THE FASCINATION THAT LED THEM
to the table kept them still in their seats. The deals go on, and as piece after piece of silver crosses from the stakes of the blacks to the whites, the silence becomes still more ominous, and the glitter of three pairs of rolling black eyes becomes more dangerous. The first coon deals the cards and all pass out, the next taking up the pack with a like result. Coon No. 3 clumsily shuffles the pasteboards, but does his “stacking” so poorly that every one gets on to his racket, to use a gambler’s phrase, and passes out. Now comes a jack-pot, where every one antes till the game is opened. The pack circulates three times, and no one will open it, although the onlookers see a pair of aces in one hand which disappear in a most mysterious manner. The expression on the faces of the whites differs widely. One is as cool as if he were engaged in a game of euchre for the drinks; the lips of the other twitch nervously, his face is as pale as the whisky blotches will allow it to be, and his eyes have a peculiar shifting motion, as if he apprehended danger. But look at the coons! Their wooly heads are pushed forward till their necks look as long as a plumber’s bill, their protruding eyes are as stationary as a fascinated gamester at a faro table, and their great flat nostrils are dilated so as to almost engulph their mobile lips, from which no sounds are issued. The pot is a large one for such a small game, and when the imperturbable white leans over and calmly observes, “I’ll open it for a dollar,” there is a dead silence, followed by a sudden move on the part of the largest coon, who leaps to his feet, and with flaming eyes, yells,
“No you don’t, honey; you squidged dose keerds.”
Every man makes a grab at the pile in the center of the table, which is overturned with the lamp, and in the
EGYPTIAN DARKNESS
that ensues a general fight occurs. The writer cannot say who got hurt; he got his body out of danger by changing venue to the roof. When he returned the crowd were equally dividing the money and the imperturbable white was disgorging aces and kings from behind his neck and out of his vest and sleeves.
If it were possible to confine gambling at cards to the professional gamblers, there would be no cause for complaint, but as this is an impossibility, the Police Commissioners should take steps to protect young men who are first innocent victims and afterwards by their experience become villainous cheats. It is a well-known fact that poker is largely played in private houses and at some of the clubs, but with these cases the police are powerless to deal, and it is only public sentiment that will break them up. In some of the hotels, too, rooms are set apart for card-playing, but as the Magistrate has stated that, on a hotelkeeper being convicted of such an offence, he will annul the liquor license, it is safe to conclude that the business is not carried on on a very large scale. The Police Commissioners have it in their power to keep many young men from being decoyed headlong to destruction. Will they exert that power by arresting these “cappers” and unscrupulous night-hawks as vagrants, if they cannot catch them gambling, and give them a term of imprisonment without a fine after the first conviction?
In conclusion it may be remarked that gambling is not the only offence of the gambler against public morals. Many of them shun drink, and only indulge in occasional excesses in this direction, but all of them, without exception, are frequenters of immoral houses. When a gambler makes a haul his first impulse is to repair to the bagnio, where he finds creatures who will welcome him when he is flush. The debasing nature of gaming is shown in the one fact that the money won is largely spent in the indulgence of guilty pleasures.