Atlanta semi-weekly journal. (Atlanta, Ga.) 1898-1920, 1902-09-08
Courier Journal


NEW YORK. Aug. 25.-Writing from
Saratoga to The Times. Julian Ralph
says: Saratoga is today the wickedest
place in the country. I write this DELHI
erately, without any desire to be sensa-
tional. but with a strong belief that the
facts should be known, and not scamp
ed" or blinked at.
I, who am familiar with what passes as
fashionable dissipation In nearly every
corner of the world, have never before
seen such publicity and promiscuousness
in these follies. have nowhere else known
gambling to begin close upon breakfast
and be carried on, in varied fields OF
chance, until after midnight; have in no
other place found young maidens, new
brides, and family domestics risking bets
side by side with the heads of families.
And never before or elsewhere have 1 seen
fathers and mothers teaching the tricks OF
gaining to eaIlow. children or fathers. look
ing with smiling faces at their sons be-
side the faro, tables in gambling resort.
Such are the especial peculiarities Of
Saratoga, our Monte Carlo, which outdoes
the little French principality with null
tiplicaton of its gambling saloon by six,
with the addition of Wall street as
morning flip or cocktail before the main
attraction and which is complicated In all
its features by retaining its ancient char
acter as an invalid's cure and family
watering place. That all the tens OF thou
sands that have fioclxed to the springs
this season are concerned in the practices
of which / speak is by no means the case
1t is easy to calculate the number OF the
offending class. At the races there as
semble between 1900, and. perhaps, I,UO0
persons. and in the gambling resorts one
may count up less than tenth as many
visitors, the majority Of whom do not play
the games. never on single night saw
more than forty-five or fifty persons
playing in the principal club house, or
larger number than sixty looking on.
If these players and spectators were
changed by newcomers four times IN
night, and If the total were multiplied by
four. to represent the business OF all the
gambling houses, the extent of the night
time gambling and of the crowd which
encourages,it by looking on would be fair
ly estimated. So, also. at the race track
there may be thousands II suspect hun
dreds'' Is the lil1lier term who do not bet
on thets horses. Nevertheless, IN. poth
places. the men and women to whom the
plblie has been trained to look for guild
once in the fashions, in manners, and, in
public as we'll as private life, together
with certain persons who represent great
corporations in which the public is asked
to invest, are as conspicuous by ther
gambling as by their wealth and celebrity
If you live at either the United states
hotel or the Grand Union, the ceaseless
interest and importance of gambling In
the lives of the majority around you Is
rapidly and deeply impressed upon your
mind. No class or sort of people Is wholly
uncontaminated. When you rise IN the
morning the chamberu1aids and elevator
BOYS either ask for a tip on the races, or
confide to you that some one has told
- nm yv6irh To bet. Ine
manager Of a Saratoga branch Office OF a
Wall street broker told me that the negro
how who runs his errands and the woman
who sweeps the office both hail him in
the mornings with. anything good 10
TWO Exceptions.
Look high or low among the employees
o. the guests, and everywhere you ma
tho same feverish interest lin the races,
and often times in 1.-THE street and in
roulette and faro. met with but Two eA-
ceptions, my physician-who had never
been TO a horse race in his life-and an
under head waiter, who said to me: !
heah dat Mr.. Gates los $1,000 on de races
yesterday. My goodness! Here Use oeen
savin. 80 years and I've got 1000 saved up
Do you think I'd risk a cent OF dat on
hose race? Not much"
At breakfast your neighbors discuss the
gossip about the play the night before;
how this one lost small fortune and an
other person won a hatful of hundred-dol-
lar bills. This is often wildly exagger-
ated and sometimes wholly untrue, but
that does not affect the prime fact,
which is that gambling is the diversion
Of many well known men every night,
and that their doings are daily discussed
in the presence of wives, daughters and
young children as IT is in no other family
resort in the world. After breakfast those
10 -o,a tn nafrf hlOn6 AOrlx
to the Office OF the Wall street brokers
and play the market" this being the life
vocation of some and the holiday pastime
of others who make their acquaintance,
hear about their profits, or catch the fever
for incessant gambling. Others make II
pastiIne to play poker every morning. but
this is done in private. At 2 o'clock in the
afternoon the tide sets toward the race
track in the form of thousand automo-
biles, landaus, drags, Surveys and public
hacks.
In other letters I have described sew
eraI phases of the daily scene at the track,
but / have now here brought clearly for
ward the characteristic Of the grand stand
crowd. which is the result of holding
fashionable race meeting at popular wa
tering place resorted TO by whole fami-
lies who rent cottages, have established
their summer homes in the place, or who
bring their wives. children and dependents
to the great hotels. The result of this
characteristic of the place is that In the
boxes on the grand stand you see young
girls, school boys, tiny children and gov
ernesses, nurses and maids, while scatter
ed about the rest of the great open build
ing. are the servants Of other families.
school teachers. young misses, boys,
mothers with infants in arms-in short.
representatives of all the varied and COM
prehensive mass that makes up the popu-
lation of 2 resort hall-marked as respecta
BILE for seven or eight decades.
The frank, and open gentlemen Of the
western contingent, who rush down upon
the grass and into the betting shed TO
scatter thousand-dollar bets as lightly
as canary sprinkles superfiuous hemp
seed about it's cage. offer no deleterious
example and spread no demoralizing in
fiuence among the unsophisticated and
the tender whom they leave behind them