Evening star., 1905-11-05

tne hand Dook men prefer TO any otner
kind. The big fellows who shove in fifty
or a hundred on their selections generally
know something" They're the educated
money, and they win oftener than not.
| most OF them only putting their sizeable
pets down with the hand books when they
receive tips that lead them to virtually
know that they are in right. But the
"dolar betters'' are the boys who go right
on trying to buck the game, year in and
year out by means of the dope" and If
it were not for their liars the hand book
men couldn't exist
/ is the same way at tie race tracks.
The big betters and the pungers at the
tracks don't git nothin,'' say the book
makers. The one and two-dollar betters are
the chaps who make racing possible the
country over. They furnish the coin where
with the big bets are paid off and leave
big margin besides for the bOokmakers.
The educated money of the dead-wlse
regular followers of the turf game is not
the kind of money that the really astute
percentage-following bookmaker Is looking
for. He prefers the dollars of the duDs,
as he candidly puts it.
There isn't any present prospect that there
will be pool room anywhere around WASH
| ington for long time to come. The pool
room business is certainly as dead as
salt mackerel in Virginia. Crandail
MaCkey the alert and dauntless prose-
cutting attorney of Alexanu.- "a county, ne
done It." Nothing could be more certain
! than that there never Will be another pooi
room over yonder in Alexandria county as
| long as Mackey holds his present JOB Inc
| pool room people themselves admit this
| There remains always lingering chaice
| that there will some time be something
| doing" again in the way OF a pool room
| in one of the nearby Maryland counties
| bur the folks living in the communities
| where the pool rooms have already started
! only to be closed, are thoroughly aroused
over this prospect, and they may pe re
| lied upon to fight the pool room game IN
| their midst" tooth and nail Wherever anu
| whenever it attempts to rear Its mead
All of which is acutely agonlZlng 10 the
pool room people who hover sadiy arou.lo llia
| Washington, waiting for things TO coine
their way They know that the horse-pel-
ting money is here in Washington in gobs
and it is positively sickening to them 10
see this money that ought to be ours, as
they do not scruple to express IL, diVerleu
to other and useful channels by the men
who used TO be such inveterate pool room
| patrons-and losers.
For long stretch of years, as stated 1he
| ST. Asaph pool room stood close TO the top
in the list of the very biggest money
makers in the pool room line on the who're
American continent. During all of those
years its hold upon the situation seemed 10
be absolute and unbeatable. Its proprietors
Simply l3uSneu ana pDtt tliC-i ~ - '"
all CT the threats Of the better clas5 OF
AlcXandr:ans to close up the eSta DllS h'iienl
through the laws aid. ST Asaph hot oiiiy
seemed to be invulnerab.e in 50 TAR as It's
stand against the law was concerned, pul
it had a perfect monopoly in the pool room
business in Alexandria county. AS long
as eight years ago a coter!e OF ffilladeipilii
dead games' unable to see why the st.
Asaph people should get all of the hne
horse-hetting play of Washington to the
exclusion of everybody else, essayed to
start a competing pool room over at tie
Virginia end of the Long brldge. 1hey
did get their pool room going and were
winning some Of the play from the St
Asaph institution, when, at the end of just
three days, they had to close. 1t was given
out that the reason they had to close had
something to do with the furnishing of the
wire but it was more than openly limited
at the time that certain authorities OF Alex
ardria county had put them out of business:
Then ST. Asaph resumed its old clutch, ana
went on getting the money in such huge
bales that rich and famous gamblers from
New York used to journey over to the big
St. Asaph barn just to feast their eyes
on the sight of so much easy money roll
ing over the ST. Asaph counters, and these
envous visitors used to blink their eyes
and say to each other. IF 1 only had a
little bit of a hunk o this game, hey!
Then 1t was announced that there was
going to be pool room over on the line of
one of the new Maryland trolley routes ter
mlnating in Washington at the corner of
18th and G. streets. This pool room actually
opened, too, but it lasted only few days.
The ST. Asaph people "hunched the odds"
at their place in way that served to win
back the adherents to the new plant, and,
moreover. it was freely bruited around at
that tme-fve or six years ago-that the
St ASaph crowd had succeeded in making
MARYLAND authorities in the 1i-
rection of the pool room angry at the
! invasion of the new pool room people.
| Then the Wildwood outfit got going and
| led its tempeStuous existence for a few
weeks. Nobody on the outside can know.
of course. just how far the queerly poten-
| tial influence of the St. Asa3h crowd went
| toward making the Wildwood pool room
| people finally put up their shutters. but
| the story wasn't uncommon around among
| the dead games of Washington at the
| time that the St. Asaph people had been at
| the bottom OF the closing of the Wildwood
! plant.
| After Wildwood came that humorous pool
| room out on the line of demarcaton be-
| tween the District of Columbia and Mont
| gomery county wherein the projectors of
| the enterprise sought to sort of whipSaw
| the law by taking bets one side of the
| shed and paying en- off on the other. This
! was good joke and all that, but the au-
| thorities Of the District as well as of Mont
| gomery failed to see the shriek-evoking fun
! of II, and the both ends from the mid
| die" POOL room had to put up the blinds,
/ too, after a few days of highly diverting
! fun for the talent" who braved the dam
| ger of pinch and went out there to look
| the situation over.
| Then, last winter, came that astonishing
| day which the st. Asaph people actually
! believed would never dawn. when Crandall
| Mackey's hand was put on the old rambling
| St. Asaph barn, and the place had to
| close. st. Asaph had been laughing at
| Crandal Mackey for months. but he quick
| ly showed st. Asaph that he wasn't trying
to pose in the limeight for the mere pur-
| pose of getting laughs out of them st.
| Asaph was closed for good and all and it
may be stated with the greatest positiveness
| that it's never going to lie reopened, either
| The recent attempt on the part of another
| faction to start a pool room on the Vir-
| ginia side of the Long bridge is current
| and familiar newspaper history. The people
| behind that scheme quickly felt the hand of
| Mackey. too, and they are at this moment
in peck of trouble from which accord
| ing to recent decision at Richmond they
| are going to find it hard to eXtricate them
| selves.
| Thus, with the game pretty dead around
| Washington. and even the hand book men
II IT