The Birmingham age-herald., 1902-09-14
NED BRACE TALKS ABOUT HIS SUMMER
 VACATION AT SARATOGA AND OTHER THINGS

-4 is well for one to get out occa-
 siona1ly and observe that which is
 going on in other worlds than Ala 2 bama. We have iron, and steel and coal and cotton, and some silver dollars here in Alabama.
 With an accumulation of dollars from a years toll, running into the second hundred and a generous supply of rail- road transportation, a newspaper man occasionally manages to get into north ern cllmes for an August vacation.
 l strayed up into northern New York, a bit into Canada, about the Thousand Islands in the St Lawrence but took the most of my vacation at Saratoga during the middle August season, when every thing and everybody from everywhere congregated there.
 About Saratoga:
 Here are some notes I made when there and after having been there some ten days. They may be of interest as de- scriptive of what I saw and the way the place impressed me.
 Saratoga has. for nearly three score years, been the old school summer re- sort of America. Today it is more popu- lar and populous than in It's history. It is now all sorts of resort. The moth CTS and grandmothers of today's indus trious generation continue to come for climate and waters. The sons and grandsons come for waters, wealth, wines and wickedness. A bit of every gr 1, choice. Paths lead in all directions.
 In August sports and sporting life pre- dominate. The races are on and the great fashionable gambling houses are open. They are as wide open as one of the fashionable stores of Fifth avenue In New York. All that Is necessary to enter is a proper introduction or full dress suit. Once inside you may be either a spectator or a participant. The latter is apparently equally welcome with the former. But if you would be a participant In either the roulette or faro, 1t is well to have at least a half dozen one hundred dollar bills in your vest pocket
 I spent a couple of hours as specta- tor at the famous Saratoga Club the other evening. It reminded me of some great New York clearing house. Money was as plentiful as the leaves in a forest. Yellow-baek hundred dollar bills fluttered everywhere. I saw western man ignore chips. but with a great roll of thousand dollar bills, toss them one after the other on the red or the black color of the roulette board Sometimes he won and sometimes he lost. It seemed to amuse him and nobody but him and the croupier knows how he came out. The croupier had some fifty one thousand dollar bills in his table drawer and the westerner had flat package in his coat pocket as thick as a pack of ordinary playing cards. When the westerner finally quit the coupler seemed relieved, though no word was uttered by either.
 In the great gambling room, saw seven roulette tables and two faro tables All were crowded, and hundred dollar bills were as common as coppers on d newspaper counter at six o'clock Sunday mornings Hundred dollar bills have vel low backs. They flashed everywhere. 1 know I saw more than an hundred thou sand dollars change hands in one hundred and twenty minutes Some won; others lost Nobody seemed to care.
 
 In this same club house, is perhaps the best restaurant in America. Everybody who can afford it, dimes here. Dinner costs from five to fifteen dollars for each