoned card playing for legiti-
mate business requiring a deal of transat-
lantc Voyaging. Again, while some of the
oid-timers among the steamship gamblers
occasionally dropped out, new men of their
tribe constantly recruited their ranks. and
it took a considerable period of watchful-
ness on the part of the steamship officers
OF the different lines to get one of these
newcomers down pat to be able to la
bel him in their lists as a regular profess
sional
Thus that class of foolish male sea travel
ers who permit themselves to be inveigled
into card games with men they don't know
have been getting done" right along by
the well-groomed sharpers. OF course, the
victims themselves rarely squeal," but
their non-card- playing friends and fellow
voyagers do the squealing for them. Most
of the steamship companies have ON file
violent letters from the wives of men who
have been financially shattered by the pro-
fessional gamblers on ocean voyages. After
man has been picked clean in the course
of an ocean trip by a man with whom he
has had no shore acquaintanceship and who
appears to be unknown by all the rest of
the passengers he is liable to conclude,
toward the end of the voyage that he has
been had" by a professional card player,
and he Is also pretty likely to tell his wife
of this. in order to palliate his purse-fiabby
condition. While he himself always feels
too small after arriving at the determina
ton that he has been done by a sharp either
to denounce the gambler or 10 complain
to the steamship company. his wife, If she
be of the proper militant sort. probably has
no such hesitancy, and 1t is from wives of
this character that the steamship companies
receive complaints of the gamblers.
Large Sums Lost.
Large sums Of money have been lost to
the professional gamblers on the liners