Outside of “banking” games, however, there is one which is almost as peculiarly American as is base ball. “Poker” seems to be, for some unexplainable reason, looming up as a National pastime. Some reference has already been made to gambling at the fashionable club house and in the family circle. Under such circumstances poker is the game par excellence. Stakes ordinarily run high, no matter how small the introductory ante may be. As a matter of fact there is scarcely a club house in any prominent commercial center of the Union in which there is not an apartment curtained from the vulgar gaze, where play is not carried on for high stakes. And these very gentlemen who play a friendly game rarely suspect that into their midst there is sometimes introduced a professional, who not only wins a handsome stake for himself, but also assists in recouping losses sustained by the gentlemen who introduced him. This statement may seem incredibly absurd upon its face, yet the author knows whereof he speaks.
There is still another distinctive feature of American gambling which deserves notice. Men who know that they cannot be admitted as members of any recognized club form an association by themselves, also known as clubs, which are organized for gambling purposes, pure and simple. Associations of this character are primarily conducted for the convenience of players, yet the keeper of the room rarely fails to “earn a profit” through selling liquid refreshments and the manipulation of the “rake-off,” which is conducted in a manner similar to that followed in public houses.
The interference by the municipal authorities with the “hells” is regarded by the proprietors as a contingency too remote to be worth seriously considering. There are various reasons for the excellent understanding which usually exists between the gamblers and the “powers that be.” Political influence sometimes lies at the bottom of the friendliness. It is also a sad truth that too often the explanation is to be found in actual venality on the one hand and corruption on the other. Yet there is one circumstance which should not be lost sight of. The “fraternity” not infrequently renders valuable assistance to the officers of the law by disclosing the habits, haunts, and sometimes the whereabouts of criminals who are being sought for by the authorities. Not that they are anxious to serve the ends of justice, but that they look upon the rendering of such assistance in the light of a quid pro quo for the “protection,” otherwise immunity, which they enjoy. The reader who will thoughtfully peruse chapter X of this part of the book will gather much interesting information on this point which will afford him food for no little serious reflection.
Another pronounced feature of American gaming is the number of itinerant gamblers who wander about the country, infesting railway trains and steamboats, invading the summer resorts, and coming down upon country towns after the manner of a wolf upon the sheep fold. These peripatetic sporting men are adepts at all card games and thoroughly versed in every fraudulent device. They combine the arts of the card sharp and the confidence man. For them honor is a by-word and virtue a mockery. They are destitute alike of conscience and of pity, and ill fares the luckless wight who falls a victim to their blandishments.
Hitherto, except in a few comparatively isolated localities, legislation has proved powerless to repress gambling in the United States. The “Johnson law,” so called from the name of its author, the Hon. Charles P. Johnson, of Missouri, making gambling a felony, operated to check it in that State and brought about a positive hegira of the men who had been thriving upon the gullibility of a too confiding public. Similar results have followed its adoption and enforcement in other States. But it is idle to encumber the statute book of any commonwealth with laws whose enforcement is not demanded by public sentiment. The vice of gaming, like its twin relic of barbarism, drunkenness, will be suppressed only when an outraged nation rises in its righteous wrath and forever stamps out of existence the viper which has buried its fangs deep in the very vitals of the body politic.
FARO GAMBLING AND GAMBLERS.
The general belief that cards were invented in the fourteenth century to amuse the imbecile Charles VI. of France is one of those popular errors which, despite the proofs arrayed against them by modern research, seem destined to be perpetual truth, though booted and spurred, seldom overtakes a plausible historical fable if the latter has the advantage of a start of three or four centuries, and therefore the idea that cards were originated by Gringonneur, a Parisian portrait painter, to tickle the fancy of a royal idiot, will probably continue to exist in the public mind for centuries to come. The public journals, in their answers to correspondents, reiterate the same old stereotyped tale, which seems destined to have an immortal lease of life.
The truth, however, is that cards, like chess, originated in the Orient, and were first introduced into Southern Europe by gypsies toward the close of the thirteenth century. How long they had been in use in the East is a matter of conjecture, pure and simple, but there is ground for the belief that they are as old as the Pyramids. This is a question for archaeologists to settle, and the answer to it does not fall within the scope of the present work. It is certain that they rapidly grew in public favor. During the seventeenth century the passion for card-playing became a veritable mania among the nobility and gentry, royalty itself setting the example. Louis XIV., in whom were united the incongruous characteristics of a gambler and a miser played nearly until the day of his death. During the regency, and throughout the dissolute reign of Louis XV., under the influence of Madame de Pompadour and the infamous Dubarry, the court gambled from morning till night and from night till morning, while the nation followed suit. So in England, substantially the same state of affairs existed, Charles II., with his courtiers and favorites, setting the fashion. In a word, all Europe was card-mad.
America’s turn came later. With prosperity came a taste for sumptous amusements—the legitimate offspring of wealth and leisure—and it may be questioned whether there is any country in the world where card-playing is so universal, or where so much money is staked upon the issues as in the United States.