There are gambling games to which the initiated can gain access now at No. 39 West Twenty-ninth street, in Fourteenth street, the second door from Thiess’, at No. 818 Broadway, at Gallagher’s in Barclay street, at Delacey’s in Chatham Square, at Nos. 12 and 15 Ann street—all close together—Bret Haines’ in Barclay street, and at a good many quiet haunts of tigers so well trained that their footsteps are like velvet and their howl is inaudible. So it is scarcely necessary to go for mere sport to Phil Daly’s Long Branch Club, against which “Baron” Pardonnet has been waging such an ineffectual warfare, or to the famous Saratoga Club, at which “Colonel” Shepard has been vainly launching the awful curse of his boycott.

The raid which made John Daly move, and which produced so great a stringency in the chip market for the time being, started at No. 1 Ann street. It is rarely that an eye-witness describes, from the inside, an official descent on a gambling house. There are generally too many personal reasons for silence. Here is a description by a player at the time of that famous raid. It might also serve as a good description of almost any raid on New York games:

“I had just ‘coppered’ $5 on the queen to the intense disgust of a half dozen fellows who were playing her to win, when the ‘nigger’ who kept door came bounding upstairs, three steps at a time, fairly pale in the face, and whispered to the proprietor:

“‘Boss, there’s some men at the door that won’t go away, and say they’ll break the door down if I don’t let ’em in.’

“‘Quick!’ answered the proprietor, ‘open the door and ask ’em to step right up.’ The words were not out of his mouth before he had slipped the bank roll into the safe, gathered all visible chips of the banks, and asked all the players to gather up theirs, stuck the chips into the safe and locked the safe door, saying, ‘Boys, put your chips in your pockets and come around this afternoon and I’ll cash ’em in for you.’ In a flash all evidence of present gaming were wiped out. There were only a couple of tables, a dozen or so players, the proprietor, smiling blandly, and—a policeman in sight.

“In less time than it takes to tell all this the still shivering door-keeper had ushered in three ‘plain clothes’ men from headquarters. At the same time the police officer, in full uniform, who was already in the room—and who had been playing with the rest of us, mind you—edged towards the door so as to seem to have come in with and after the raiding officers. He was the worst frightened man in the crowd. But, with quite remarkable presence of mind, considering the strain on him, the officer in uniform stepped promptly back into the foreground, with a pitying smile on his face, and seizing the beard of the proprietor of the game, said to the raiding officers, who looked as if they wondered where he had come from:

“‘Gentlemen, this Mr. Bud Kirby’—

“‘And sorry I am, gentlemen,’ ‘Bud’ interrupted, with a bow and a smile, ‘to make your acquaintance under such unfavorable circumstances! What will you have to drink?’

“You could have knocked me down with a feather. ‘This then,’ thought I, as all hands stepped up to the sideboard and took a friendly drink; ‘this then, is one of those terrible raids we read so much about!’

“The“The players, fortunately for me, were not molested in the least. They melted away into the early morning gloom (it was then about 2 o’clock), and the officers who carted away the cards, the faro layouts and the roulette wheel, melted away to headquarters and made their report, and that afternoon we all went back and Kirby cashed our chips—of course he knew just about how many were out—and everything was lovely. No officer thought of touching the safe which contained the ‘roll,’ the only thing of any great value about the establishment, and nobody suffered any great loss or discomfort. But there wasn’t any more dealing there for a great many months. And maybe the officer in uniform, who was playing there in blissful ignorance that a raid was to be made, didn’t catch it from Kirby for not giving him warning!”

A few weeks ago, before the spasm of virtue which constricted the public circulation of chips, a New York business man—whose name may be put down as Allan Allriver, being not altogether unlike the same—was approached on Twenty-eighth street by a professional gambler of his acquaintance who had paraded Broadway and hung about the corners until he was almost on his uppers. “Look here, Mr. Allriver,” said the gambler, “let’s you and I open a gambling house. I know of a good ranch on this very street that we can rent cheap, and if you’ll furnish the roll and let me run the game we’ll both make a barrel of money.”

“That’s“That’s all right,” answered Allriver, “but what’s to prevent us from being pulled the very first night?”

“I’ve inquired into that,that,” replied the gambler, “and am assured on high authority that we will be guaranteed police protection for exactly $25 a week. The usual price is from $25 up $100; we are getting off cheap.”

Mr. Allriver is still thinking about this offer and the remarkable statement with it. There is food for thought in it for the tax-payers. But the charge that police officials are bribed by gamblers is—as the old English Judge said about the charge of assault on women—“most easy to make and most difficult to disprove.” It has the advantage, however, of being even more difficult to prove.

Suppose a police captain or lieutenant were paid $25 a week by the proprietor of a gambling house for protection or advance notice of raids, no papers, or writing, or receipt, or voucher of any kind will pass between them. The proprietor and the police officer will not meet, nor will they be seen or known to communicate with each other in any way except through trusted intermediaries. Through them, one representing the “sports” and the other the “boss cops,” the agreement will be made and the money will be paid. They may meet each other and slide a “wad” from fist to fist as they shake hands on Broadway of a fine afternoon, or they may do their business over a friendly glass of beer at a Sixth avenue saloon table about 2 A. M. If either of these agents tries to squeal, his principal promptly denounces and disavows all knowledge of him. Then who is believed, the poor, unknown, characterless go-between or the “reputable business man” and “faithful police official?”

The elaborate system of bolts, bars, chains, double doors, and the like, which confronts one—either stranger in search of sport, or officer in search of prey—at the entrance of an established gambling house is not intended as a direct barrier to the admission of those in authority. Unauthorized raiders are of course kept out by this means. But no proprietor of a gambling house in New York would dare to maintain that system of defense in the face of known police or detective authority. It would “get the force down on him” forever. When an opening is demanded “in the name of the law,” the bolts are shot back, the chains loosened, the big nail-studded doors are unlocked. But all this undoing, and unloosening and unfastening takes so much time that the proprietor has had an opportunity before the police get into the “hell” itself to put away that which he wishes to conceal, and to put it away so securely that all the police in town couldn’t find it unless they tore down the walls and pulled up the flooring. It is quite needless to say that the players, if they choose, may also utilize this interval by escaping over the roof or down the back stairs.

That some of the New York gambling houses are, or have been, directly connected with Police Headquarters by means of a private wire, or at least with the nearest station house from which a raid would be most likely to be made, is firmly believed by some sporting men. But how prove it? Quien Sabe? Certain it is that there are no “slicker” citizens nor more artful dodgers, no more long-headed law breakers in this great city of “slick” citizens and artful dodgers, than are the professional gamblers. Not so very long ago, when the notoriety of John Daly’s, as a first-class gambling house, almost across the street from the Gilsey was becoming a little too loud, a stranger who in the language of the street, thought he was “fly” and who had found out—he thought—just what door to knock at to find Daly’s and a game, hammered at the door in question vociferously and was surprised to have the door opened in his face by a neat maid-servant, who asked him what his business was, assured him the place was an apartment house for gentlemen and offered to show him the rooms. He was dumfounded and retreated in good order.

Next door, all the while, was an innocent-looking millinery shop. He watched out of the hotel window hour after hour the next day, until he saw a gambler, with whom he was acquainted, come down the steps from “the apartment house.” He sauntered over, joined his friend whom he had known in Denver, and asked him to show him a game, and was taken into “the apartment house.” A large and massive-looking hat rack adorned the back hall. Seizing it by two of the hat pegs, the gambler gave it a slight twist and turned it on its well-oiled axis, disclosing a door into the rear of the first floor of the next house. Here, back of the “millinery store,” the festive roulette ball was clicking and the tiger was bucking and being bucked vigorously. Such is life in a large city!

It is on the parlor cars returning from Monmouth and Brighton Beach that the New York gamester is seen in little groups of three or four in the gayest of his mid-summer aspects. No matter if he hasn’t won a single bet all day, the gambler is “blooded” and must ride home in a parlor car. There is a group composed of three of the typical Gothamite race gamblers. The car has hardly started from the track before the porter has slipped into its nickel-plated sockets the tidy little table, which may serve either for cards or lunch. A crisp white napkin is deftly spread over it and a “cold bottle” produced, with three glasses, on a silver tray, from the porter’s larder. A cold chicken is brought out with some slices of white bread and a pot or two of golden butter. No Rothschild or Vanderbilt could order or eat a better meal under the circumstances, or sit down after a day of “sport” to a more inviting-looking board while whirling homeward on the rail in an easy chair. Yet these three men are plain, ordinary, common, badly-dressed, thick-fingered, blear-eyed and uncouth-looking “gams.” There is no “gentleman John Oakhurst” about them. Many New Yorkers recognize them and some nod as they pass on.

The big-boned man, with the ruddy, clean-shaven face, short, stiff gray hair and puffy eye-lids, eats the food earnestly and laughs, and talks in an even coarse voice. At present he is the life of the party. He wears a grayish-brown check suit, not very “loud,” a faded derby, and his fingers need a manicure. They are thick at the ends and do not look capable of deft manipulation. No doubt their owner can deal off the bottom of the pack if he wants to, without detection. He looks about fifty-two. His companions are younger. One of them wears an outlandish-looking round-crowned straw hat and a shabby suit of clothes. He has a pert, feverish-looking, but insignificant face, a red mustache and a tilted nose. The third is good-looking, dark and quiet. They talk eagerly and simultaneously, and not at all quietly of the races and of the bets, and their winnings and losings. By and by the table is cleared away and the “cold bottle” put on and big cigars are brought by the steward, who is told to “fetch the best he’s got.” Nobody has any more fun coming home from the races than professional gamblers have. They are not half bad at heart, perhaps. Before lighting the biggest cigars the steward’s got, they take off their hats and ask the only two ladies in this parlor car full of men if they have any “objection to smoke.”

The most interesting plunger at cards in New York to-day is, in all probability, that broken-down shoe-cutter yonder, who looks scarcely “good for a ten-cent drink,” but who, not very long ago, made the old-timers’ hair stand on end. His name is Bolt McHackin, and his home is in Newark. McHackin is, when not “on a tear,” one of the most skillful shoe-cutters in the country, and able to earn from $60 to $75 a week at his trade. His shears turn out fashionable “uppers” with a celerity and skilfulness rarely found and highly prized. When he has worked hard for three or four weeks and earned a couple of hundred dollars he gambles with a reckless prodigality. In more than one game he has risen from the table a loser to the full amount of his stakes, returning to his work not one whit wiser, and only waiting to try his experiment again. He has been known to make large winnings. Yet to “break a bank” where all the appliances for playing a “brace” game are ready at hand has been demonstrated to be an impossibility.

If any doubt exists in the mind of the reader as to the truth of the exposure of the “faked” devices described in this volume, the author would especially commend to the attention of such skeptics the following catalogue, issued by a New York house, which is here reproduced, verbatim et literatim; only the publisher’s name being suppressed. Similar catalogues are being scattered broadcast over the land. They fall into the hands of young men, to whose curiosity and imagination they appeal with fatal effect. They are easily obtained, anyone may secure one by asking for it, and the United States mail service will safely carry and promptly deliver it. Do parents wish their sons, just entering into manhood, to be exposed to such snares as these here set for the unwary? Need any further argument be adduced to justify the author in the publication of this work?

That fraudulent devices of the character described are manufactured and sold is conclusively demonstrated by the issuance and dissemination of catalogues such as this. It is the mission of the Fools of Fortune to strike at the root of this evil by holding up to the ridicule as well as the condemnation of the public the schemes and tricks by which such unprincipled scoundrels seek to debauch the morals of the young, and defraud any victim whom chance may send to their net.

The author believes that the average reader will peruse this catalogue with mingled emotions of interest, surprise and disgust. To the uninitiated it will prove a revelation of depravity at once horrifying and appalling. Yet in itself it confirms and corroborates every statement herein made as to the practices and methods of professional gamblers. The picture is a dark one, yet if it is defective in its fidelity to truth, the fault lies in a deficiency rather than an excess of coloring. Like vampires, these men fasten themselves upon the body of society, ready to draw from its veins the very life current on which its existence depends.

The following letter from a New York dealer in sporting goods explains itself:

There is only one gambling house in Newport. It maintains a genteel monopoly of all business in this place. It is an old-fashioned looking building far back in the shadow of its grounds and garden, looking quite as respectable in its sombre age as the most respected of Newport villas. I do not think many of the residents are aware of its existence. Of course the diplomats and American swells have discovered its locality, but they are pledged to the secrecy of its interior as securely as the front door. It is very difficult to get in during business hours, and the little slide shutter is carefully opened before the latchet of the front door is raised. No one knows how much money is lost or won in this select quarter. Its mysteries are equal in their methods of secrecy almost to the system of Nihilism in Russia. The man who is the “responsible party” in the concern is a Mr. Abel. If he had been called Cain he would probably have been a Sunday school superintendent, such is the irony of fate. I think that if these summer resorts must actually have a gambling house, it would be advisable to use the exclusive methods that control this Newport establishment.

Of course, this statement does not include gambling at the great caravansaries and in private cottages. As to gaming of this character—which is essentially and necessarily private—it is impossible to do more than guess at its extent. Rumor has it that stakes running up into the tens of thousands are nightly lost and won, and that more than one member of the mythical “400” has found it necessary to abridge his stay at this famous watering place in consequence of losses at poker. These private games, however, are played among gentlemen, and “professionals” are strictly excluded. Yet the inherently corrupting influence inseparable from gambling is always present; nor should it be forgotten that a pill is none the less efficacious as a medicament because it is sugar-coated.

Gambling has existed to a greater or less extent on the peninsula on which stands the present great city of San Francisco, ever since the Spaniards first settled there. In the ’30’s and early ’40’s, whalers and trading vessels made the bay of San Francisco one of their regular stopping places, and when in port the captains of these vessels and the Alcalde of the place—then called Yerba Bueno—had many “hot rubs” at “monte.” It was not, however, until the great influx of gold seekers in 1848-49, that gambling obtained any marked prominence. But with the stream of gold that soon began pouring into the young metropolis of the West, there sprang up, as if by magic, games of chance of every description, which were kept running night and day.

These gaming houses were conducted on the main floors of the most pretentious houses in the infant city, and were really palaces in their way. A description of one will serve for a description of all, so we will glance into the “El Dorado,” located at the southeast corner of Washington and Kearney Streets, on the spot where afterwards stood the old “Jenny Lind Theatre,” which was eventually sold to the city and used as a City Hall, and now serves as the City Receiving Hospital. In its early days, it was a large square room, the walls of which were covered with costly paintings; at the farther end was a raised platform, on which was an excellent orchestrion; in one corner stood the bar, behind the cut glass bottles on which were arranged costly plate-glass mirrors. A side board, loaded down with choice viands, occupied a prominent place, while scattered through the room were tables, on which were kept running every known game of chance. Faro was the principal game, although the “monte,” “roulette” and “chuck-a-luck” tables were always well patronized.

Speculation in those days ran riot, and everybody gambled. The miners, after making a successful “clean up,” would go “down to the bay” to have a little recreation, or, perhaps, to send their earnings to dear ones in the far off States. But a visit to one of the gaming houses, which was generally the first place called upon, together with a free indulgence in liquor, usually resulted in the miner’s seeking some friend who might “stake” him with enough money to enable him to get back to the mines, and the wives and children in the East were compelled to wait until more dust could be gathered. Merchants, after they had closed their stores, would risk their day’s profits, which often amounted to thousands of dollars, on the turn of a single card, and if they lost, would go to their homes, hoping for better luck the next day. Mechanics, artisans, laborers, tradesmen, all risked their wages in the games, and won or lost with equal indifference.

The quantity of coin in circulation was very limited, while greenbacks were unheard of at that time. Gold dust and nuggets formed the principal medium of circulation, and nobody was over particular about giving or receiving the exact weight. An ounce, (Troy weight), was worth $20, and all payments were based on that scale. Shop keepers took their pay in dust, and laborers received their weekly wages in ounces. Each table in the gambling houses had its tiny scales for weighing gold, and the players, no matter what their condition was, were sure of receiving their just dues.

All the big games were “square,” and woe betide the sharper who attempted his tricks on anybody and was caught at it. If not killed, he was run out of town, nor did he dare soon to return. Occasionally a “sure thing” gambler would start a house, but as soon as suspicion was aroused that he was not running a “square” game, his tables were deserted and he was soon starved out.

Besides the “El Dorado,” the “Bella Union,” on the north west corner of Washington and Kearney, the Union, on Merchant and Kearney streets, the “Parker House,” “Meade House” and “Bill” Brigg’s place, on Montgomery street, near Pine, were some of the largest gambling houses that were running in 1849-50. In the latter year these were nearly all destroyed by fire, but were immediately rebuilt, and the number increased by the erection of several other places. During the early 50’s the “Mazourka,” “Arcade,” “Varsouvienne,” “Fontine” and “Meade” Houses were in full operation and doing a thriving business.