The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, May 14, 1899, Page 20

THE SAN FRANCISCO CALL, SUNDAY, MAY .14, 1899 e And Speculation in Stories of Hazard The Stock Exchange. > ! | | 1 | | | | | lysterees of the Sambling World. Pl “ TLEERE R R LT 100K a subject of perennial yet he is favored; why should I alone be BOOK on & subleet o B Punished? "ARQ. he continued, “It seems huma erest, treated WIth Wit 14" me rather strange that one of your with wisdom and with certain ootk hould enter so wicked a place on 5 calm, is “The the Lord's da = 5 Anecdc That shut him up B Stories of, Per- Gambling Hells. Memorles aBC o nples of Haz- It was French sharpers or speculators sonal Experiences in the Seieh o Sy @ te- Who, encouraged by the first gentleman tlon, with Boms = in Europe, the Prince of Wales, intro- g of Stock Exchange duced gambling hells into England at the A nor hides his blushes beginning of this century. They speedily Affalr s > jr.» found Englisn imitators, among_them a " eudonym of “Rouge et oIl ijopgyy of the Church of England. " S e Messrs. Dodd, Mes He had from vouth up been a fre: : o & quenter of French gaming houses, an o 1 ed up a precarious living, unt by in excellent ch, wrong- an he- es wt Ny Pure mat theory ¢ ented by Pas ion in e Mere il wvet- y rned men, like nd M afté rtment of math- AKe €400 time max- yme ort stayed luck ek; you have and come be lucky I ok the first part of her advice, but t not go back who, it ap- up to him outside, and t for profan- et Noir re- too long; Go _away will came ar 1, the banker profaned it, too, and 0000000000 00000O0O AT THE PIANO: E frequently see pianists t harmony Whateve v a p el the thought or feel al A not uplifting of the chest, which s 2 particu ano, glves one the appearance of The advantages to be pearanc but also in the lessening t who are ignors the pri compete to control the muscle: cal at first will soon become habitual.” ined from a correct at of self-consciousness ciples and an attitude which may seem mechani- introducing a London banker to a famous courtesan over whom he (the parson) had great influence, he secured from the bank- er a sum of £5000 in acceptances and £2000 in cash. With this capital, and the as- sistance of few more kindred spirits, who had money and faith in the parson’ business capacity, he established a “hell” in Pall Mall, which opened with great eclat, but { was not equal to the anficipations the speculators. They committed a mistake from overcau- tion s the visits of the police had, if poss to be averted, admission to the gambling room w; rendered so diffi- cult by the interposition of So many rs Before it could be reached that these precautions kept aws but in t not only the police the dupes who were fo be placed ¢ sanctum sanctorum. The conse- quence was a dissolution of partnership, but the parson stuck to the house and de- 1 his late partners to dislodge him. He ew they dared not ge into court with what was a gambling transaction, and he retained possession. He then let the house to a company of foreigners, who paid 30 guineas a day, and 13 guineas more for house expenses, for which the led the company with wine, and other refreshments. ims they paid. gambling houses ¢ vielded. The play at the Pall wa but rased house w 4. and the peared. Crockford’s Famous Hell. from 5 shillings to nom- really for any sum the 1d named to the hanker. shut up before the year parson mysteriously disap- On the northws side of Temple Bar there stood till 1865 an old house which had for centuries been a fishmonger's shop. Aft 1844 it had become a halr- dresser’ nd finally a bookseller's shop, was pulled wn in 1865, when the new Law Courts were built. In this house John Crockford carried on the business of ar 1827, when, hav- ing made money by betting. he gave up selling soles and salmon an went in for but confined his operations and fish."” This is the of stating that ford established a gaming- in King street, St. James, n Piccadilly, and finaily in St, where he erected a mag- 1g, the fitting up of which e cost nearly £100,000. It as Crockford's Club, and was h profi of which, s said t was known 1 gambl After g all expenses, amounted sometimes in one season to £150.000 Hence we may infer that, as Mr. Rafkes wr 1835, the gaming was u allel- efeated gamblers used to blackmail kford by indicting him for keeping ing house, and it cost him thou- sands a yvear for compromising such ac- tions. A’cleaned-cut gamester early one morning rushed from Crockford's and ked a man. stooping on the pave- nto the gutter. “What did you do mildly inquired the man, “I only tving my shoe.” ““Confound exclaimed the ruined playver, “you Iwavs tying your shoe here.” 1in 1844 and left a fortune t It is asserted that hls by anxiety about the Derby. Bets and Betting. icquire money, not by but by short cuts to strongly implanted in human say it displayed ftself was’ any private prop- ng developed as soon as be two opinions on any one > first two young men who ever this carth—unless they were very ing men, indeed, the sort who die u may be sure held different some pending event and backed bets. Now, as long as they con- Ives to a friendly contest, v avariclous afterthought, & nothing particularly wrong in it was a harmless amusement. But as n as the gambling element—the desire acquire some one else’s propertv—en- 1into it, the practice became vitiated ev) And at the b present it is What do the thousands who < t on a race e or Know bout the breed and its improvement of s, which is the excuse made for racing? Not one farthing; their only ob- is to win money pecially in our , when the most unobservant may see day how powerful money is. not merely to vide all the luxuri of life, but to n aristocratic. ave, royal doors, to even such individuals as may have mean and often enough shady antecedents only. As long as betting is confined to indif- ferent subjects, it may be fnnocent in its character and harmless in its effects. But times betting assumes a_ perfectly rideous aspect, About the middle of the last century a form of betting came into vogue which was known as pitting one man against another—that fs, in plain lish, wagering which of the two will first. Unpleasant Wagers. manner nvnrle of the most op- haracters_made up the subject of A player perhaps was pitted a duke, or an alderman against a bishop. There was scarce one remark- able person upon whose life there were not thousand pounds depending. The various changes in the health of one who was the subject of many bets wera anxiously watched by those interested in his life or death. As these bets were matters of notoriety, it may easily be im- agined what effect they must have had on the persons who were the subjects of them. No doubt many a man's life was actually shortened by his knowing that 000000000000 00O0O0O In th posite ¢ a Right and Wrong Way To Sit at the Instrument sitting’ awkwardly, other, or in a stooping and ungraceful attitude, which of the musl with one shoulder The outward should reveal the in- or thinks should with the repetition of itself in the. movements of the body. e bearing reacts on the mind and tends to elevate the soul. The point to remember respect. when playing el tude are not alone in ap- Practice wili make proper carriage of the body of the the odds laid were very much against him, for experience teaches us that the al condition reacts on the physical, v heavy odds were laid on the {lfe of a man with the constitution of a porter when the person he was pitted against was expected to die every week; this man shot himself through the head, and the knowing ones were taken in. Lord Stalr, when our mbassador to France, bet that the King would not live beyond Sep- tember. He won his bet, for Louis X1V died on September 1, 1715. The practice was horrible, but have we not now, asks “Rouge et Noir,” some- thing very similar to it in the insurance of child e, which is simply a betting, on the parents’ part, as to how soon they N N RN RN R R L R R N N RN NSNS RN NN N EENNS Midlands, who ought to be in respectable domestic service, has found the betting prevalent among them one of the great- est_difficulties she has to contend with. “‘One girl in _her Sunday school class— what a satire this Is on religious teaching! —told her with bravado that she had bet 8 to 1 on a horse and won two shillings. “Tell her,” was the message received from another, ‘that any girl in our factory who will not bet is despised. In one facto a_clerk regularly col- lected the pence from the girls which they had laid on some horse and handed over to the bookmaker. At another fao. lorf‘ the bookmaker stood outside as the girls came out to go to dinner and col- lected their pence. These ‘‘bookies,” as LR R T TR ER R AL TR TR LA EE R R R R R R R R R R up 3 per cent, so that I lost £150 by the transaction. T also received a letter from the broker, in which he coolly wrote, ‘Of course, we were wrong; but to-morrow they must go back.’ “That ‘we’ was rich, and of course cal- culated to increase my serenity. I was at the broker's office early in the morning, and told him to close the stock, which, while I was there, went down 1 per cent. This reduced my loss to £100; 1 insisted on his buying back the stock at that price, though he kept urging that I was wrong. And lucky it was for me that I so insist- ed, for the same day the stock rose to 112, and eventually to 114, and remained at that for some months, so that had I so held on and carried over I should have [OROROROJOROROYOOJOXOROYcJoXoJ oo oY oXoXoRooRokoXoJoJoJ oo ol cXoJ oo XoXoJ o Yoo XoROXOXOROXOXOXOXOXOYO) THE FIGHT FOR THE STANDARD —R. ANSDELL, R A. This Famous Picture. Depicting the Capture of a French Eag'e by Sergeant Ewart at Waterloo, Was Soid at Christie’s, London, on 200, the 18th inst. for $1 ® > ® will mdke a big haul for the weekly pence by the child’s death? At the time of the last fliness of George IV, when the Duke of Clarence was in- triguing with the different parties in_the and also gave offense to the King advocacy of the Irish emancipation r Henry Cooke wrote to his friend Lord Fitzgerald: “As betting is the fea- _ture of public opinion in this country, 1 will fnform you that now the general bet is that Clarence a strait waistcoat before the King di And are no ghouls on the stock exc! s our author. ast illness v sometimes in large “es of life. And on you might sce these pious brok- thus betting, attend with their fam- all carrying Bibles and prayer- their parish church! Gambling Laws. ilies, The E State in an_evil, 3 But w ta as t are set in high places, w ish Duke sets pride in being a crack hand in smashing the pipe nose of an Aunt Sally and rend ering the game fashionable, when a Prime Minister's ambition is centered on having his horse the Derby, meets with more applause rendered the most for which he than if he had signal services to the country, while thousands who have bet on the wrong hors are plunged into misery, is it to be wondered at that the workingman always has money for bet- his family may lack neces can incur heavy expense a racing or fighting dog, his fresh egg every morning while hildren must go with- out their bre o he can forsake ordinary occupation for d: to attend : present writer knows a s vard in the North of England where k for a whole week was at a standstill because all the workmen were gone to the races held in the nelghbor- hood. Of course, they lost not only the wages they might have earned during that week. but what money they. had in hand, which went into the pockets of the rascally bookmakers, while the owner of the yard sustained a heavy loss by his machinery being idle and unproductive during ail that time. Betting destroys every finer feeling, every regard for human or animal suf- fering. The bet is the thing, and to that every consideration must yield, It s re lated that at Crockford's a visitor to that hell dropped down in a fit; some of the bystanders thought him dead; immediate- 1y bets were laid for and against this be ing so. Some humane person proposed sending for.a doctor to bleed him, but to this the bettors objected, as that would interfere with their bets. Modern Passion for Betting. In those da however, betting was confined to the “upper suckles”; the plebs had little to do with it. “But now every ragged urchins' who sell newspapers or errand boy has something ‘*‘on.” The matches in the streets, the shoeblacks who clean your boots, 'are backers and layers among themselves. The police re- ports daily remind us of the fact and of its fatal consequences. Until recently, indeed, betting was looked upon as a habit confined to the male sex, but now even women indulge in it, as they do in the filthy habit of cigarette smoking. A Miss Kenward of Birmingham, who has long been engaged in endeavoring to raise tha status of fectory girls in the ip-build- In 1874 it Feiched $ 0. @ (OXOXO) the girls call ® them. occasionally fail to show up, vet the stupid girls will go on trusting others. In the Midlands and northern counties le there are fem course, get e men, and e bookmak. access (o w en to children who, of en than who are thus early initiated into courses which end in rufn. Clandestine betting houses exist in large numbers. Some rs the police were anxious to raid « lar heuse, but the keeper of it—i a beer shop—was not to be caug One day a funeral drew up at the and the undertaker's me: men went in to bave a drink. Of course, they excited no suspicion, but when thev had seen as much they wanted to th their crapes and weepers and themselves as detectives. Gambling on the Stock Exchange. When he reaches the Stock Exchange “Rouge et Noir” declares that its mor ty much on a par with its m iers. He hold at if brokers confined themselves to timate busine Vi the pu or transfer of C: there v much to complain of. mate transs infrequent mar ons ar they nth o Stock peculation which is, though this ins ant, comparatively so could easily be the broke, change. So they encour or th ke of the in fact, their sheet important item, that on the g commission. anchor appare s usually not taken into account by the peculator. It nerally is one-eighth per cent, but it is charged on the whole amount of stock nominall it always comes to a very start of the speculator at a di can begin to think of must have ris ion. the p: before he a_profit the stock ion, nut hth to ¢ T the The Scots Greys Stili Possess Ewart's Sword. er of thou another sertion that broke than v gues: ory to explain hi sometimes do w n one occasion one ed him to invest in an railway T oa s sure to come. > showed ms which seemed to confirm that expectation in the end our author was a heavy loser by the investment, as the stock continued to fall. In course of time he accidentally discovered that the cablegrams were bogus messages. and that the stock he had bought had b ed to the cor, who induced him by false pretenses to take it off his hand Company Promoters. The Stock Ex E “Rouge et Noi he reaches the moters. As a critic, is 2 man who has failed s0 a promoter, according to “Roug ' is a man who has failed {in every- soon I »dit with all hf suddeniy > is bad e deeper ¢ of comy rding to D lite h, but b when ¥ pro raeli, ture and theme acquaints blossoms forth ir pany promoter. Then he man o is n a.hurry, who telis you that time becal: the only that he po ift of the 1ces end of cheek ing 1l with irance those who do not know him w. and confidence. st bounc- which fills th respect His object then is to pro- If he comes across any > money and a com- ustrial or artistic scheme, in which there is some promise, his course is_clear e . The first thing “preliminary exy pens to know an to collar the money for penses”: then, if he hap- person of a speculative e Suppos 2000 character who is likely to entertain such Brighton A’s. the commissio 1 beya scheme, he puts it before him: if he de. £5; the stock must go up one-quarter per’ clines, the promoter—un it is a bl cent to yield him a poor profit of thing, which holds out the prospect of a Supposing he carries over at the end of very large haul indecd—takes no. furiher the fortnight the ango has to be trouble, “unless more money can bo N0 ol the ion, so that the squeezed out of h xious vietim. The speculation _begi to look rather un- latter generally ous, and therefore profitable. But while he is slowly bleed- parts with his ls ing to death brokel tening on_his blood. Seeing that brokers live and thrive by the gambling frenzy which has smitten the public, it is to their interest to foster and encourage it, which they consclen- tiously do. Woe to the client who listens to them! cries this modern Jeremiah. Ignorance of Brokers. The brokers knowing no more the greenest outsider how stock will move—if they did they would make a million or two in a fortnight and retire are as incapable of giving reliable ad- vice as they are of predicting the weath- er for the next week, and therefore what- ever stock they recommend you to bull or bear the best course the speculator can adopt Is to do just the contrary. For his guess—and the brokers oniy guess, or perhaps do worse—may be just as good as the broker’s. = “‘A broker with whom I had many deal- ings once urged me to bear Claras, as in Stock Exchange slang Caledonian Rail- way deferred ordinary stock is called; ‘they are now at 108, he said, ‘they cannot Poaslbly £0 any higher, they must fall.’ resisted for a long time, but eventually yielded to his importunity, telling him that it was entirely on his advice that I entered into the speculation, and instruct- ed him to sell 5000 Claras. In the evening 1 looked at the Standard, and found to my disgust that they had that very day gone ind jobbers are fat- than st shilling to the shark, who knows perfectly well that he has not the slightest chance of floating the scheme, and therefore has not the least intention of making any further attempts, but coolly goes and has a lunch @ of sausage and mashed potatoes at a cook shop off the victim's last shilling. But when he thinks that a scheme is likely to ‘“‘catch on,” and that his new client, as he calls the conflding individual Who iz taken in by his buncombe, is in close connection with all the city Pots'—he is not choice in his phraseology —and the great capitalists of London, when this cllent happens to own a de- cent sum of money, and is willing to part with it for grand promises, the prelimi- hary expenses are at once extracted. To inspire the victim with confidence the promoter proposes at once to introduce him to Mr. So-and-So, one of the biggest men in the city; he takes him to the of- fices of some well-known capitalist, and on pretense of going to see whether he is in asks his client to wait in the lobby While he goes into the clerks’ office, puts some indifferent question and rejoins his victim, saying that the capitalist has al- ready left the city for home, that, there- fore, the visit must be postponed. which in reality it is, sine die. But he talks big about at once seeing other friends who will form a syndicate, He really tries to bring together a syndicate which shall purchase the undertaking for a moderate Sum—supposing any sum is paid at ali—to — resell it to the public at a fanc When_the scheme is the establish: Sharpers, Promotors And the Figures They Cut in Speculation. 'y price. ment of a bank, a first-class hotel, a mining com- pany, a tramway or similar eanterpr ’ the promoter and some unscrupulous pr(t- fessional gentleman generall‘): managzwa secure for themselves from £1000 to e 000, and even more. thus promoted are in most cases in a short time, and the holders are left to lament their credulit wound share E ] RERBRRRN unnsxunmuaunanufiuaun“finsufifisawflufinssangsgungaafig&ass&u5$$$$$§3&§fi&$fi&$&$$fiflfi$§8fifififififififi&fi~- $ 5 The undertakings The promoter as a rule finds the direct- ors, vghum he qualifies by giving them the necessary number of shares “fully ps These directors must be men who up, paid inspire confidence by either having han- dles to their names or being knn,w)_\ fl:"l: sharp business men, though in reality e 8 ibi ublic know very little about b it comes to pass th made »unsubstant of many them, and thus many titled men, l¢ “guinea pigs” by being directo: companies, realize handsome incom by at the mere fees paid to them as such, but their names entrap the public. “Guinea Pig” Directors. The direction of companies h: for many years been quite a_ profe in Jtecit. "But .the practice is of very old date. From Parliamentary documents of the year 1836 it appears from a list of twenty persons who acted as directors of companies, one was director of six, an- other of seven, a third of el of nine, a fifth of ten, a and the others of two, five companies individually. th of three, four But the di- ht, a fourth f eleven and rectors of those days were but in a very small way of business; it is now on wholcsale. According to to 17,000 _gentlemen acting in of Directors for 1898 there are akb this capacity, ed carri the Direc- ut of whom about 3000 appear for the first time this year. Of course a great many of these direc- tors are mere “guinea pigs,’ dummies, who are expected to vote they are directed by the chalrman or the secre- tary, who as a rule is the only one who is acquainted with business ana company law. E A Financial Papers. The promoter of a higher sta pends much on advertising a and the many so-called financ: all struggling for existence, are enough, for a consideration, to plz the promoter’s hands. Two-thirds of those papers, some started by promote to. puff the companies th have start or are bribed to recommend, are puffe or blackmailers, according to order. proprietors will_send around to Tetaries of newly formed th companies and promise a puffing “leader” to the com- pany that will advertise in their papers, or hold out a threat of “wrecking” the company if no advertisement they act up to promi thoughtlessness or malice of is so great that while they see the hollowness of the “puff’’ th the abuse seriously, and thus the sent. And or threat, and the the public through ey take e black- malling papers often do much harm to a really genuine enterp “And talking of wrecking reminds me that as there are wrecking new there are lawyers who make wrecking their special busin spapers, company rs Ye ago it was my misfortune to be connected with a company with a large paid up cap- prospects, ftal and the brightest in comsequence of political compl over which we had no contorl, We decided to con tner of the legal firm sion been referred to. We sent and he came to a board meetin began by telling him that, know reat experience in compar courteous speech from o Sell, with_the utmost cvni led: ‘Well. gentlemen, well, for If you had not for vou I should have been ag I had my eye on you.” We that to get what business w m inst whic icatior Zot sult into the : of Sell & Grip, whom we had on a former occa- for him g wi ne brutally We his s and to which r chairman Mr. »u have done ked me to be vou; managed after had to do with the firm done through Mr. Grip, ths junior partner, who was a fellow."” Monte Carlo. When one speaks very decent of gambling, Monta Cario naturally comes to mi It is with an air of rellef that et Noir” turns from the wolves in p's cloth- ing who fatten on public cr genuine, honest wol corn s masquerading. He ¢ as gamb- ling Is not a legitimate pursuit either on the side of the banker or the public, and no one is obliged to attend the gambling in v deals olut table, as the gambler article which no one a needs a hoes are needed, he has a right to char nd earn whatever commission or per- centage he choos: Those who do not like his terms are not obliged to d with him, and therefore they have neither a aright to complain of them nor to pre- seribe to him what If there are allurem he continu them. No one it s a long way majority of visf any one having Yefore reaching it, time for r. hey should t© no one is bound to ts at Monte C vie he place has, lection and repentanc ad consequent cl of ite. Let those whose means are lim- ed and who cannot resist temptation not expose themselves to it by goin Carlo, as people who cannot s not go on In short the awa but er not the bugbear to the inhabita neighborhood that it is to hyste bodies living thousands of mil The Monagasques enjoy position; not only o they most lovely climatic conditions tax gathere: rate collector turbs their y. As they are not a lowed to enter the C; does not affect them injurieusl Advantages and Evils. “The advantages the the principality of Mo than the evils it caus not tho worth a few francs is ands for the erection of the grand hotels, beau dential suburbs which e arisen along Ment testitf; of the due ing prosperit You may say stracted from True, but the v and their contri they offer them spont hout the hope of being tt the spoilers of the bank. Aore bulk of them do not f such loss es are spread over th are far their losses, no at Monte Carlo is s of the al busy- a most enviable live amid the dis- no the gambling no confers on greater Land formerly now worth vrivate in tiful villas these the R one rlo. to the istriet to ver, t ana were it As the pockets ot e whole 53&358#325883 nuLBN 32:3 e s % | | of Europe and America. Still, they are unjust gain: s some moralist, who Aps here in England sits down to din- ner with a commercial swindler who lives mptuously in a pleasa ing in a e park, his fraud ecially culars, prospectuses smooth tongued a their all, their r for their children, a pamphlets” and by 1ts to intrust to him sion for old age, or pending their las days in' the dreary and prisonlike worl house, or are gone mad have com- mitted suicide on_ finding ruined by a probably scoundrel. Now Monte one and every one who gambles knows at every throw what amount of risk he incurs. But one thing he cannot know, and t is the character of the people who the pl: shady shady. b could not s gamblin have often st d*Alle lost easily and wat an indiy magne war Sirven Polish Count Homburg, ar from table play, was accosted whispered to I ing to the c have « who when he u sta posing to re No, not ion; wait_until ollowing day the at the ta him take snu reupon he staked 1 and lost. He ' end, but never m pearance again. The fact was tended understandin ith the was a fraud; the croupier never had his half of the 8000 franc windler had walke A Thady Gambler. the f 1861 the vi Carlo by raordinary the table viewed by respondent. I red tha rccording E nearly genuity could m to invented as le_as ht his new in it; he remained cool All this times before, and wo He had a nificently fitted up music_room and car ing sixty guests. Carlo and Nice yvear 1 ave lavish entertainments on b vacht, which were atte elit ing on the Rivi s common his speech much ¢ but a f accommodat- Ir m a ayved at made to be enormo ring of King Solom e could How Iy rich and to by which h Monte Carlo? win wealth untold the noblemen and gentlemen of high de- gree. the fashionable ladies of rank, who all t themselves honored in being ad- mitted to his yacht and his presence, must have winced when they found, to ward the end of 1882, that their idol h been arrested for swindling France. and after he was to Eng where, in Jan he appeared a prisoner af Bow zed with obtaining in e the sum of d one extradited nd by 900, he ha out of £18, —_——— First Ingenuous Maiden—How do vou v_engagement ring? nd Ingenuous Maiden—Oh, it is the prettiest one you have had! —_———— Feign Death for a Living. Few people who have paid to witness subjects of the so-called mesmeric trance are aware that many ingenious impostors have elected to make this fascinating show their peculiar and profitable pro- tession. Some of the trav lady alone eling shows of this de- scription are nothing but clever frauds. Two_deep rogues put their heads togeth- er, the one posi as ‘‘profe for the time being, the other as 2 show is extensively vertised and on a ed, before a packed of gull pro htseers, who have each fee for the is visite medical man, who k subject, a_“‘mesme sion of the time curious crowd plausible prof couple town From begi The ‘“‘sleep’ either a and pove bribed for t lendar The however, ful re Eli press has been corrected. ooooooccooooooosaoooooocooocooocoo NK BLOTS: HERE is an old & people comfortable places drops of ink on a the drops inside: the ink native persons find pictures in figure the person who placed prizes are given to the persc ame re woman, driven frantie 1 social resources, proposed the gam:« and created f sheet of pap is and forms pictur the blots. the drops of ink intended the making the larg > ved spres for the v her failure Here’s an Old Game That Yields Great Sport. m The