Evening Star Newspaper, August 3, 1930, Page 80

2 THE SUNDAY STAR, WASHINGTON, D. C, AUGUST 3, 19 At Bagp————— the patrons of our county fairs, whirl within earshot of the roulette tables. In the 65 bars lining both sides of the mabs street one may drink and gamble only between dances, and if a man is accom- panying no one he may have for a partner any one of hundreds of bieary-eyed hostesses. Waiters glide about. balancing jugs of foaming and potent beer with the finesse of jugglers, and piano players, cigarettes dangling from their lips, sit limply in their chairs, occa- sienally running the tune with one hand while they take a swig from the -pitcher at their side. Off the back streets are rows of cabins inhabited by filles de joie, surely an eyeful for the slumming Middle Westerner who wishes to know if such things really are true. BUT Tia Juana does not hold the tourist. You see them about, it is true—ladies above middle age, with small round hats pinned onto butiresses of hair, their pocketbooks firmly in one hand, seemingly timid and frightened, who approach the slot machines and take their chance. But the raucousness of Tia Juana, the blubbering drunks, the vulgar mouthings of the unwashed, repel them—repel them to Agua Caliente. - Agua Caliente is not raucous. Indeed, it tries to be fashionable, to cater only to those to whom slot machines are vulgar., There is a feeling of safety inside its bounds, a certainty that no unshaven laborer will approach and ask you to join in a mug of beer with him. There, too, is the lure of the celebrity. The motion picture stars do not stop at Tia Juana—not since Agua Caliente, a scant two miles away, was built; and there is always the chance of seeing a few of these demi-gods in the flesh, even, .perhaps, being their natural selves. There is an aura of respectability about Agua pte: there are no sighboards, no gimeracks, no coy dancers, and, if you will notice, men are not allowed to enter the casino without jackets; the shirt-sleeved must remain in Tia Juana. No signs point the way to the casino. It is of the landscape, and one a servant, done up in Spanish and belted with a wide scarlet decorous and reassuring. bling room it is, for the tables—and incidentally, Agua Caliente only gambling house of pretentions accommodates the followers of the gal- loping cubes—the players intone the age-old litany of eraps. It is customary to hear men addressing the dice: ‘“Come seven!” “Eighter from Decatur!” but it is quite surprising to hear these hobo enunciations crackle out of the ‘thromats of women in decollette, of Illinois ‘schoolma’ams and the heads of ladies’ aid societes. Many of the spaces at the roulette tables are oceupied by men and women to whom the play, ‘obviously, is new. They stand for as long as half an hour, watching and endeavoring to un- derstand. Occasionally you notice the lady be- --hind you put her dollar down on a mark and ‘The Pleasures One of a Series of Sketches by the Leading Humorists of the Day. Other Writers Who Con- tribute to The Star’s Magazine Are Sam Hellman,Ellis Parker Butler and Stephen Leacock. N the days of the Spanish Inquisition, one of the assistant torturers was chat- ting with Torquemada during a mati- nee performance in the deepest dungeon beneath the castle moat. “We aren’t doing so well as we used to,” sald this worthy fellow. “I'm not kept busy at all newadays—not what 1 call busy.” “I think,” said Terquemada, “that the sup- ply of heretics must be giving out.” “It isn't that,” replied the other. “The trou- bie is that our methods are all wrong. What happens, for instance, if we want to put a fellow on the rack? Why, we go out and arrest him and try him in prison first, and -all that. What we ought to do is to charge & small admission fee, change the name of the rack to “Siretching the Stretch” or something, and before you know where you are, we should be turning them away.” . Well, Torquemada paid no attention to the .man, partly because he himself was a con- .mflvemhhvie“andpsn\ymuun S S R A B A T Here and there you note the practiced hand, but mostly the playing is hit-or-miss. Drawn for The Btar's Sunday Magasine by Stockton Muiford. gasp with surprise when the croupier hands her back four or eight. NSPICUOUS by their absence are the system players. At Monte Carlo and at Deauville, but particularly at Monte Carlo, the casinos are havens for dozens of old ladies, many of them English, the widows of officers who have been pensioned. They come to the play every day and keep a record of every number upon which the roulette pellet alights. At night they study these, endeavoring in some fantastic way to strike an average by which they make a steady living. As the wheels whirl their pencils fly until they cover their sheets of paper entirely. At Monte Carlo I was fas- cinated by these elderly ladies, and from sev- eral of them I learned their modus operandi. It seems that they go to the casino every day with a limited amount of cash—25 or 50 francs, say. On the basis of their various systems they then risk this amount. When it is exhausted they declare play ended for the day and go home. But, if they should win, they play only until’ they have won four times the amount with which they began. They do not pursue a losing streak to the bitter end; neither do they rush their winnings. The result is that a few of them—or at least, so they said—eke out a comfortable margin of profit. But such players do not give an ingenious touch to Agua Caliente. There is no place ex- cept the Agua Caliente Hotel, which adjoins the casino and is part of the outlay, at which Of Coney Island would have been beneath the dignity of the Head of the Inquisition to accept advice from an underling. And look. at the result! Who ever hears of the Spanish Inquisition now- adays? What dividends does it pay? It has faijled, simply because it was run without any understanding of the first principles of human Dature. CINTURM Jater, along came Coney lsland, run on the lines suggested by the above- mentioned thinker, and it is doing a great business. The principle at the bottom of Coney Island’s success is the eminently sound one that what would be a brutal assault, if administered gratis, becomes a rollicking pleasure when charged for at the rate of 15 cents per .assault. Suppose somebody laid hands upon you and put you in a large round tub. Suppose he then proceeded to send the tub spinning down an incline so arranged that at intervals of a few feet it spun round and bumped violently into something. Next day he would hear from your lawyer. But at Coney Island you jump into the Virginia Reel and enjoy it. You have to enjoy it, because you have paid good money to dc so. To one who, like myself, has never invented anything more elaborate than an excuse for getting out of a dull dinner party, the most amazing thing about Coney Island is the appar- ently effortless way in which those in charge think up new attractions every year. I picture them as rather grim, melancholy men. In early life they have had some disappointment, and this has soured them. They do not love their species, but the law prévents their reveng- ing themselves on mankind by any simple and direct process, so they have to invent attrac- tions. When they devise something which must inevitably produce dyspepsia, nervous breakdown and heart failure in the victim they are happy. They meet at a special club of their own. “The lawyers got away with all my money during my minority,” says one, “but I have in- vented an attraction which jerks you up and ‘sideways at the same time and squirts water in your face.” “My wife eloped with the.chaufieur in the Summer of 1913, says the other, “but look at they could live. And such ladies require frugal pensions. Their nearest base would have to be San Diego. But even if they didn't mind that travel, certainly the gauche atmosphere of Agua Caliente, with a bar perched within 20 feet of Caliente has that bearing of unworried con- that marks the players at the European simpler ones, )Mke black jack—also known as 21—or simple dice. ¥ However, gambling is not the only lure to Agua Caliente. The hotel is excellently serv- iced and the food is the best, and moderate prices prevail. It is at the bar that Americans New York. Why, in a non-prohibition country, should beer be 25 cents for a small glass, high- balls 50 cents and mixed drinks 50 and 75 cents? Perhaps such high prices are not war- ranted, but it is true that the Mexican gov- one 1 have invented. You pay 15 and drop through a trap-door onto a spikes. in America, Coney Island is thought a Mttle vulgar. 1If it were in France, we should have had writers pointing out how essentially the Tickler and the Human Roulette Wheel were, and with what abandon and polish the PFrench populace took its pleasures. ’rothefibmthc-un.the'rucclumol Coney Jsland is the feeling of confidence it gives that the bheart of the Nation is sound and that, though we may be unprepared for war, we eould nevertheless be depended on to render & good account of ourselves, should the necessity arise. We may have a small Army and Navy, but it would be a rash power that would dere to set foot on the soil of a counitry whose inhabiiants can consume hot dogs and joe eream cones, wash them down with iced soda pop, and then go off and submit smiling to the Aerial Slide and the Barrel of Love. We sheuld like to sée a regiment of Uhlans® tackle the Virginia Reel! They would have the white flag out before the tub had done itz second bump. Again, Coney Island’s system of combinaticn tickets might solve Broadway’s problem of theatrical depression. Think of central offices where one could buy a combination ticket for all the theaters! Theater going would cease to bé a gamble. For example, if you didn’t like the play at the Gaiety, you could leave and go to the Astor, and so on t'll you picked a winner. Before I forget, it seems that th: cxplosion from the neighborhood of the kitchen, which I heard as 1 was writing my last paragraph, was the cook having a few difficulties with the oven. My wife reports that our faithful Swede, underestimating the volume of gas in the stove, set her front bhair and part of her dress on fire, was exploded to the ceiling, and is now in hysteries. I cannot conclude an article on Coney Island without suggesting this brand- new idea to the promofers. I look forward to seeing, on my next visit there, the great ncw attraction, The Oven of Joy. The idea s ernment imposes & high tax on all liqguors and adds an additional levy on such resoris as those on the Silver Coast, to which, within a given area, it gives the sole right to operate games of chance. Just how one goes about obtaining these con- cessions is a dark secret known to only a few. It is popularly estimated that Agua Caliente, representing an investment of some $6,000,000, already has returned a profit of 200 per cent to the four men who control it—Wirt G. Bowman, Baron H. Long, James N. Crofton and James Coffroth. Whether these figures are reasonably accurate I cannot say; the corporation is not divulging its balance sheet. Bowman is the husband of a relative of a Mexican powerful in the pelitics of Baja Cali- fornia and is a eitizen of Mexico—eitizenship being necessary under the present constitution for the ownership of land. Long is well known in California as the operator of the Vernon Country Club, of night clubs and of the U. S. Grant Hotel in San Diego. Crofien, the man- ager-—the quiet, silent man eof the group— is an old friend of Coffroth, Bowman was rather well known to the New Yerk sports ef 10 years ago, but none of the four has the wide ac- quaintance of Coffroth. “Sunny Jim” was the operator of the Winter track at Tia Juana and, according to the stories told in California, vir- tually was compelled to join in the Agua Cal- iente venture, since it, too, bas a race track, and competition would have been suicidal for him. The old Tia Juana track has been dismantled. LL of the perquisites of the operating com- pany—the gambling, the bars, the baths, the race track—are taxed by the government, and inspectors are pretiy constantly on the scene, observing not only that the terms of the charter are carried out, but that the clientele is Pprotected and behaves. The Agua Caliente Corporation, judging by my own experience and that of other .writers who have been there, is net in the market for publicity; particularly does it fear the prying, muckraking kind. But it has an eye for the publicity of good will and propaganda—so sharp, indeed, that it retained Leo Diegel, one of our foremost golfers, as its Professional, with ner and drawing a sizable number pr;feuion&ls in this esuntry. D 0 news comes frem Casine abeu amounts of money wen — e Upon occasion movie supposed to win or lose as much as 15, $20,000. But these are medest flcum‘ao ‘:‘: : public gambling houses ef internatienal are concerned. There i & Mmit on all which keeps down both winnings and and thoughtbe(:uinohopenthcm of the night—as late, indeed, as the players wish—the amount that ehanges hands is com paratively small, so far as individuals go. Until the enactment of the Volstead act Tia Juana was a tiny settlement of a few adobe houses and saloons. J¥ts eurrent blessoming is the result of a natural need. Agua Caliente, the outgrowth of its inability to cater te the “better element,” is a new bud eff the old shoot, and Ensenada, now burgeening down the coast, is the inevitable. Give prohibition 10 mere years, with Hollywood and Califernia’s fruit growers continuing te be as prospereus as they are, and Mexico’s Silver Coast will glitter in the sun as fantastically as the old Spanish eon- al:eistadoru expected that it would glitter for m. —By P. G. Wodehouse sound. It contains all the elements of a gen- uine Coney Island suecess. It makes a lot of noise, it throws you im the air, and it mearly kills you. Price 15 eents. (Coypright, 1600.) Oyster Farm Seheme. Trmtnmnflmaflmmmh feeble-minded investors has its eeunierpart in an oyster farm scheme werked through the mails until Uncle S8am put a step te it and sent the schemers to the Atlanta Penitentiary for 4 years. The benefactor of the small investor first tried his luck selling werthless leis en an island in the Gulf of Flerida. Me sold frem town to town, his depariure depending upem how long it took the first suspielous investor to find out the fraud and put up a hewl. The constant necessily ef skipping under fire finally wore on his merves and he deecided to try an advertisement in the want ad sec- tions of a few large papers. His first &1 read much as fellews: Ten dollars monthly invested in Florida oys- ter culture pays estimated income of $100 a month until the end of the werld; free in- formation — 12,000 words — including United States Government quotations, Government $10,000 survey, swoin statements.” There were 4,000 investors in every State in the Union and even in Camada. “The Mil- lionaire Oyster King” even went so far as to have large signs erected at the entrance to his home town. He offered a million-doHar guarantee bond at $10 a month for 15 years en which the income was to be from $100 to $666 a month. The real trouble with his scheme and the thing that aroused suspicien was the faet that he proposed to pay in annual prefits twice the total value of the entire eyster erep of the country. Y He had expected to receive a total of $4, 000,000 from his investors, and during the prcgress of his scheme he was elected mayor of his home town and announced his candidacy for the governorship ef his State. ;