Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1907-08-11

! lorelei song and 1t reaches a long way.
| When st. Aspah was going this town was
! jammed full of chaps who were swearing
| off on that big shed all the time, but when
| the hour approached for the ST. Asaph troll
ley specials to start down to the big In
closure Of chalk and chatter their swear
offs melted away like a spring snow on
Pennsylvania avenue, and they mostly turn
ed up at the old corner with the dope
charts tightly clutched In their hands
The election Of Crandal Mackey to his
billet was what the poohoom people mourn
fully called a "mistake''-a mistake, that
is to say, from their own point of view.
They never took the new man seriously.
When he was up for election, they claim to
this day that they could easily have beaten
him out, with the expenditure of a little
| time and money, but they never even both
cred their heads about him. His cam
paign promise that he would slide the
creased props under the st. Asaph plant
they took as one of those up-stage, E-fiat
jokes, for they'd heard all like that for
years and years, and 1t never eventuated
They didn't, in consequence turn a hand
over to keep the new man from bulging
into his office and they weren't in the least
agitated even when he was elected by a
narrow margin. Then, almost soon as
he became familiar with the various facets,
angles and handles to the pooroOm situa-
ton, he got busy in the redemption of his
promise, and the st. Asaph folks looked
each other sadly in the eye and said unto
each other, why didn't we smother this
Mackey's Hard Fight.
The new man had to fight, and he had
to know how to fight. but he was there
with 1t, and very short time after he as
sumed office the ST. Asaph dump was tot
tering on the edge of the abyss Knowing
that it was going to come Off this present
historian was then and there present at St
Asaph on the last day that the chalk went
up on the boards there. but there was no
play. The place was pinched, the bettors
had to turn their disappointed counte-
nances toward the table OF departing trains
and the price-chalk was wiped off the big
blackboard for the last time.
Well, the closing down of st. Asaph
threw a lot of men out of work-the en-
ployes of the big betting institution. Ihey
were mostly men who had been mixed up
with the horse-playing, in some form or
other all of their lives. They didn't know
anything else. They didn't care FOR any
thing else, They couldn't the maloIIty o., OF
them even entertain the idea of starting
over again on the right track and going to
work at some legitimate business. Not a
few of them were clever men too capable
Of holding their own IN any company had
tbe poisonous horse bug not reduced them
To that stage of It when they had no ambi-
ton in life other than to reatach them
selves to the old game in some way or an
other.
These out-of-work St Asaph employees
hung around for months and months walt
ing for some signal that the thing had
been fixed up" and that business at the old
stand would be resumed. But that signal
never came, and 1t probably never Will
come-certainly not as long as the man
who grabbed the ST Asaph game is any
where around Alexandria county in an Of
fetal capacity, and II looks as II the folk
over there meant to keep him at some kind
of work or other IN their interest for
long time to come. All sorts of efforts
We oaH n nOOlrOOnS
places around Washington. but they all
petered out One of the out-of-work fell
lows OF the old st. Asaph gang made an
Ferry, and actually ran it for a few days.
But Il was too far from Washington to
vet the play OF the horse bugs here, and,