Evening star., 1905-11-05
PASSING OF THE POOL ROOM
Little Chance Nowadays in Washington for the Horse
Bug to Get Exercise.

The passine of the pool rooms from the
vicinity of Washington has, to large ex-
tent eradicated the horse bug from the
erst,y hile feverish midrins of the hundreds
of Washington men who USED 10 pe III
chronic state of hopeless bustedness on ac-
count of their addiction to the ponies
The hand book business, which took the
place OF the pool rooms when the last at
tempt of the pool room proprietors TO Keep
omen shop was thwarted. h been IN sort
of langushing ST te In Washington iol
sorre months The clans wnod peeA uSeu
10 seeing the horses names IN big letters
of chalk up on the blackboards, with the
names of the jockeys, the weights 'he
prices the state of the tracks, and so on
found the hand book way OF pet'hS
mighty moor and unsatisfactory substitute
for the old scheme. Rather than not pet at
all on the horses they took to the hand
book method for a little while, but they
gradually dropped away. and now, 1t is
said the Washington hand books are 90
ing very little. The man who used 10
playing EN- in a pool room can extract
much JOY from the scheme OF picking out
something in the way of a morse 'Iiat ne
likes slipping the amount OF MS bet W
q hand book man, and then waiting sfouns
some place where the evening bulletins are
tackled up to whether he cops oi
drops" There isn't enough action III
that Kind of betting according 10 'ne view
nf o.
TO love the sound of the telegraph opea 80,
tors thrilling announcement. iheS re GU
followed by IS more or less accurate uS
scriptiou of the race from haStai 10 llhtsh'
Moreover. a mum -er of cases OF WeltI
ing on the part of irresponsible mana doom
makers in Washington gave the game d
black eye here from which IL WI De i'iIts n3
In recovering When the fnal aitempl VI
the pool room people to keep open was
tagged large number of queer maps maps
of the horsey kind around Nashlnstoh' SONY
"A
worth mentioning, but relying "hoily upon
n good break started in to make manu- manu-
hooks The good break ION Which thes
were depending didn't happen 10 -.
ate and they were nailed with bets on thei
states that they couldn't begin 20 etTm ,,,I,
dream of paying off. So they JUST lam ny
welched This welching naturaily hult @ ...e
wanoa of the legitimate" hand book makers
of Washington. Two or three OF the WASH
inston hand book makers are sald top11 10 p1
thoroughly reliable chaps VINO are ,Ht. 80.
Nth the money to settle any and all bets
that they take who never oNeriaS vi
Lon side their sheets and these have been
getting the bulk of what was tinotnn Ielt Gn trlo
horse betting business around w dsIIilsV ~ ~
when the pool game was wiped out. But Sle
talent" who tried to buck the hana ooonI onI
after the closing of the iasi oi IT M ~ ~ II
Too,ns got an extremely unlucky break OF II
last summer and fall. and 1t has peeh con- CON-
mon talk around that the talthiuI i, 1ln0s hnoi,s
the patrons of the WASHINGTON 9 nail9 ooH;'
have been cleaned and cleaheu SUI"
for quite a few months past
ANYHOW. it is the rcol room or the actua4
racing In or near town mat Keeps 'he
horse bug alive. The hand pook OF ltseii
is ra,er capable of keeping the latent horse
betting fever famed to profitable hame
When the old St Asaph pool room was run
ming over in Alexandria county the busi-
ness done by the hackers of the enterprise
was the envy of all of the big pool room
rronrietors the entire country over. In pro-
norton to it's population, Washington theh
had the biggest bunch of horse-cfazy ch4p5
i'm the country, and rs soon as the puSttu
nres dropped out there were plenty OF re-
cruits TO take their places. The stores OF
the big winnings of the occaslonaliy luch5
ones spread around town like wlid-nreIIne
,,arns Of the losers being carefully Kept
under cover The st. Asaph plant mum
bered its daily patrons by the nuloIeus'
and on stake race days the huge pdlh ol "
niaca was hardy big enough to accomno-
date the tremendous throng OF men Oh dl
sorts and conditions who stormed ti.e ts.ep I
chanst" The St. Asaph horse betting III
St{tntion kept the horse bug allNe ana
well-fed in Washington, but the closing ot
the place was the beginning Oh In III ~ In o
the horse fever in this vicinity ne otneI
,ooI rooms that succeeded the ST. Asaph
ulant never got anything ike the Dig pay pay
of the old establishment, ana WhSh my NY
ion before the cry of pupIc oplnUh tis iS
IND hooks got only remnant of the old
horse-bctting business. ,.-,, ara an
The Bennins meetings, spilns 80 far,iy,s
tumn. invariably have t4e eHeGt eHe 81 ol I-n'f
the horse fever into hre. put Illls III co 1Yay
burn very long after tIle noiss 80. So -, ,ooo
from Washington when there lSH a"y VIZ HUD
room 10 keep the eNciteIltin' sor'' u of Tho
The ponies come along thla w. 10, 90 +ra,Its
horsey crowd take IN the rae ~ ''It - ~
OF course, and after Two or tElSs tfi+Si,ll, t%t
studying the dope ana iunipi,its .,.at ,a
charts and dreaming the olu cream dt oi ~
ting the kale in bundles throusn the ~.
strumentality of the running hoI 80 -
are in Il state of mind TO go on pSttIitS ms % ca
tEc departed horses by any methou t ma u o.
fers itself even the hand door, bu' tiIT
hand hook doesn't offer any OF the Ltat &
rionnour of the old game SO thaL a ieM
weeks after the horses nave quit ftiiIlliS !i
tbe hettiug gang begin to develop colu
f.ef.' as 10 the horses, with no pool room
goinp wherein they might warm thelr lflslu
ne5aIs and experience the old ttuNathS
pECck of announced victory or defeat, ana
80 tbs borse- netting game lanEu.SheS around
Washington.