Far different, however, was the manner in which Charley Teenan met death. Although a professional gambler, he had many of the elements of a hero. He was dealing faro in a resort opposite the Southern Hotel at the time of the burning of that immense caravansary. Seeing the flames, he rushed from his rooms across the street to the blazing building. Up the ladder he went and into the hallway, seeking whom he might rescue. Once, twice, thrice, four times, he brought half suffocated victims to the window and sent them down the ladder. Once more he went back on his errand of mercy, but the flames and smoke repulsed him and he saw that he had no time to lose if he were to save himself. Returning to the window he saw that the ladder had been removed to another casement, in order to rescue others. He climbed upon the sill and sprang toward the ladder, hoping to catch it. Fatal leap! Missing his hold, he fell an inert mass upon the stone flagging below, and was picked up mortally wounded. He was carried to his gambling room and laid out on his faro table.

John Mackey, another old-time St. Louis gambler, fell from his chair, dead; alcoholism being the cause of his demise. Fisher, a case-keeper at a Fourth street gaming house, was found dead on a lounge in the rooms when the place was opened for business in the morning. He sprang from a[a] good New England family, and was well educated and well read. He was a natural card player and was an expert at many games, and particularly proficient at boston, cribbage and whist. Professionals had won large sums of money through betting on his play. The original cause of his downfall was his love for liquor, and his downward career was rapid. He was a man of brains who might have made his mark in some one of the learned professions, but who deliberately yielded himself a victim to a strange infatuation, which caused him to end his life as a case-keeper in a common “brace” house.

It surely seems as though Heaven had attached to the vice of gaming a peculiar curse. Money won through this means rarely proves of benefit to its possessor, as is shown by the large number of gamblers who have accumulated considerable sums and yet died paupers. Another circumstance which cannot fail to impress itself on the thoughtful mind is the fact that so many of the profession have, as the slang phrase runs, “died with their boots on,” while their death has remained unavenged by the law. Charley Dalton, a St. Louis sport, was shot in the back in the post-office at Salt Lake City, by one Obie, who charged him with having insulted his wife. Alex. Crick, a protégé of “Old Jew” Abrams, a St. Louis pawnbroker, who served a term in the penitentiary for receiving stolen goods, was shot and killed by a courtesan in a house of ill-fame.

A somewhat similar case of those already described was that of “Star” Davis, a popular sporting man of St. Louis, after whom the celebrated racer, “Star Davis,” was named. He had a large acquaintance, by whom he was well liked. He was a man of intelligence and refined tastes, and an exceedingly venturesome player. While on one of his periodical sprees, being grossly intoxicated, he fell down stairs and broke his neck.

The author well remembers a member of the fraternity who frequented the gaming resorts of St. Louis during the period of his residence in that city. He was familiarly known by the sobriquet of “Sugar Bob.” When I first began to “steer” for faro banks in St. Louis, I found some difficulty in inducing the victims to enter the house for which I was acting. Accordingly, I employed “Sugar Bob” to decoy men whom I selected, dividing my percentage with him. He received this singular cognomen from the oily manner in which he used to sympathize with “suckers” after they had been fleeced. If his honeyed words failed to console them for their losses, it was universally conceded that there was no further use for attempting to employ the influence of kindness.

Hon. Charles P. Johnson, Ex-Governor of Missouri,
Author of the “Anti-Gambling Law,” which
eradicated Gambling from
that State.

EX-GOVERNOR CHARLES P. JOHNSON.

Governor Johnson was born in St. Clair County, Illinois, on the 18th of January, 1836. His natural tastes early inclined him to the study of the law, and he was admitted to the bar at St. Louis in 1857.

His official career forms a part of the history of the State which he has so well served; it does not call for extended narration in a work of this character. But one remark need be made in passing—that as his private character has been without blemish, so is his public record unassailable. It may not be out of place, however, to call attention to the fact that it was through his unshaken firmness and unswerving fidelity to the law which he had sworn to uphold that gambling was finally successfully suppressed in St. Louis. In vain had every agency been employed before to accomplish the same result. The pulpit had thundered denunciation; the press had lifted up its voice against the evil; fleeced victims had complained to the police, who had in turn periodically raided the gambling dens with sledge hammers and batons; yet all efforts had proven futile until the arrival of Governor Johnson upon the scene. In him the gamblers recognized a foe of keen intellect, sterling integrity and iron will, a man to be neither deceived, cajoled, bought nor bullied.