The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1900-08-05

Prince of Wales the principles Of poker,
and in 1870, when Gen. Phil Sheridan was
in Paris, he was asked by the general TO
inform no less a person than Napoleon
III. the mysteries of the great American
game.
Albro is in poor health, and with the
fortune saved from the hundreds of thou
sands of dollars that have passed
through his hands, he has bade farewell
TO the green table and the clicking chips
He won't even play a friendly game OF
whist nowadays.
81 learned my first card game in East
Philadelphia forty-three years ago." said
Mr. AIbro, as he sat beneath the shade
of an orange tree, and inhaled the odor
of clumps of roses. II showed an api-
tude for cards, and when [ went TO
Washington to be a page in the house
Ga place secured for me by Thaddeus
Stevens) I saw the finest players of polk
er and faro there were anywhere. 1 have
watched L. Q. C. Lamar, Stephen J..
Douglas, Ben Hill and Samuel j. Ran
dali play poker many a time.
Eyes, have laid by some money, but
If l had never had a good sister, who
saw me through some years to invest
my earnings in real estate and take
solemn VOW never to sell or mortgage
any part of it, should have been dead
broke, like every man l have ever met
around the green cloth.
81 suppose that superstition will always
be a chief characteristic of a gambler.
It's part of a sports life as much as
thinking. Now, I've always argued that
/ was above such nonsense, but since
I've retired from the profession and for
the first time in my life begun to look
at problems of life from the standpoint
of a legitimate business man, see how
whole lot of supersutions possessed me
and l didn't know 1t. The most common
superstition among all professional gam
blers is that 1t is bad luck to win the
first hand, and that, sure as fate, the
winner of the first pot in poker will lose
the game.
For years I've kept out of the first
Jack pot in the game to the best of my
ability, and when I've been forced IN it
and won. I've thrown up my hand for
half an hour or so until the bad luck
has gone away. A common superstition
OF gamblers in the jar West, but not in
the East, is that the mixing of bank
notes or any form of paper mo icy with
piles of gold and silVes invites i'll luck.
] knew a man, Harry Parker, the great
est faro dealer ever known in Helena.
Mont, to quit a game for good when he
saw that some one about the table had
carelessly mixed the paper ana coin
stakes.
What was the biggest game You eveI
saw, East or West?" AIhro was asked.
"Oh, / can answer that quick said
Albro, for it was won ierfnl game that
I happcred to with IS one night in Yir-
81 ia City, New, in 1870, when the Com
stock mines were turing out profits of
$4,000 a day for MaCkay, i air, Flood
and O'Brien, and god dollars almost roll
ed in the streets. I was called over to
Gentry & Crittenden's cate one evening
tC see stiff game among the big bugs
of the Comstock lode. and [ wouldn't
have missed seeing that game for email
fortune. Gentry & Crittenden ran the
most prcdigal gambling house ever known
on this continent, an1 I've been in all
of them from Mexico to Vancouver and
Boston to Honolulu.
This firm every month set aside $1,000
for table expenses alone, for wine flowed
as freely as spring water at Saratoga. A
better did not ask If there was any limit
to~the game. A sport who had sand and
cash enough might bet 500 900 on a single
card. The banks hackers counted their
millions as Eastern gamesters counted
their thousands.
I'm October, 1870, big buffer of a silver
mine owner named Calkins came to vir-
ginia City. He owned the richest silver
mine in Mexico at that time and could
have sold his property any day for a
million and a half. He was known as a
millionaire in good standing with the San
Francisco banks and bankers, and his tele-
gram was good with Mackay, Flood &
O'Brien for 100000. The old fellow, with
his corduroy trousers tucked in his boots
and his greasy, dirty sombrero and his
stogy cigars, was a welcome guest any
where in Nevada, He chatted an hour
with Governor Nye, and after getting two
bottles of champagne inside of him he
sauntered into the faro room.
" Give me a stack of thousand dollar
fish (chipsl said Calkins.
d" Certainly, all you want replied the
suaVe Crittenden, a nephew of the Ken
lucky United States senator of that name
" One thousand went on the jack and
lost Calkins lost $4,000 without winning
bet. He swore and got outside another
bottle Of wine. Luck changed and at ]
q. m. he was $4,000 ahead of the game
That was about the time 1 got there
Heavens! but it was camel
FLUSHED with victory, Calkins ordered O
case of Wine for the house. But the genius
OF faro is tickle. The old man made a cal
with q $.000 bill and picked up a 5000
Luck failed him from that moment Al
break Of dawn the burly fellow, without
handing in dollar had blown in iust
$1,000 lie was as cross as a bear with
q sore head. but tried to smile.
- 'Oae thousand on the acep 1t lost. Ok
Calkins rose end said slowly, as IL eacf
word weighed a pound. Crittendcn,
reckon I've had fun enough for this one
3ambOree! and ordering basket of win,
Tor the house he seated himself at Gen
try's desk and cool as a cucumber drew {
check on Mackay's bank for $4,000 Whol
the wine was opened the dealer, in a mat