Weekly independent. [volume] (Elko, Nev.) 1887-1914, 1910-09-16
THE GAMBLERS LITTLE JOKER

bCNOlSGo VI piiuBC, SuSiiSi anu
five hundred, which has been re-
garded as innocuous pastimes,
must look to their own safety
after midnight of October first.
They must seek some new shrine at
which to worship for, with the
ascension Of the sun above the
horizon on the morning of October
2, and mere possession of cards of
any character, except visiting
cards, subjects the owner to arrest
and fine or Imprisonment. Of
course anybody with an atom of
grey matter under his bonnet will
exclaim that this is unjust; that
certain forms of card playing are
recognized throughout the I'M
iverse as games of skill and not
the hazard of fortunes with
certain stated and fixed odds
against the player.
In the home there is no danger
of card playing d~egenerating into
a crime or involving the players in
such heavy losses that they cannot
meet them without embarrass-
ment. 1t is true that in London
and New York the playing of
bridge has become such a craze
that wives have forfeited their
honor through indebtedness they
could not pay and many designing
schemers of the same sex have laid
their snares to entrap rich young
matrons whose purses they would
tap until the victim was forced to
fall back on an indulgent husband
to redeem her pledges.
This is an extreme phase of the
question and one that cannot be
compared to the average domestic
episode in the bridge line but it
serve to direct attention to a little
joker in the gambling law in
serted for the purpose of engineer
ing defeat of the bill.
The statute was designed TO sup
press all forms of gambling but it
never entered the mind. of honest
men that lawmakers could be so
blinded to the purpose of profess
SIGNALS as to allow themselves to be
made catspaws for a class that has
come under the ban of the law.
The legislature was asking to
exercise the demon that spelled
ruin for hundreds of households,
that made the name of Nevada
odious before the world as the
only place ,,outside of the princip-
ality of Monaco that legalized
gambling.
The legislature knew it was
overstepping its rights by insert
ing a claus which rendered liable
to prosecution every family that
tolerated a deck of playing cards.
A child caught learning the rude
ments of casino or hearts, by tn.
terms of the statute, can be turned
over to a probation officer as an
incorrigible and subjected to
parole for any time the court may
see fit to determine. A house
holder who brings a deck of cards
from an outside state. even though
he uses them for the salutary pur-
pose of amusing his offspring with
trlsks Of legerdemain, becomes a
criminal Of as deep a dye as
though he w,pt into the open and
operated a roulette wheel or con-
Quoted a crap game =, the oIlov
This is the little joker ca, tho
inserted Tor the U.o
purpose of encompassing defeat Of
one of the most desirable measures
that could have been enacted.
The cunning hand of the gambling
ring is manifest in every reference
to playing cards and now the pro-
n
gamblers are said to be ,
preparing to fabricate a test case
that may upset the whole law.
This would be unfortunate and IL
not worthy Of belief that tho
courts would not be governed by
Inc intent rathr than a literal in
expectation Of the law.-Goldfeld
Tribune.