The San Francisco call., 1899-03-12

ISSilA u I6dJnerN, DeSpangled, taWQIy nat
and rusty black cashmere dress.
Wh1le they drank in Succession three
whisky straightS," I overheard the
younger woman in speaking of the next
race say Oh. lookin at TINS yere race,
l see Eddy is a. gOin' to ride that horse
/, don't like him as a jockey, though I
do. like him personally He's a dandy on
a picnic, Eddy is, you bet" And the old
! woman grLnned and blinked under her
black glasses as if she read between the
lines.
A race track man informed me that
there were in all about 800 regular wo-
men gamblers, with a daily attendance
of between one and two hundred This
does not include the hotsam and jetsam
who are accidents of the hour" and are
| there by chance two to three hundred
strong. Out of this floating popula-
tion" come forth in time the habitues who
replace the ones who are played out"
This same track man also said: For
| weeks at a time some of the regulars
will not be able to come to the track as
| they get out of money; but soon as
they can beg, borrow or makeshift to get
| a dollar they are on deck again. One wo-
man who was a regular attendant here
for five seasons suddenly disappeared and
| as she usually got her advice from me,
made inquiries about her. She was a
| widow past middle age. She was very
reticent and told me nothing of her life,
! which, by the way, is unusual, for Wo-
men gamblers make conddants of most
every one out at the track from the tout
! to the Jockey. They seem to get some
satisfaction in telling their troubles. But,
| as l was saying, this woman was very
close mouthed about her affairs. When
! she disappeared L made inquiries on the
outside and discovered that she had con-
tracted a heavy cold out at the track, and
| that together with the worry and sleep
| less nights brought on by heavy losses
! on the races, pulled her down a sick
bed, from which she never rose, and only
last month she was buried from a Fifth
| street lodging house. She is doubtless
better off under the turf than on it," he
concluded, with a feeble attempt at jocu-
| larity.
One woman, gaunt and pale, attends the
! track as often as she can afford admit
tance money. Poor creature she is, thin
/ ly clad young and delicate, with a
| peeked-face little child tuggfng at her
skirts. She sat up among the drafty
seats in the grand stand a few days ago
with the tears rolling down her wan
cheeks. I moved over to where she sat
and asked her if she, too, had lost.
MY God lost?' she said; Il am ruined;
my husband will beat me tonight when
I get home. Home! Oh, how I dread
the thought of returning. Do you see
| this and this" she said, rolling up her
| sleeve on a wasted arm which was COW
cred with welts from a rawhide. MY
husband does that with his stropg right
| ARM she added, with a CHASTITY smile
hickering across her pale face. He
! drinks and loafS and sends me out to
earn money for the living. I wash win
| dows and scrub, but, oh, get so tired,
| and so when l get a few dollars together
I come out here I win sometimes and
then he takes 1t and I am no better off
To-day I have lost $3-three big round
dollars; that means days of hard work to
me, and haven't even car fare left and
! will have to walk home don't mind
| the walk, but it is raining and WiIIie'
/ CJnn inc ctr III rE15I H.
! side, lis really too weak to walk. don't
| have any medicine 10 give him, but still
L have to take him with me, as 1 have
no one to leave him with. poor child
Willie hasn't many more months to
worry over, thought as I looked at his
| big. wistful eyes with dark circles around
them and his sunken, feverish cheeks.
Quite the most touching incident to
what ends the race track takes women
was told me BY an habitue of the track
out at Ingleside.
Though 1 myself" she said, shave
managed to keep respectable and yet
! play the races, IT is only because 1 have
husband who knows of my mania and
humors it by giving me money to bet, al
| though he can little afford to waste
money; but I had friend who has sunk
to the lowest dregs of degradation
! through this very track.
"A few years ago she was a bright
young woman, married to a good, honest,
highly respected man. They boarded at
fashionable downtown boarding house,
and not having any responsibilities and a
great deal of leisure, this woman began
to go to the races just for amusement.
| She would come over and beg me to go
with her, and whenever l could spare the
time 1 would go. Finally, one day-it
was holiday, when the grandstand was
crowded with fashionable people-she de-
cided that just to make it a little more
exciting she would bet S. on certain
horse She did and won.
THAT So proved her ruin. She began
to go regularly and oftentimes she'd go
and never tell me or any one else that
she had been to the races. 1 noticed
that she was becoming thin and wor-
ried looking, and also that her husband
seemed to have something on his mind.
Matters went on for a year, and be-
gan to notice that my friends breath
smelled strongly of liquor whenever saw
her. L began to drop her by degrees, aa
1 saw she had changed. The next thing
I heard was that her husband was suing
for a divorce on the grounds of intem-
perance and another graver charge
"She then left the fashionable boarding
house and began living in a lodging
house. 1 was afterward credibly in
formed that during the three years of her
married life she ruined her husband
financially by gambling, and when the
divorce was granted to the husband she
| seemed to lose the last glimmer of self
respect. & She became an habitue of the
track, and likewise took up the society
of the Jockeys and track men.
''Even these people finally abandoned
her and evaded her when she came
around them, for she had become a
drunken sot.
Poverty made it necessary to pawn
the very clothes on her back, and in or
der to buy drink she went into a sa-
loon and tried to get one on the security
of silver thimble, the only thing she
had left in the world to offer as security.
| She lives now low, worthless drunken
life, from the saloon to the gutter and the
| jail"
"Why will you still play the races when
you lose so much?" L asked one of these
unfortunates.
"Oh, play the races and you will soon
find out for yourself. I must play.
would still play if 1 knew L would lose
my life, I think
! And yet one imagines that the races
are gay beautiful, spectacular affairs,
] where trouble and money are thrown to