The Chinese laundrymen love to indulge in “fan-tan” and poker, and are inveterate gamesters. Many of them wear jasper rings on their left wrists “for luck.” They are in the habit of assembling in small parties in several localities, the main establishment being located at the corner of Seneca and Chaplain streets. The last mentioned place is also the headquarters of one of their secret societies. A police raid upon it, not many months ago, resulted in the capture of some twenty Celestials.
Policy playing is limited to two establishments. Each is conducted by the proprietor and one assistant, and they do a prosperous business. Their patrons are poor people, who are necessarily ignorant or they would not strive to overcome the heavy odds against their chance of winning. The patrons of the game invest about $1,500 per week in their effort to name the winning combination.
About $5,000 per month is invested in the Louisiana State Lottery. The local agent is the proprietor of a cigar store who maintains little secrecy, and even women and children figure among the patrons. The greater number of tickets are ordered by express or mail directly from New Orleans.
Gambling in stocks and grain is conducted through a few brokers who act as agents of the parties in New York and Chicago. They do a fair business, but it is not nearly so large as it was during the speculative craze a few years ago. They are understood to receive a commission of five per cent. Gamblers in Cleveland have never taken an active part in politics, their interest having been chiefly limited to wagers on the result of elections.
Police officials all unite in saying that little or no crime has been traced to gambling. One bank cashier embezzled nearly $1,000,000, and another about $80,000 to invest in stocks and wheat, but only one or two trifling defalcations have been traced to ordinary gambling. Recently a young man $200 short in his accounts disappeared, and he probably lost the money at roulette. A trusted employe ruined a prominent book firm, misusing perhaps $20,000; but business mismanagement and possibly other weaknesses combined with his fondness for poker to bring about his downfall.
There have undoubtedly been cases of embezzlement due to cards, however, that never became public. The laws against gambling have also made the proprietors cautious, and they are careful in permitting visitors to stake large sums. The gamblers, aside from a lot of “hangers on,” known as “shoestring” or “tin horn” gamblers, do not figure in the criminal records. Most of the latter exist on the earnings of prostitutes, and steal and gamble as a matter of course.
GAMBLING IN MOBILE.
Before the war, the slave owner with wealth at his command, with his plantations overseered by trustworthy men, with his crops cultivated by his slaves, gradually became more and more indifferent to mercantile pursuits, and indeed, to any vocation involving actual work, of either mind or body, his main anxiety being to solve the question, how should he spend his money and live. Especially was this true before the advent of the railroad, when Mobile was the principal city in the State, the most easy of access on account of its rivers, and the focus of at least two-thirds of the entire wealth of Alabama. Gaming at that time in Mobile was almost universal, the sporting element being by far more gentlemanly, better educated, and in every respect more polished than are the men of that ilk to-day. Among the patrons of the race-course were such men as Wm. R. Johnson, Col. Sprague, “Wagner” Campbell; while the gamblers numbered in their ranks, Capt. Geo. Grant and Jack Delahaunty. As long as money poured into Mobile, that city was specially noted among the gambling fraternity for the high stakes wagered on horse-racing, and the amount risked on the turn of a card. Even when “the late unpleasantness” came on, substantially the same state of affairs existed, and what diminution there was in gaming among the residents, was more than counterbalanced by the prevalence of gambling among the soldiers of both armies during the war.
At this time a well known figure on the streets of Mobile, was Capt. Wm. H. Williamson. He was a Virginian by birth, of wealthy parents and educated as a gentleman. Early in life he settled in Alabama. He was exceedingly fond of horses, and generally devoted to sporting and was a frequenter of the races in Mobile, even up to a date within the last few years. He was one of the California “Forty-niners” and one of the witnesses of the famous Broderick-Terry duel, the story of which has recently been revived by the shooting of Judge Terry. Capt. Williamson was elected Chief of Police for two terms, holding that office during six years. It is fairness of play and unfailing courtesy rendered him popular, and he was one of the best types of the gamblers who, before the war, made Mobile their headquarters.