WILLIAM JONES. (CANADA BILL.)
Canada Bill—peace to his ashes—is dead. He died in Reading, Penn., about ten years ago, and, poor fellow, he did not leave enough money of all the many thousands he had won to bury him. The Mayor of Reading had him decently interred, and when his friends in Chicago learned the fact, they raised money enough to pay all the funeral expenses and erect a monument to the memory of one who was, while living, a friend to the poor. I was in New Orleans at the time of his death, and did not hear the sad news for some months after.
I hope the old fellow is happy in a better land. If kind acts and a generous heart can atone for the sin of gambling, and entitle men to a mansion in the skies, Canada Bill surely got one, "where the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest."
There never lived a better hearted man. He was liberal to a fault. I have known him to turn back when we were on the street and give to some poor object we had passed. Many a time I have seen him walk up to a Sister of Charity and make her a present of as much as $50, and when we would speak of it, he would say:
"Well, George, they do a great deal for the poor, and I think they know better how to use the money than I do."
Once I saw him win $200 from a man, and shortly after his little boy came running down the cabin, Bill called the boy up and handed him the $200 and told him to give it to his mother.
He was a man, take him for all in all, that possessed many laudable traits of character. He often said suckers had no business with money. He had some peculiar traits. While he was a great man at monte, he was a fool at short cards. I have known men who knew this to travel all over the country after Bill, trying to induce him to play cards with them. He would do it, and this is what kept him poor.
Mason Long, the converted gambler, says of William Jones (Canada
Bill):
"The confidence men and monte players were in clover. Among them was the most notorious and successful thief who ever operated in this country, Canada Bill. He was a large man, with a nose highly illuminated by the joint action of whisky and heat. Bill squandered his money very lavishly, and drank himself to death in about a year after the incident I have related. He died a pauper."
"But by all thy nature's weakness,
Hidden faults and follies know.
Be thou, in rebuking evil,
Conscious of thine own."
Is Mason Long converted? God and himself only know.
Was he fully converted when he wrote "The Converted Gambler"?
If the Bible be true, and it was left for me to decide, I would answer in the language of St. Paul:
"Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal."
A true Christian will exercise charity toward all offenders, granting a boon of pity to the erring, and cast a glance of mercy upon the faults of his fellows. He will cherish a recollection of his virtues, and bury all his imperfections.
Is Mason Long a true Christian? Read his description of Canada Bill. Then read a true description of Bill's personal appearance on page 190 in this book. If Mason Long had never seen Canada Bill, I would excuse him, but he said he capped for him once, or at least he tried to do so.
Has he shown any Christian charity in speaking of a man in his grave? Read what he says, and you will see that he or I are mistaken.
Bill was not a thief, he was honest to a fault. He was not a large man, for he never weighed over 130. He did not have a nose highly illuminated by the joint action of whisky and heat. He did not drink himself to death within a year of 1876, for he visited me in New Orleans in 1877. He did not drink whisky at all. His great drink was Christian cider, and it was very seldom I could get him to drink wine. He did die a pauper, and God bless him for it, for he gave more money to the poor than a thousand professed Christians that I know, who make a great parade of their reformation.
The public put all sporting men into one class, called gamblers; likewise they put all church members into classes and call them Christians, etc.
There is as wide a difference between a true gambler and one who styles himself a sport, as there is between a true Christian and one who puts on the cloak of Christianity to serve the devil in.
There is an old saying, "Honor among thieves." I will add a maxim or two: There is honor among gamblers, and dishonor among some business men that stand very high in the community in which they live.