The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1904-02-21
A LITTLE OF
EVERYTHING
ABOUT BUCKET SHOPS.
BY RAMBLER.

perhaps the biggest one in the United
an afraid many of the trends of this
paper know more about the business than
they would like to tell. 1t is a sad fact
hat this is a gambling age. 1t is undoubt-
eddy true that the bucket shop is tae
most prolific school for educating gam
D|ers The race track with its book
makers can turn out young gamblers
faster than the bucket shop, but the race
lack is not accessible to. so many people.
Then, too, it is not quite SO respectable
| &c bet on a horse race as it Is to bet on
| the price OF cotton. The concern that
went to pieces the other day is said to
| KAYE had something like 1925 branches
| scattered over the country, and largely in
| the South. 1t was considered tie safest
| and most heightened second-rate gambling
| shop in the United States. But it failed
| and Its thousands of customers lost their
| money. On course every man who knows
| enough to get out of the rain knew this
thing would fail (as they all must), but
every fellow hoped to get out before he
| was caught.
| 1t Is astounding how many of our pee
Pie gamble in cotton, grain and stocks.
AID 1t is more astounding when one
kcows who they are. They include pro-
tossional men Of all classes, business men
| Of every grade-bankers, manufacturers.
merchants, great and small; clerks and
office men, day laborers and women. Yes.
women, thousands of them. The church
nelnber who would not think of going 10
| a horse race goes into a bucket shop ana
bets thousands of dollars ON the future
price OF cotton. Many of these gambling
places have special accommodations for
| ladies, and refined and cultured women
can be found there putting up their money
with as much unconcern as the ward
heeler puts up his cash on an election bet
| This is awful, but it is the truth and it
had better be told, and told loud and
often.
And all this state of affairs is largely
due to bucket shops. The great ex-
changes are bad, very bad, and their vic.
| TINS are counted by the thousand but
| they are not nearly so bad as the bucket
shop and their victims are not nearly SO
numerous nor SO helpless. That is to be
! the end Of this gambling mania? Is II
| possible that the public conscience has
become sodden with this sin? | do not
| Ike to think so, but l fear it is almost
| true. 1t is time for the spirit OF honesty
| 20 assert itself. Mr. Editor, will you not
write another editorial on the subject?
| hr Preacher, will you not preach a ser
mon or two on gambling? North Carolina
has lost enough money in gambling during
the past five years to double lie capacity
OF all the cotton mills in the State [
wish every one who reads this would
think about what could be done with the
mercy lost in bucket shops and decide
for himself what he ought to do about it,
Suppose Raleigh should put as much
money in public schools as she does III
bucket shops, would it pay better? And
other cities and towns can afford to con
siGer the same proposition. Let our peo-
pie save their money and at the same
tine save their moral lives.
THE NEWSPAPER LIAR.
Tho meanest thing in the world is a
.iar, and 1 think about the meanest liar
is the newspaper liar. The newspaper
lar gets his lie In circulation so thor
oughly that no sort of retraction or cor
reCtion can ever quite offset its bad in
aCence. This species of lying has become
too common. Sometimes IL is done by a
rel orter, and quite often y the editor. A
| reporter may sometimes get a thing
wrong entirely innocently, but the lying
editor always does it either deliberately
or with an ignorance that is inexcusable.
| A very common method OF editorial lying
| IS tt quote a part of what some one has
| aid and do it so as to mislead the read
| ~. Not long ago Governor Vardaman, Of
| Mississippi, was inaugurated and in his
| inaugural address he gave his views upon
| The subject Of negro education. Immali-
ately a certain class of editors who knsw
nothing about the negro printed a para
graph. or rather a sentence, from that adj
| dress and proceeded to declare that the
| Governor of Mississippi is opposed to ne
gro education. Now every editor who
2rnted such an editorial knew that Gov
| orIor Vardaman said no such thing,
he might have known it if ne had read
| Che entire address, The Governor said
| that he favored the education of the ne
| gro, but not the kind OF education that
1nfitted him for his proper sphere in life.
! Thtt was all. 1t does seem strange that
| 1 man who would scorn to tell lie in
ordinary conversation would deliberately
| III in his newspaper But there are that
Kind of men.
| 1T has become so common for newspa-
aers to misquote public men that we often
| aear it said of newspaper story, 80, it's
| newspaper lie." A newspaper should
| DC truthful above all things, and if peo-
pie who pay for and read them would
INSIST upon having facts they would get
them. OF course, an editor must some
,, lines be misled. But when the reputa-
tio1 Of a man is at stake it is his duty
% know that he writes the truth.
uNyArrcp HANNA
Senator Hanna is dead. He was very
great and very good man, so the papers
ny since he died. When he lived he
was pictured as the incarnation OF politl-
al and business deyiltry. Perhaps Sena-
OF Hanna was never as good as he has
oeea pictured since his death Certainly
&c was never as bad as he was pictured
Willie living. But this Is nothing new. 1t
has ever been so. The world praises
nan after he is dead. How it would help
and encourage men to praise their good
leeds while they live. But then 1T is not
,le human way We spend more money
IN cemeteries and tombstones ensa we do
IN hospitals. We spend more money for
monuments and flowers for the dead tran