The Montgomery advertiser., 1902-08-10
WHO STOLE THE CARD?
STRANGE INCIDENT ON BARGE
 IN THE MISSISSIPPI.
A Poker Game That Nearly Caused A Killing-A Faro Bank Man Apparently Catches Another
 Gambler Cheating.

] New York Sun.
 There is no other part of the world 1 tEat l have ever witnessed" said tht | gray-haired, young looking man. where
 1 have seer so many curious things d. | l have along the Mississippi River. | All sorts of people may he found 1T 1 the great valley Ths variety you en-
 counter in going from Minneapolis tc
 New Orleans Is almost as wide as yot | would find in traversing Europe from enc | to end, and there is something in the | climate and doubtless great deal in the romantic traditions of the great Father of
 Waters that seems to invest the people l there with strange interest. | "I suppose he most curious thing
 ever encountered out there was. near | Memphis at the time of the great flood
 of 'S2. The Mississippi River Commission was then a comparatively new thing. but | 1t had fairly begun the work on which | 1t is still engaged and there was a party | of engineers and laborers stationed a few | miles above Memphis. waiting for the | flood 70 subside.
 Nowadays the Commission builds l leveeS relying on the time-honored ex- pedient of piling up the banks on either side of the river to keep the water from overfiowing the country alongside. but when the commission was established in the early seventies it was stringently pro- vided by Congress that ieveeS should
 not be part of the work.
 Tt was recognized that a levee was
 purely local improvement and as the commission was supported by the general Government, 1t was deemed improper to
 use the money of the nation for the benefit
 of any one locality. The working theory
 then was that if obstruct )ns were re- moved here and there and revetments put along the shore at places where the water threatened to find new courses in which to flow the river would behave itself and stay within it's boundaries, so the com mission was engaged in removing snags and patching up the banks.
 When l happened along in 'S2 the thing that struck me as preposterously curious was that this party of engineers, who had gone there for the purpose of fixing up the bed of the river to prevent 1t from overflowing the banks should he anchored in a barge that was floating forty feet above the average high water mark.
 The water had risen to that height and you could go forty miles straight to steamboat, travelling over what was or dinarily dry land. Such floods. though not quite as bad as that one, come ire quently. and how all that water could be keSt in the river bed by placing re- vetments and pulling up snags was ludicrous problem to me.
 The engineers in the party-some of them were army officers and some were civilians though now, 1 believe, it is all army work-did not seem to think it fun ny. The Government was paying the eX- penses and they did not seem to care how many weeks it would be before the water would subside sufficiently to allow them to go on puttering with the banks. And having no work to do for the time they were managing to have considerable fun.
 This fun, as Is usually the case when there is a party ot mem shut off from the society of women for the time. took the form of card playing, among other things, and while there was no very desperate gabling on the barge. so far as l know. there was an occasional game of poker played that was worth seeing, and one that I happened to see l don't think IT lever forget.
 "1t happened that some of the army officers had attended a reception at the Tennessee Club. in Memphis. at which I was also a guest. and they had asked me found when I went there, they enter tained a good deal of company, some of it being rather promiscuous It is the custom along the Mississippi to be hos pitable first, asking no questions until afterward. or more often asking none whatever.
 We had a jolly dinner party the night arrived on the barge, and l discovered that 1 was by no means the only guest There was one man whom l knew as a club member in Memphis. and whom l had met several times on the river boat and knew as a drummer for Chicago firm, and one other. who certainly was not Tennessee Club man, though he was well known in Memphis
 He ran a faro bank there that was at the time the swelest place of the kind in the South and was known as a square man in the gamblers sense; but. or course. had no local standing. l learned later that he had entertained some of the engineers al supper in his place and they were returning the compliment.
 Among the other guests was one man who was introduced as MT. Smalley. of