All the fourteen gambling saloons or, as they preferred to be called, “club houses,” accepted the conditions. They were owned and operated as follows: Hicks & Hewlett, corner of St. Louis and Chartres; Duval, Chartres between Conti and Bienville; St. Cyr; Chentres, between Conti and St. Louis; Toussaunte, opposite Chentres on Canal, between Camp and St. Charles; Elkin, Canal near St. Charles, and Padet, corner of Canal and Camp. These seven were distributed between the first and second municipalities, about half of the fourteen in the French and the other half in the American quarter of the city.
These houses were public in the fullest sense of the word. They were never closed, running night and day, for when one set of dealers became tired, there was another to take their places. They were resorted to by all classes, but their best business was from the numerous strangers who visited New Orleans, and who always made it a point to see the world-famed gambling houses. They were lively, those “flush times,” and not unlike San Francisco in the gold fever of 1848-50.
In 1836, the gambling business in New Orleans received a double check. The financial crisis brought an end to the “flush times” and the rural or moral element got control of the legislature. Previous to that year the French element had control and it saw nothing wrong in gambling, but the country members protested against it, and, at the instigation of a Mr. Larrimore, who represented the moral as well as the American element, the license for gambling was withdrawn, as improper and immoral, the state surrendering some $120,000 of the money it had been deriving from this source, and prohibiting gambling under a heavy penalty, a fine of $1,000 to $5,000 for the first, and $5,000 to $10,000 and imprisonment for the second offence.
The act of the legislature did not meet with favor in New Orleans, which could see no immorality in gambling, and the third municipality one of those independent cities into which New Orleans was divided by the legislature, in consequence of the race prejudice between Creoles and Americans, set the State at defiance, and licensed gambling by a city ordinance. A conflict between the city and the state followed, in which the latter came out triumphant theoretically—as the Supreme court decided that the city of New Orleans could not license gambling when the State of Louisiana had forbidden it—but the decision accomplished little practically, for the gambling saloons ran on the same as ever, for the reason that public sentiment, especially in the French portion of the town, approved of them. This was particularly true of the third municipality[municipality], or Faubourg Maugrey, which actually owes its origin to gambling, as the name of the street indicates.
It was originally the plantation of the Maugreys, one of the first Creole families of Louisiana, and entitled to a marquisate in France, and was frittered away at the gaming table by its owner. Whenever old Maugrey wanted more money for gaming he laid off a section of the plantation, cut a new street through it, and sold lots; in a sort of ironical mood naming the streets after the game at which he had lost his money. Thus it is that the streets in that part of the town were named Bagatelle (a favorite Creole game in that day), Craps (played with dice and mostly confined to the negroes to-day), etc., by which names they are called even now, to recall old Maugrey’s gambling, which mainly bankrupted the richest and most famous family in Louisiana.
The act of the legislature of 1836, although it gave half the fine to the informer who pointed out a gambling house, was of no effect. The houses ran on the same as usual, not quite as openly, but bribing the city officials and the gendarmes, who at that time did police duty.
The financial crisis worked far more injury to the gamblers than did the act of the legislature since money became scarce and their business decreased so rapidly that a number of the principal houses were compelled to close.
There was a marked revival of activity in gambling circles in 1846, when New Orleans became the military center of operations against Mexico, and when thousands of soldiers were quartered there. The stimulus thus imparted to gaming was continued, if not increased, throughout the years ’48, ’49, and ’50, when the excitement of the California gold fever filled the city with emigrants moving toward the Pacific. The transient population became very large, and was mainly composed of men, who, by nature and temperament, were bold speculators, ready to stake anything or everything on the cast of a die. Their advent, moreover, caused a plethora of money, so that it is no cause for surprise that the gambling fever broke out in New Orleans in a far more vehement form than it had assumed in the days of old John Davis. Gambling houses were no longer confined to any particular section of the city as they had formerly been, but opened everywhere. Dens abounded in the neighborhood of St. Mary’s market for the accommodation of the flatboat men and river characters, while for those of more fastidious tastes, places of a better grade were opened in the neighborhood of hotels and boarding houses. But this class of resorts was especially numerous in those localities where returning soldiers or emigrants were quartered.
Despite the prohibition of the legislature, certain gambling establishments were licensed by the city to carry on the game of “rondeau” and “lotto” (since styled “keno”), under the pretence that such games were not gambling, and “from dusky eve to dewy morn,” on any frequented thoroughfare, might be heard the sonorous voice of the game-keeper, as he called time and game.
The gambling houses at this period numbered between 400 and 500, giving employment to some three thousand gamblers, dealers, etc. They did not resemble the elegantly furnished houses of John Davis’ day, nor were they like those which came later; they were rough, and suited to the tastes of miners, soldiers and emigrants, who mainly patronized them.