John Timmins, a successful dealer, “went broke” and in a fit of desperation, ended his miserable existence with a bullet.
Sam Cade, a “faro bank fiend” and one of the best poker players known in the “hells” was buried by a fund to which I was myself a subscriber.
These are but a tithe of the many instances that I might adduce in corroboration of the truth of what has been said.
An illustration of the well-nigh irreclaimable depravity of the case-hardened professional happened not many years ago in a St. Louis gambling house. A well dressed young man entered, sat down at the faro table, and in a very short time lost $500. His money gone, he hurriedly rose and left the room without a word. After his departure one of the “profession,” who was sitting in the room, looked toward the door and remarked, “Well, he dropped his little roll rather sudden.” Then he added, with a pensive air, “but it comes easy?” “What is he?” asked the dealer. “Why don’t you know?” was the inquiry of the first speaker. “He’s one of the finest ‘dips’ in the country.” “What’s a dip?” was the next conundrum of the proprietor. “Why, you driveling idiot,” replied his confrere, “a dip’s a pick-pocket.” “Well,” answered the winner, with a yawn, “I don’t care. Glad he makes money so easily. Hope he’ll ‘dip’ some more. A dip’s money is just as good to run bank with as any other.” And with this remark he wheeled about in his chair and was soon immersed in the newspaper, awaiting the arrival of another victim.
I cannot close this chapter on faro without a passing reference to an old gambler who at one time was a prominent figure all along the Mississippi valley, and whose face was as familiar to patrons of the river steamers as were the sand-bars which blocked the channel. I refer to “Colonel” Charles Starr. His long yarns were proverbial. According to his own story he owned half the plantations skirting the river. Occasionally some one would “pick him up” by telling him that he (the skeptic) was the owner of those broad acres. No such trifling circumstance as this abashed the “Colonel” in the least. Like Banquo’s ghost, he peremptorily and perennially refused to “down.”
Stories about him were as plentiful as “pickaninnies” about a negro cabin. It is said that once, at an Arkansas watering place, he was approached by an itinerant blackleg who asked for half a dollar with which to get something to eat. The “Colonel” surveyed him leisurely, from head to foot, before either granting or refusing his request. Finally he said: “How long did you say it was, young man, since you had anything to eat?” “Two days, Colonel.” “Well,” drawled Starr, “I reckon I don’t want to give you a half a dollar, but if you go without eating two days longer, I’ll give you a hundred dollars for your appetite.”
Starr was a gourmand, though a dyspeptic, and withal rather selfish. He went into a restaurant in New Orleans one day and ordered a sumptuous repast. A hungry, penniless gambler entered while he was eating, and approaching him, said: “Colonel, I’m awful hungry and I’m dead broke. Can’t you ‘stake’ me with some of that?” “Oh, no,” answered Starr, “you see, I’m a capper for the house, and my play doesn’t go.”
He accumulated a fair competence, but gambling and dissipation reduced him to poverty, and he died a pauper. The evening of the day preceding his death he entered a fashionable restaurant and ordered a dinner costing some seven or eight dollars. The proprietor called him on one side, and told him frankly that he did not feel disposed to “carry” him any longer, that he must pay cash for his order or it would not be filled. Starr said nothing, but went out and borrowed five dollars from a friend; returning, he threw it on a table and ordered the best meal obtainable for that sum. When it was set before him he deliberately turned every dish upside down upon the cloth, and walked out of the place. The following morning he died.
