The Fulton County news. [volume] (McConnellsburg, Pa.) 1899-current, 1907-05-02
T GAMBLING
E MANIA..........
BY JACOB A. RIIS,
Author Of "How the Other Halt Lives"


My work takes me travelling
great deal from October to June. One
everywhere impressed by very
substantial realities. From Philadel-
phia to Chicago. and farther, the rail-
'oads are glutted with freight. The
,ne problem of the managers is how
o handle the business OF the roads
is not solved yet. Every town is
prosperous; every man willing and
ible to work has his hands full. But
when | wanted to be quiet in my car,
party of travelling farmers would
,rowd into the adjoining seats, in
emily discussing the crops-not
hose that grew on their fields, but
;rops that had not yet been sown,
and the rise and fall of them In a
market of futures, of chances, of
plain gambling; or the profit on
stock, on cattle yet INBRED, on iron
hat might or might not be found in
aills a thousand miles away, which
they had never seen. In certain
town that has seen one boom and
was then in the middle of another l
.ound the society" women coldly
gambling on chances of finding ore in
l range recently opened, as ether
women play bridge whist. It was
he oil country in the seventies over
again, the scenes l witnessed there,
With the reckless haste to make
money and the even more reckless
haste to get rid of 1t.
When in the evening l settled
down in a chair in the hotel lobby,
all about me was the din of the stock
market and the wheat-pit. On
change the ticker was long silent,
but out here it's clamor was more ur-
gent than ever 1t was in the feverish
city thought had left behind.
Crowds of old men and young men
and boys stood about the slot ma
chimes and fed them nickles. The IA
vorite was the poker machine, which
gives you cigars for lucky hit.
watched one young man, evidently
commercial traveller, feed Sc in
nickles to 1t at one sitting, in a de-
termined attempt to "beat the game"
Beating a slot machine is something
like trying to beat policy" "The
house gets all the money and the
player all the experience.
live in Long Island. More than
once in summer the timetables on
my local railroad have been upset by
the crowds clamoring for transporta-
ton to the race tracks at Brighton
Beach and Jamaica. A man need be
in them only for the briefest of rides
to find out that the one thing that
propels them is the betting. They
seem to think of nothing else; they
certainly talk of little else-the
chances of this horse being doc
tored" or that one being pulled in"
by its Jockey. The expectation of
crookedness is all over it, and is
taken as a matter of course. 1t
seems to be part Of the game, prop
erly, for the game is gambling urdis-
guised. The horses are nothing. Per-
haps there was a time when the out
door aspect of 1t, the breeding of
ine horses, justified the description
Of horse racing as a gentleman's
sport. think there must have been.
But am sure the pretense is all there
Is left of 1t as far as New York race
soers are concerned. and the purpose
1t serves is not good.
Gentlemen's sport Read this in
to-day's evening paper that comes in
as / write with an account of the
swapping of an old trusted bank by
directors who "plunged"--in the
stock market l suppose. This other
thing went on the while at the race
rack:
What taint of savagery is in the
average modern crown to be sure!
1t cropped out after the first race yes
terday in which the Boston Stables
three-year-old gelding, Harry, broke
down so badly that he had to be shot.
Harry had been heavily backed and
was just making his run in the race,
close up with Tristesse and Osgood,
when suddenly he faltered, threw up
his head and fell back rapidly to the
rear
Harry is cut down." arose the
cry of the experienced grandstand
crowd.
Il wish he'd break his neck!"
growled burly fellow Just back of
the press stand who had bet on the
horse.
"I'm not kicking!" shouted an
other man, gleefully, as Osgood
romped home, followed by Our Mug
get. "If he hadn't broken down he'd
have b,Naten Our Nugget sure and
bet on Dur Nugget for place.
BY this time McCafferty had dis
mounted and Harry was hobbling
about pitifully on his two broken fet-
locks. His trainer led him away to
the paddock and few moments later
the gelding was shot to end his suf-
ferings.
II can't lose any more money on
that dog anyway" growied the burly
5ettor.
Gentlemen. forsooth! Gambling is
by instinct and nature brutal, be-
cause it is selfishness in it's coldest
form. Any crowd swayed by 1t re-
yerts to sayagery by the shortest cut
when its interests are opposed. On
| that level 1t could not HELM IL.