Evening star., 1901-04-27

AND OFTEN FOR HEAVY STAKES
Funny Things to BE Seen in
Gotham's Police Courts.
RIDING SKIRTS
Special Correspondence of The Evening Star.

Special Correspondence of The Evening Star
NEW YORK, April 2e 1901.
A lot of type is being set in the COM
posing rooms of the New York yellows on
the subject of stiff gambling among the
women of the highest society of Manhat-
tan and it's purlicus. Oddly enough, most
of the stories are true. Investigation on
the part of more conservative newspapers
has discovered the fact that large num-
bers of socially prominent women have
taken to high gambling as a form of dis
sipation least injurious to the complexion
and to contours. All but the names of
some of these women have been revealed.
Few of them belong to the so-called swift
cliques' of this social body. Most of them
are the exalted women who prefix the sim
pie Mrs" to their names to identify
themselves as the female chiefs of their
clans. Others Of them are women Of re-
sounding ancestry, but not much lucre to
a means to render their purses plethoric-
are, in a straight phrase, professional
gamblers, victimizing the society which
not only tolerates but coddles them. Gam
bling-and crooked gambling, too, 1t Is said
is the method whereby they succeed in
living ostentatiously on nothing, viz
tuaiiy nothing, per annum.
1t is queer that the professional gambler
ess in society does not suffer ostracism.
Yet she does not. Rather, she is regarded
as a more or less chic figurante. Probably
it was always thus-Was not Becky Sharp
received? Becky, Of course, at length ar
rived at a cheap and dismal finish. How
ever the New York professional gambler
esses haven't yet had time to initiate Mrs.
Crawley in this
Where Friendship Ceases.
These gambling women in New York So
ciety who need the money do not hesitate
to pluck even those who, according to the
commonplace ethics Of the hoi polloi, would
seem to be immune from the plucking pro-
cess by the very nature Of their relation
ship toward the extractors of their PIN
feathers Some Of the women gamblers,
for instance, are said upon most excellent
authority, to have stripped the university
chums of their sons-the chums visiting the
sons at the mothers town houses during
the holiday season. This seems far from
nice. A young man is said to have come
here from Yale with his class pal to spend
the Easter holidays with the pals mother
and family. The young man had along
with him a little matter Of $780, with which
he quite reasonably expected to enjoy him.
self during his vacation. On the first even
ing of his visit at his pals mothers house.
the pals mother organized a little game
Of bridge whist and when her sons chum
rose from the table ne possessed, 1t is
said, all Of 35 cents. The pals mother had
the residue of his $500 vacation fund. The
young man borrowed enough money from
his pal to buy ride on q day coach to
Philadelphia. his home, where he vege-
tated until the resumption Of lectures at
his university. This really looks quite like
immoral bit of business on the part Of
somebody or other. Consider the pity Of
1.-THE gloom Of the young man, who, for
lack of funds, was competed to spend his
Easter interregnum in Philadelphia!
Craze Is General.
p,,t haS hoo
furore in New York over the question Of
middle class Of New York. A great ma
Jority Of the top-lofty persons who are
f1eeced by the professional gambleresses In
New York society can afford to stand
their losses without whimpering. Losing
doesn't hurt them very much. But there
Is simply an immense amount Of social
gambling in New York that actually does
hurt the losers. and hurts them lot This
gambling is in the form of the little poker
games among the respectable f1atters. men
and Women-married folks for the most
part
The fascination which the game of poker
has for the average woman of New York is
extraordinary Time was when the woman
VINO played poker was looked upon as a
mighty unconventional and emancipated
female. But the New York woman of this
GA! VINO does not play poker, whether she
DC t"ent! or sixty years of age, is looked
upon as a stick and an exceedingly out-of-
date person. The amount of poker that
goes on in the respectable flats of middle
class New Workers is beyond belief. Three
or four couples Of young or middle aged
married folks can scarcely get together for
a social evening, it would seem without
winding up with poker. The women sug-
gest the game in nine cases out Of ten.
And let it not be thought that they are
novlces at the game-that the men folks
have to play off, on the women in order
not to win all of their change. The aver
age New York woman pokerist can play
the game to beat the band, and requires no
ilascuiihe llnS indulgence whatsoever Ten
years ago the average New York man
mated TO get into game of draw in which
one or two women, the wives of other men
players, sat in Its shame to take
their money, was the way he used to look
at it. But that's all changed now. 81 like
to play when Mrs. So-and-So's got hand"
is what you'll hear the New York man say
as as often as not nowadays. She's a rat
Ting good buffer, and you can never figure
her out. She makes a fellow put up the
best poker he knows"
How the Women Play.
The man from some other town who
comes over here with chivalrous notions
with respect to the way poor, fraiI woman
should be lndniged in a little social game
OF poker with the men folks stands a top
notch chance of going broke in short order
II his chivalrous notions hold out-which
they don't as rule, very long. The wo-
men WIN as often and as much as the men,
In many cases they win more Some
shreWdly unkind bachelors, rejecting upon
this fact, and Keeping their eyes open, have
even made the horrible suggestion that the
woman pokerist will play in with her
husband, even against his will whenever
she cam from which they deduct the sor-
rowful belief that women are not SO natu-
rally and scrupulously fair in these mat
ters as men At any rate, the respectable
nf
get the money" just as often as their hus-
bands: nor do they execute the baby act
when they lose. They attribute their losses
to bad hands and poor luck, just like the
men. and hope for better action" next
time.
The deadly earnestness which the woman
pokerist devotes to the game-her flushed
face. her irascibility over a succession of
bad hants or disposition to excessive
conversation on the part of one of the
players her eagerness in raking in pots
which she wins and in perpetually counting
nef chips, and her almost angry expostula-
ton over the suggestion Of. closing the
game when she is loser--these are details
tnaa 90 not particularly delight the sense
OF fitness OF Old-faShionad v,an uoxyo,,a,