As to whether the games are “skin” or “square” it may be said that any one of the Charleston dealers will put up a game on a drunken man with a large bank roll; but there are probably two of those dealers who will try to “skin” any and everybody.
Finley and Brown is probably the strongest backed house in the city, and it is not improbable that F. & B. back O’Dell, as he is not known to have much money of his own, and he deals at Brown’s old stand and in his building. Levy and Connor got temporarily to the end of their financial rope some months ago and have not resumed business yet. Munro and Israel do not play a very heavy game and would probably shut down after a loss of $400. They have no backers unless since very recently. Thomas Finley, the king of the gamblers, was a tinner by trade and took to the green cloth and occasional horse racing about 1858. He owns considerable real estate and is generally supposed to be worth between $30,000 and $50,000. He is the ideal gambler as far as liberality goes, and is exceedingly popular. He is generous and open-hearted and for ten years furnished all the coal for the use of the Seamdies Church; is not particularly smart except at his business; and has never been known to have had anything to do with politics, except to contribute to the campaign fund. He very rarely, if ever, deals faro, but plays considerable poker for small stakes. He is said to have won $15,000 betting on a recent Congressional election.
W. K. Brown is a butcher by trade and still continues at the business. He dealt faro for many years while running his stall in the market, but is seldom seen now in a gambling room and is very close and shrewd. His partner in the meat business is a very prominent Republican politician[politician] and is now U. S. Marshal for South Carolina. Brown has never run for office and is probably too close to spend money for his friends’ political aspirations. He is married and has several very handsome children. Is supposed to be worth $50,000, which he inherited from relatives in England two years ago.
John Munro is the oldest gambler in the city and is about as honest as a gambler can be; is now poor, having been ruined by a reckless partner in Savannah some years ago. Has had several fortunes and spent almost as many years and dollars in ’Frisco as he has in Charleston.
The other dealers whose names are mentioned are all young men and Charlestonians, except Neisz, who is an Alsatian Jew. They have not made much money or reputation as yet. The most notorious of them is Charles F. Levy, the enfant perdu of a very respectable Jewish family. He shot a man in a bar-room brawl some years ago, and Levy’s neck was in considerable danger, but the man eventually recovered. Levy has squandered about $15,000, left him by his grandfather, in about three years. He is utterly without principle and is one of the best rifle shots in Charleston.
In conclusion, it may be said that gambling has been on the decrease for the last thirteen years in Charleston, except, possibly, in the small matter of “policy” buying among the negroes. Plenty of money was in the hands of the very class of men who would spend it over the faro and poker table during the years of misrule—1868 to 1876. One of the judges of the State at that time is reported to have been an ex-faro bank dealer and was certainly a great devotee of the game.[game.]
The only great business defalcation publicly known to have been caused by the passion for gaming was that of Bentham R. Caldwell, of a highly respectable family of the city, who in the year 1879 misappropriated $75,000, and expended it over the faro tables of Finley and Brown. Suit was brought and the case was carried to the Supreme Court qui-tam action brought by the plaintiff as a common informer to recover the penalty under sections 6 and 7 of the 79th chapter of the Revised Statutes of South Carolina, but the gamblers ruled the roast, as may be seen by referring to the case of Augustus S. Trumbo vs. Finley and Brown, as reported in the 18th (or possibly 20th) S. C. Law Reports (Strand’s), which probably can be found in any large law library.
GAMBLING IN AUSTIN, TEXAS.
Gambling is alarmingly prevalent in the capital of Texas. From the foundation of the city (in 1843) until 1870, Austin was a frontier town, where all the vices incident to places of that sort abounded and flourished, gaming being one of the chief. Since the year last named, while gambling may be said to have increased rather than diminished, it has not been so flagrantly open as in the earlier days of the city’s history. The introduction of “modern improvements” would seem to have stimulated rather than repressed the growth of the vice. The electric lights, which have replaced the “dip” candle of more primitive times, have served to render the “hells” more attractive to the young men who are to shape the destiny of Austin in the future. One of the most deplorable features of the existing situation in that city is the constant growth of the damning practice among the youth. The sons of the most influential and respected families are habitual frequenters of the gaming saloons and are rapidly becoming devotees of the soul-destroying habit.