The evening times. [volume] (Grand Forks, N.D.) 1906-1914, 1906-04-28

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about as much part of the average
mans daily game as eating. All
hands gambled. There was no dis
grace attached to it. No odium attach
ed even to the professional gambler.
The proprietors of the big establish
ments were considered men of the
best repute, and, far from suffering
social ostracism, they were cordially
received everywhere that other men of
business on an equal plane found a
welcome
Ned Pendleton, for example, ran one
Of the mishtiest faro banks and rou-
lette games in Washington. His es-
Establishment was on Pennsylvania ave-
nue.. a few doors below the old Globe
building. Pendleton was looked upon
as a gentleman and a scholar in his
day, and his wife, an extremely lovely
and accomplished woman, was well
come in the highest social circles of
the Washington of that day and was
often welcome guest even at the
White House.
Joe Hall, who ran big game over
what is now ShoOnmaker's, was an
other of the well-regarded gambling
house proprietors OF Washington He
was cultivated man, and he met the
greatest men in the land on the east
est imaginable terms, not only when
presiding at his own establishment
but elsewhere.
Three men-"Prince" Prindle, Will
kinson and Good-ran huge game on
Pennsylvania avenue between Four
and Half and Sixth streets. Their
place was frequented by the most
noted men in the whole land. They
were all men of excellent education,
devoted to and lavish with their FAM
lilies, good neighbors. citizens filled
with civic pride, willing taxpavers,
men who never dreamed that there
would come a time when their names
would be barked back to as individ-
uals who lived without the pale and
trocha of responsibility Nobody liv-
ing at that period ever thought of as
sociating them with the sinister class.
Washington was as full of lotteries
at that period as it is of hand books
today, but the lottery proprietors
never had to endure the askant gaze
of their neighbors. There was no dis.
grace then in running a lottery
1t was in brief, a period when gam
bling was rather in the fashion than
otherwise. The greatest men in the
land gambled publicly and necessarily
here in Washington without the least
sacrifice of reputation. Thad Stevens,
for example, never let a day go by that
he didn't do little piking at the faro
table. Cole Martin acknowledges with
sorrow that Stevens WAS 4 most hope
less pilier. but Stevens %an1el some
kind of action on the few chips he
bought every weekday of his life. So
it was with the scores of prominent
statesmen who tenanted seats in the
capitol at that day. And they were
not all pikers. either.
Cole Martin recalls some of the huge
plunges OF some of them-Green of
Missouri, Humphrey of Kentucky. Ed
monson of Virginia, for example-that
are not often duplicated at faro banks
OF the present day. Martin has seen
dozens of the statesmen OF that epoch
bending over the faro tables. keeping
cases at the same time. and the big
stories of their winnings occasionally
got into the letters of the Washington
correspondents. The constituents of
the high players among the statesmen
were rather pleased than otherwise
when they read of the nervy high play
of their representatives.
The swell gambling houses of Wash
lngton in that early day of Cole Mar
tin did the thing right up-and Mrs.
Todgers knew how" in that day. They
served three regular meals day for
their patrons. for instance, and it is
needless to say that they were rich and
bountiful meals. The faro games in
those before-the-war times used to
open at 10 o'clock in the morning.
pi(.fi1pa h,,no1, Of u,
present period walking into gam
bling shop at 10 O'clock in the morn
ing and beginning to attune their ears
to the clink and clatter of the chips!
The breakfast would be served short
ly after O'Clock. and then the men of
leisure, the chaps with whom gambling
was continuous performance fever,
got busy right after breakfast They
passed their chips back and forth un-
til l o'cleck when the swagger lunch
con would make its steaming appear
ance. Immediately after lunch they
would get busy again. with new play
ers drifting in all the time. The men
from the capitol would begin to arrive
along toward 4 o'clock 1t was no I'M
common thing when there was moth
ing OF Importance on hand in either
house of congress, for both bodies to
adjourn little before o'clock to give
such as wanted to avail themselves
to sit down at the regular o'clock
dinner, comprising all of the deli
cacies of the season, that was spread
in all of the big gambling houses
1t wouldn't appear in the record of
the proceedings, of course, that the
two branches of congress were ad-
Journing for that purpose, but that
was the answer all the same. The
statesmen would play on until mid
night. All of the big gambling houses
OF Washington closed promptly at mid
night at that ante-bellum period. Not
all Of these games were for the gen.
eral public. Ned Pendleton's game,
for example, was exclusively for the
patronage and accommodation of the
legislators and other men high in Of
fetal life
Public federation of the gambling
carnivals that went ON in Washington
really endured for many years after
the Civil war. Nothing unusual was
thought OF it, for that matter, when
member of congress himself ran
Washington faro bank. Associated
with Cole Martin and man named
Parker in the management and profit
of noted gambling establishment
that was going in the latter sixties
was no less a man than John Norris
sey, that eminent prize fighter NJ. C.
from New York. Everybody knew that
Morrissey had big slice of this plant
while he was representative in the
lower house, and nobody thought there
was anything unusual about it.
The man whom Cole Martin-who is
not given to enthusiasm-regards as
the mightiest gambler that ever lived
in the United States, or in any other