River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1906-01-04

cited they could hardly wait to find a
slot machine, and finally they bought
nearly all my cough lozengers, and
went out into the night, and pa and I
went along, cause pa said he under
stood all the slot machines were
owned by Rockefeller, and he made
more money on them than he did on
Standard oil, and the money that he
gave away to schools and churches
was from his rake-off on his slot ma
chimes. Pa said it would be a good
thing if someone conld break up the
reprehensible practice by beating the
blasted machines to a finish.
So pa he got bag to bring back the
nickels in, and a bunch of us went to
store where one whole side of the
place was filled with slot machines,
and the way the people were playing
the game was scandalous. Pa watched
machine until the players had fed it
so it seemed as though it would die un-
less it got air, and ne stepped up and
put in loZenger and turned the wheel,
and held the bag under the spout for
the coin, but it didn't come. Some
more fellows put in nickels, and the
machine gave little hacking coughs and
,coughed up three or four nickels, but
nothing that seemed at all in the
nature of financial hemmorague,
when pa took another lozenger and
put it in, and by ginger the machine
began to heave up nickels like it was
in the trough of The sea.
Pa was so excited he forgot to hold
the bag, and nickels went all over the
floor, and everybody made a grab for
them, and pa was showed aside, and he
swore he would have the place pulled,
and just then law officer took pa in
charge because he had put cough loz-
enger in the slot machine, and he
searched pa and found a lot more
bronchial trochees, and pa was in for
it on charge of malpractice, for CIV
ing cough medicine for the stomach
trouble of the slot machine, instead Of
pepsin tablets.
They took pa in a back room and
searched him some more, and found
his roll, and then man who said he
was a lawyer offered to help pa, and
keep him out of the penitentiary. He
told pa the law Of Kentucky made the
crime of trifiing with slot machine
the same as breach of promise, or ar
son, and that he would be lucky If he
got off with ten years in the pen, with
80 days solitary confinement in a
Turkish bath cell, with niggers for
companions.
Do f,1r MI
if there was no way out of it, and the
lawyer told him that for $3.50 in spot
cash he would let him go, and fight
the case after the show had got out
of the state. A hundred and twenty
five dollars was the amount they found
on pa, and he told them that inasmuch
as they already had it, they better
keep the money and let him go, and
he would be always a living example
of the terrors of gambling.
So they let pa go. and all the way
to the train he told us ne hoped this
experience would be lesson to us not
20 covet the money of the rich. and as
far as he was concerned. John d:
Rockefeller could go plum to thunder
with his money after this.
Then we got to the car, and found
about a dozen of the circus men who
had been out to beat the slot machines,
broke fiat. and had to divide my shot
bag of nickels with them, that | had
won before l let them into the game,
before they would let me go to bed.
Dad says this circus life is making
me pretty tough.