Cuphead In Carnival Chaos: A Cuphead

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Author: Ron Bates

ISBN: 9780316456517
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Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
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.
 To enumerate the “principal courses” would be a task that would
take space with little profit, but we can gather some idea of the
extent of opportunities that are open to the sharks that swim the
sea of speculation in races throughout the Union, when we say that
at the great Suburban race, Sheepshead Bay, N. Y., in 1890, there
were present not less than twenty thousand persons according to
gate receipts; while at Washington Park, Chicago, thirty-four
thousand people have been counted on important occasions. And
these, let it be remembered, do not constitute a tithe of the actual
number of the eager victims of the gamblers of the turf. In all our
leading cities to-day are pool-rooms, where may be seen excited
crowds who by the use of the telegraph wire, on the same principle
as quotations are announced on the board of trade, follow the races
from start to finish with as much accuracy as if they were at the
tracks, and in this way the prey of the gambler is increased without
limit, and his operations made to permeate near and remotely into
society that otherwise would never have sought nor had the
opportunity of seeking the contact.

A NATIONAL VICE.
If reckless indulgence in games of chance of every description, in
lottery enterprises, in the board of trade, and in the pool-room, can
be, as it is, appropriately denominated a “national vice,” that
appellation belongs with especial emphasis to the gambling of the
race-track. This is true, probably, mainly because of the fatal facility
with which contact is there had with the evil influence that draws
men and boys, aye, even women and girls, into its deadly toils. The
race-track is governed by presumably respectable persons. It has the
convincing support of the press, universally, to sustain its claims to
harmlessness. Church members and people of recognized reputable
position, bankers, merchants and professional men, are openly seen
“making their bets,” in the face of thousands of their fellow citizens.
Women surrender to the glamour of its fascinations, and may be
seen in numbers, any day on any grand stand, “backing” their
favorite in the race. In the face of such example as this, then, how
can we expect that the youth of the land shall escape? Already they
are sufficiently imbued in their personal and business ambition with
the spirit of speculation that pervades the nation, and in the feverish
haste to get rich suddenly are ready to turn to any resort that may
seem to offer them the opportunity of making large winnings for a
small investment. True, the youth may have been warned by a pious
mother or a prudent father that gambling is a vice, and one of the
most dangerous and pernicious of all that threaten the interests, the
welfare and even the safety of society. But when the young man
sees the pillar of the church, or the refined lady leader of polite
society, who mayhap occupies the front pew in the church which he
attends, openly patronizing gambling, is it any cause for wonder that
he concludes the good counsel which he brought from home was
merely a mistake, and that there’s “no harm in it” after all? And once
in the circle of that treacherous maelstrom of vice, at first
imperceptibly to himself and in slow and apparently safe revolutions,
he is gradually but irresistibly drawn to the fatal gulf, in which
character, integrity, hope, and the best opportunities of life are
remorselessly swallowed up.
Every bet that is made upon a race-course is emphatically and
indisputably participation in the commonest kind of a lottery—is
gambling pure and simple; and if it has been found necessary by
Congress, acting upon the advice of the National Executive, to
legislate against the existence of the incorporated lotteries that exist
by State authority, why is it not equally the duty of Congress to
declare all betting unlawful? This is not a new proposition. Under
existing law the illegality of gambling by betting is recognized in the
refusal of the courts to enforce debts or contracts incurred under a
bet. If the principle were logically carried out, it would afford a
safeguard to society which, as yet, moral sentiment appears to have
been unable to extend. But what moral restraints, the teaching of
parents and the exhortations of the clergy, have failed to achieve,
may be accomplished by what this book contains: by tearing away
the mask of harmless sport from the death’s-head that grins behind
it, and exposing, in all its hideous nakedness, not the moral wrong
that there is in the vice of gambling by betting, but the personal
rascality toward the individual, the plain and evident object of
robbery that is involved in all the schemes of the book-maker, the
pool-seller, and every other person who makes either a profession or
a systematic practice of offering bets upon the results of the race-
track. While our young men may be eager to get rich by the easiest
means, we have much confidence in the hard common sense that is
characteristic of every American youth, before the natural acuteness
of his intellect and spirit of self-preservation have been insensibly
dulled by the insidious and subtle approaches of a danger that draws
near him with a smiling countenance. With, however, an ample fore-
knowledge of what those advances mean in reality, with pride and
apprehension both on the alert, every young man will firmly refuse
to allow himself to be deliberately gulled, and will turn his back in
contempt upon the pickpockets of the pool-room and the race-track.

THE POOL ROOM.

We have already alluded to the pool room as an accessory to
gambling at the track. This is one of the most nefarious of all the
modern instruments of evil, and ought to be summarily abolished by
specific law in every State in the Union. Its worst feature, perhaps—
in addition to the fact that it is a skin game played to catch
“suckers,” as the gamblers term their latest dupes—is that it seeks
out and offers opportunity to a class of citizens who could never be
reached by these machinations in any other way. Clerks, students,
apprentices, and such, would in all probability never have the time
nor the means to squander in a trip from New York to Sheepshead
Bay, to witness a horse race. The pool-room brings the race to him.
He can visit them at his noon hour or in the idle hours of his evening
rest. Here he is deluded into the belief that a small investment will
bring a rich return, and is easily wheedled by a “capper” into
investing his small hoard on “tips” that he is assured are certain to
win. Of course he loses, and to retrieve his loss will probably go to
his employers’ funds to get the means to continue his play. And so
from bad to worse till exposure and ruin overtake him.
Pool rooms are conducted upon the science of exactness, not only
as to the promptness and accuracy of the reports upon the
blackboard, but also with regard to the certainty that the pool seller
will be the only one in the room who will be a sure and solid winner
each time. The pool board displays the whole course of the race, in
its smallest details. It shows when the horses are “off,” which one is
“in the lead;” which “second” and which “third;” how they stand at
the “quarter,” the “half,” the “three quarter,” and their positions down
the “stretch,” and within ten seconds after the “finish,” will display
which horse was winner, and which took second and which third
place. Previous to the race the board has reliable and definite
information of the state of the track, whether “fast” or muddy; gives
the name of the jockey who is to mount each horse, the weights and
all information necessary to the man who governs his bets by what
he considers the most reasonable chance to win.
The pool-seller works his gambling racket on what he calls the
percentage principle. In all pools sold by auction, he deducts a
certain sum, generally 5 to 15 per cent., from the amount in the
pool, and pays the balance to the winner. The book maker arranges
his book with reference to the “odds” for or against; that is, the
individual chances of each horse upon the information which he has
available, and which if he be at all expert in the business will enable
him to insure his personal success every time, except only in the
case where all the patrons buy the same horse and that horse
should be the winner a—contingency that is, however, not as one to
one hundred, and about as liable to happen as that the sucker who
has bought on a “cinch tip” will win the pot.
It may be interesting for many who have no knowledge of pool
room practices, and will better illustrate the devices by which the
“sucker” is snared, to have a few illustrations of actual proceedings
that have transpired. Here, for instance, is what is called a “book”
taken from the blackboard at the Imperial pool rooms, Chicago, June
12, 1890:
 THE MUTUAL POOL.
PURSE $400—WEST SIDE TRACK,
CHICAGO.
First Race, Maidens, Seven Furlongs.
20 Emma McDowell 105 1
10 Dora Morne 105 1
10 Jack Staff 106 1
50 Norwood 107 1
40 Flora McDonald 98 1
10 Jennie Gronnod 105 1
10 John Clarkson 103 1
3 Corticelli 110 1
20 Imogene 105 2
30 Council Platt 100 5
2 Later On 106 1
5 Jack Batcheler 107 1
10 Tall Bull 110 1
20 Arizone 105 5
50 Miss Longford 105 1
10 Jasper 107 1
15 Rock 111 2
315 27
In explanation it is to be observed that the bookmaker never bets
in favor of any horse. He invariably offers odds against every flyer on
the programme. The first column of figures gives the odds offered;
the second the weight carried by each horse, and the last the figure
against which odds are offered. For instance, the first line means
that the bookmaker offers twenty to one against Emma McDowell.
Now, if this horse should win, the bookmaker would pay out $20,
and having won all the other bets he would still be the winner,
because he would receive $26 against the loss of $20. It will be
observed that on Later On he only lays odds of two to one, and on
Corticelli three to one. These are the favorites—horses which offer
tolerably certain chances of being winner, and on which the book
maker will take the smallest possible limit of chance. The favorite
won the race and the book maker has to pay the winner $2, so that
he is the winner by $25, counting out of the pool of $27, $2—$1 of
which was his stake and the other that which had to be returned to
the winner. If the horse Norwood had won the book maker would
have been out $25. But no such contingencies are to be dreaded by
the gentleman who presides over the pools. He is kept posted from
sources that are always inside and unquestionable, and in offering
the heavy odds knows that he runs no risk. This computation of
winnings is based on the supposition that only one bet at the figure
of $1 named was made, but the probability is that instead of this
being the case the actual winnings may be safely estimated at
$2,500 instead of $25. In this business an important figure is the
“tout,” who, while actually the bookmaker’s agent, assumes the role
of a gentleman who, by some means or other, has procured a “cinch
tip” (meaning a sure thing), but is unfortunately short of money.
“Now,” he will confidentially inform the sucker, “give me $10 to bet
on Norwood, and we’ll divide the pot.” The money is produced, and,
of course, goes to swell the book maker’s wad. These touts always
induce their victim to bet on the “short horses”—that is, the horses
against which the heaviest odds are laid, for two reasons. First,
because the money more certainly goes where he is employed to
steer it, and second, because in the rare and unprecedented event
of the tail-ender on the blackboard becoming the winner on the
track, the tout’s share of the winning will be so much larger. The tout
will ply his vocation so industriously that on a board like the above
he will have given a “tip” and got a bet laid on nearly every horse on
the board. In this way he is almost certain to have one winner out of
the lot and when the latter receives his stake the tout says, “There,
didn’t I give you a straight tip!” He gets a liberal share, and his
reputation for inside information is spread among the crowd, and his
chances of increasing his victims in succeeding races are immensely
increased. As for the losers, no one pays any attention to them.
Even the tout won’t take the trouble to condole with them, and
realizing that the mob of a gambling room do most heartily despise a
“kicker,” they will probably sneak away to kick themselves in private.
To illustrate the wisdom of the tout in always deluding his dupes to
bet on the “short horse,” it may be mentioned that once in a great
while, through some influence not comprehended by the book maker
and his crowd of sharpers, the “short horse” will be a winner. This
generally happens when the horse has been managed by some
professional who, having discovered his qualities, has played a game
on his brother gamblers, kept his pacer’s capacity a careful secret,
probably has had him “pulled” by the jockey to make a bad record in
a preceding race, so that he can gather in heavy odds in the event in
which he intends to show his hand; and so the book maker becomes
a victim in the game of “diamond cut diamond,” and the tout is
made happy by a liberal share in the chance hit. We say “chance” hit
because the tout never gives an honest tip, and if he really had the
knowledge of the “short horse’s” prowess he would have informed
his patron, the book maker, and the long odds would never have
been given. As an instance of this kind of luck it may be stated that
recently during a St. Louis meeting, at Roche’s pool-room in that
city, a book was made in which the odds against a certain horse
were laid at 100 to 1. A tout persuaded a man from North Missouri
to let him have $50 to bet on the race. The tout bet 100 to 1 on the
horse, and to his own astonishment, the amazement of the book
maker, and of everyone else, his horse won the race, the result
being that the book maker lost $5,000, while the tout received a
bonus of $2,000 of the money.

THE COMBINATION BOARD.

This board enables you to have an opportunity to select a winner
in three different races. The board is arranged as by this diagram:

Third Race—6 Furlongs. Fourth Race—5 Furlongs. Fifth Race.—

Handicap. Purse $500. Purse $400. Selling. Steeplechase.
Wrestler, 108 1. Laura Doxey, 110 Purse $400. Full Course.
1. {
Prophecy, 114 Ferryman, 98 1. Irish Pat, 138
2. {
2. Copperfield, 100 Katie J. 105
 Bonnie 90 3 Irma B., 97 2. Ascoli, 138
Annie, 96 Bert 102
3. { Lady
Blackburn,
4. { Jordan, 105 3. Elphin, 178
James V.
Gilford, 106
4. { Vatel, 106 4. Gov. Hardin, 120

1 111 2 14 142 3 27 233 1 40 324 8 53 421 2

2 112 1 15 143 10 28 234 1 41 331 10 54 422 3
3 113 1 16 144 1 29 241 1 42 332 1 55 423 1
4 114 3 17 211 1 30 242 2 43 333 4 56 424 1
5 121 4 18 212 4 31 243 3 44 334 5 57 431 2
6 122 5 19 213 30 32 244 4 45 341 6 58 432 1
7 123 1 20 214 1 33 311 5 46 342 1 59 433 2
8 124 1 21 221 2 34 312 11 47 343 2 60 434 3
9 131 2 22 222 3 35 313 10 48 344 1 61 441 4
10 132 1 23 223 1 36 314 1 49 411 3 62 442 6
11 133 1 24 224 1 37 321 1 50 412 1 63 443 1
12 134 1 25 231 2 38 322 2 51 413 1 64 444 1
13 141 2 26 232 1 39 323 3 52 414 1 65
25 60 45 44 27
Total,
201

We will assume that in placing the bet you put your money on
Gilford or Vatel for third race, Irma B. in the fourth, and Ascoli in the
fifth. The number of your ticket would be 58, represented by the
figures 4, 3, 2, these latter numbers indicating the horses named, as
numbered on the score card. If your judgment has been correct,
being the only purchaser of ticket number 58, for $1 you would
receive the proceeds of the sale of the other tickets, or $201, less
the percentage to the bookmaker, who pockets $30.15, or 15 per
cent. thereon. But as a matter of fact, Copperfield wins the third,
Laura Doxey the fourth, and Elphin the fifth. These horses being
“favorites,” thirty tickets were sold on them, and the bookmaker
having abstracted his $30.15, each winner receives only $5.69. In
this board the bookmaker relies solely upon his percentage, and if
the amount set forth be amplified to correspond with the sums
usually bet at the race tracks and pool rooms, it will be seen that the
profit is not only a handsome one, but it is the only one on the
board that has the least “possible, probable shadow” of chance in its
favor. The combination on the short horses won’t win once in a
thousand times, while the winner on the selling combination gets
only a sixth as much as the cosy and certain profits of the book
maker.

FRENCH MUTUALS.
In these pools, the board is made up for each race as it transpires,
and is set forth in the following manner:

WEST-SIDE TRACK, CHICAGO.

First Race. Purse $400. Six Furlongs.
NO.
50 Tom Karl 109 10
51 Prophecy 100 12
52 Fayette 109 3
53 Hornpipe 100 8
54 Susie B. 109 20
55 Famous 112 5
56 Catherine B. 102 6
57 Donovan 106 4
58 Tall Bull 107 10
59 Only Dare 106 2
80
PLACE.
60 Hornpipe 11
61 Susie B. 19
62 Famous 8
63 Tom Karl 12
64 Fayette 5
65 Prophecy 10
66 Tall Bull 10
 67 Donovan 8
68 Only Dare 2
69 Catherine B. 5
90
In this case, the player selects his horse for first or second place,
tickets for first place being called “straight,” and those for second
place, “place.” Generally only favorite horses are bought for straight,
but on this board there appears to have been a large field of
favorites. The buyer may purchase as many tickets as he pleases for
either “straight” or “place” chances. In this event it appears that
there were eighty tickets sold as “straights,” and the tickets being
sold for $2 each, the amount in the pool book would be $160. The
pool-seller deducts 5 per cent. of this amount, or $8, and the
balance of $152 is divided between the holders of the ten tickets
sold on Tom Karl, the winner. This would give to each ticket $15.20,
whether held by one party or in different hands. In awarding the
results in the case of the “place” in this event, the pool book
exhibited 90 tickets at $2 each, or $180. The seller deducts his 5 per
cent., or $9 from this, and after deducting from the remaining $171,
the sum of $44, representing the amount paid in by the bettors on
the winner of the race, Tom Karl, 12 tickets at $2, and on Prophecy,
the winner of “place,” 10 tickets at $2, or $44 in all, he proceeds to
divide the balance, $127 equally between these two winners. Thus
$63.50 is divided among the ten tickets on Prophecy, giving to each
$6.30, and the same amount among the holders of tickets on Tom
Karl, or $5.30 to each ticket.

METHODS OF THE “HOUSE.”

Let it not be supposed, however, that the book maker, or his
confederates who stand in with him, are to be contented with a
fifteen per cent. upon the money that passes through the pool book.
On the contrary, he is the most expert and successful of all the
gamblers who “play the races.” He is generally the only one of this
nefarious outfit who receives a genuine and reliable “tip.” His
intimate relations with the jockeys, stablemen and all the habitues of
the training stables and racing grounds, are such that he is generally
able to pick out a winner, and to discount the results of a race in
advance. Thus assured he skillfully sends out his touts to give “tips”
that will bring the most grist to his mill, that is to say, to
industriously disseminate the belief that that horse will win, which he
knows has no chance of success. Under this influence the amateur
sport, and the average patron of the racing ground or pool-room,
will generally plunge largely on the horse they imagine is to bring
them a rich booty, while the pool-seller looks on complacently,
knowing that all the money in the strong box belongs to him as
surely as if the race had been already run.
The methods employed by these pool-room experts are of the
most ingenious and daring order. For instance, at a race in St. Louis
recently, the book maker had a secret wire brought into his pool-
room, by which he received the actual result several seconds sooner
than the news sent by the public wire which supplied the official
record. In these few brief seconds of opportunity, and in the intense
excitement always prevailing at this point, he was enabled to pocket
thousands by “betting on a sure thing.” In short there is no device
nor subterfuge, nor daring rascality of any description, to which he
will not bend the most astute cunning and the greatest energy in
order to extend his thieving operations upon the pockets of those
innocent pigeons who lend themselves to be plucked under the
miserable and baseless delusion that the pool-room is run “on the
square” and that he is getting even a gambler’s chance in the
unequal contest with the skillful and audacious knavery with which
he is led to contend. Indeed, it is remarkable that men of courage,
of resources, of acute perception, of tireless energy, of a self poise
that never fails, and an activity of intellect equal to any emergency,
as most of these successful sharpers are, should not have preferred
to bring their talents to bear upon honorable and lawful occupations
in which they could not fail to apply those qualities to the greatest
advantage.
 THE FRIENDLY “TIP.”
In every pool room, amid the conglomeration of representatives of
“queer” industries always there to be found, is invariably a liberal
sprinkling of “cappers” or “touts.” These are the lowest and most
contemptible of all the instrumentalities employed by the turf sharp,
and the most dangerous because they always do their work in the
guise of pretended friendship, and under the basest kind of betrayal
of confidence. The lowest kind of a bunko steerer is a gentleman by
comparison with this most contemptible of all the crawling things
that infest this footstool. We have given some insight into the
character of his operations. Let it be remembered that every tout is
in the employ of the book maker; that every man who offers another
a “tip” on a race-course or at a pool room is a “tout,” beyond any
peradventure, and be certain that his frank and apparently generous
and off-handed advances are but in reality the means by which he
intends to aid in the operation of picking your pocket. He is a liar by
instinct, by choice and by occupation, and no matter how engaging
his manners, or however plausible his representations, you may
safely set him down as a thief, and deal with him accordingly. His
very approach is an insult to the intelligence of every man whom he
seeks to “play for a sucker.”

EXTENT OF THE DEPREDATIONS OF TURF GAMBLERS.

The amount of money abstracted from the business industries,
and incomes of the people, mainly of the cities, of the United States,
is simply something appalling in its magnitude. In all the great
centers of population in the United States: New York, Chicago,
Philadelphia, Boston, St. Louis, Cincinnati, Louisville, Kansas City,
Denver, New Orleans and San Francisco, the depredations of the
gambler will be found to run into the millions in each case. In
Chicago and New York it is impossible to make any estimate. The
actual truth, if it could be revealed, would no doubt be deemed
incredible. One fact, however, that is definitely ascertained, will give
some idea of the magnitude of this crime against society, in the
western metropolis. At the Fall meeting at Washington Park, in 1889,
forty-two gamblers paid to the track authorities, $100 each per day
for the term of twenty-four days, the duration of the meeting. That
amounted to $100,800. In addition to that they had to pay for the
most expensive kind of living at the highest-priced hotels; and had
to pay for “police protection,” touters, cappers and hangers-on,
salaries that professional men would envy, and had to make high-
rollers’ profits. Altogether, there cannot be a question that these
sharpers, for the privilege for which they paid over $100,000, must
have taken away out of the city, in the neighborhood of half a million
of dollars for this one meeting alone. This would represent at a fair
computation $2,000,000 for the year, without taking into account the
enormous amount constantly being drained from the community by
the other gambling operations.

NEVER A LOCAL AFFAIR.

In addition to these features—which certainly those responsible
for the social, moral and material welfare of the community do not
seem to realize—it is to be remembered that when the race-meeting
has closed, when the principal thieves with their robber retainers
have departed for the scene of their next activity, and good people
heave a sigh of relief that their boys or their clerks or their students
are now no longer in danger of this temptation, their deadly
influence still remains. While the races, for instance, are progressing
in St. Louis, the pool-rooms, the billiard rooms and saloons, by use
of the telegraph, continue to keep alive the taint of turf gambling, to
keep the temptation to our youth ever present, and to make easy for
all, the deadly descent to Avernus. Here, too, the work of the skin
gambler, the jackal of his tribe, is made particularly easy. Fraternities
of these fragrant personalities are organized, who between the
different cities keep each other “posted” on the true tips on races,
and give the very latest and most reliable information as to the
probabilities of each race. The dupe bets upon the regular
“blackboard” reports; the scoundrel upon a dead certainty. The
robber rejoices in his good fortune; the victim curses his “bad luck,”
perhaps, but has no suspicion that he has not had an even chance
upon the board.

POOL-ROOM HABITUES.
If any young man, or old man for that matter, who is in the least
degree fastidious upon the point of keeping decent company, will but
get some one acquainted with the character of pool-room
assemblies, or take the trouble to exercise judgment for himself, he
will learn or perceive that which will make him take himself speedily
away. Here all the proper distinctions of society are violated, and the
lawyer or doctor, lost by his infatuation to self-respect, may be
observed taking “pointers” from a ragged and ill-smelling stable-boy.
The banker, with the cashier of his competitor, are jostling with a
frowsy bootblack; the business man discusses the board with the
pickpocket; the thief and gambler is everywhere. The odor of state
prison associations is upon many. The pimp, the bummer, the thug,
the midnight housebreaker and the daylight lawbreaker, all mingle in
the throng with the representatives of business probity and youthful
innocence—with the prop and stay of one family, and with the hope
and pride of another household. If it were not for the fascination
that centers upon the betting board and renders decency oblivious
to its shameful surroundings, no man of sense, with a spark of
manhood or self respect about him, could, for a moment endure the
contamination of surroundings so degrading. The scene is one of the
most repulsive that any pure mind could conceive. It is the
monstrous anomaly presented of the vesture of life with warp of
virtue and woof of vice.

FEATURES PECULIAR TO THE TRACK.

While many of the evil influences which are organized in the pool-
room to defraud, deceive and destroy, are common to the race-
track, yet the latter possesses nefarious peculiarities whose features
ought to be well scanned, and therefore carefully avoided. At the
race track, while the vile types of character which infest the pool-
room are to some extent visible, they have not the same freedom of
communication nor familiarity with the visitor to the track as is the
case in the pool-room. In the pure outer air they shrink from
intrusion upon respectability, and are content to flock by themselves.
Here it is, the well-dressed thief, the polite and polished tout, the
sanctimonious sharper, and the keen and experienced shark, who
carry on the operation of fleecing the victims of turf rapacity are to
be found. The scene in itself is far from repulsive, as is the case with
the pool-room. On the contrary, it is a kaleidoscopic view of human
society of every decent grade seen in its most attractive form. Costly
equipages, daintily dressed fair ladies, bright colors, the beauty of
flowers and the fragrance of delicate perfume; men, each one
dressed, like McGinty, in his best suit of clothes, moving hither and
thither in constant bustle, flutter and excitement, the busy hum of
multitudes of voices and the general and exhilarating impression of
life, movement and animation, combine to give the race-course
attractions that are apt to obscure its deadly menace to honor,
honesty and morality. Looking beneath this fair exterior, however, we
find a very charnel house, reeking foul with infamy and fraud.

THE LADY GAMBLER.

Here we may observe the lady of fashion in her costly equipage
stopping to despatch her coachman for a card, and to take
instructions for a tip. Of course he gets the tip, for he knows where
to go for it. He and the tout are pals, and after the lady shall have
lost every one of her eager and confident ventures and leaves the
ground with pocket-book light but disappointment heavy in her
heart, we may get a glimpse at the decorous coachee as he smiles
softly to himself, and thinks upon the liberal portion of his mistress’
money he will have to divide with the tout in the evening. Ladies
who visit the race-track to bet are carefully “spotted;” their servants
are suborned, and they become the very easiest and silliest victims
that fall to the lot of the “fancy.”

THE CONFIDENTIAL STAKE-HOLDER.

A common swindle in the crowd at the pool-seller’s stand at the
track is the eager and excited young man who is victimized by a
brace of sharpers. They have watched him and sized him up; they
recognize when he is ripe enough to pick and then dexterously
perform the operation of gathering him in. “Bet two to one on Susie
G.,” cries Mr. Verdant Green, after a short argument with his elbow
neighbor. “I’ll take you,” retorts the other, counting out his bills,
“we’ll put the money into the hands of this gentleman here.”
Benevolent-looking rascal, who has been abstractedly looking the
other way, is appealed to and consents to be the depository of the
wagers. The race is on; excitement becomes intense; everybody is
straining eyes upon the flying horses. Not so the confidential stake-
holder and his friend. They have gone from the gaze of Mr. Verdant
Green—“though lost to sight, to memory dear.” If they could be
found ten minutes later they might be discovered in the act of
dividing an easily earned “swag.” This kind of swindle is as old as the
flood. But all do not read the newspapers, and, as the gams say,
“there’s a sucker born every minute.” That is a cardinal doctrine with
them, and they ought to believe in it firmly, for does not their
experience seem to prove it? No one, however, who has read this
book, whether he read newspapers or not, will be liable to be
deceived by this simple fraud.

SKIN GAMES OUTSIDE THE TRACK.

One of the very worst features that attend race meetings is the
unavoidable presence, at every convenient point of proximity to the
race track, and lining every approach and avenue to the central
scene, of all the known skin games of which the reader of this book
will have been afforded ample knowledge elsewhere. Here assemble
the three-card-monte swindler, the shell-game shark, the wheel of
fortune fakir, and in short every conceivable representative of the
smaller forms of swindling by means of the practice of gambling.
They cannot, it is true, get into the enclosure. Race-track
representatives draw the line of its virtue there. True they are not a
whit worse than their brethren inside, who play for higher game.
Both are merely plundering honest people by means of gambling
schemes. It is the case of the pot saying to the kettle, “Keep off; I
fear you may besmut me.” But the shell game man and his confreres
do not hanker to be within the sacred high fence. They can catch
their kind of suckers just as well outside, as they come and go; and
many a confiding innocent beside, who has not enough money to
buy a seat on the grand stand, nor to make a bet on the race, has
yet sufficient to lose by a turn of the wheel. They are not particular,
bless you, these smaller knaves. They do not want the earth. So
long as they get all the sucker has got, even though it be but a little,
they are content.
Again, there are cases where the winning horse actually has
become sick; so sick that he has had to be scratched, or been
compelled to fail in even getting a “place,” and that even where the
stable has been watched night and day by a man with a
blunderbuss. Of course everybody knows, including the dupes who
have laid their money on him, that the favorite has been “dosed.”
Some suspect that the watcher may have been bribed by the enemy,
and permitted his care to be drugged for a fee. It might be; but the
odds are in favor of his innocence. The experienced mind will look
for a larger villain. There was a big sum of money on the race: it
would be an easy matter for the owner of the horse winning to
scratch him, or allow him to be beaten, and win more than was on
the board and in the stakes. Horses have been sold out by their
owners, on American and English race courses, and will be again, so
long as knavery lasts in the form of gambling on horse racing. And
when you observe that said owner is particularly tumultuous and
volcanic in the expression of his wrath, and encrimsons the
surrounding air with richly embroidered profanity, then you may be
tolerably sure that you might reach the secret of the case if you
could only get deep down into his trousers pockets.

WAYS THAT ARE DARK AND TRICKS THAT ARE NOT VAIN.
In no other human enterprise is it more frequently demonstrated
that “the race is not always to the swift.” It is a not uncommon
practice for owners of a horse by confederacy with book makers,
and other necessary aids, to groom a horse to win a heavy stake
upon a dead certainty. First the horse and his capabilities are
discovered. Then he is ridden in one or two races to lose. He
becomes regarded as a permanent tail-ender. His appearance on the
blackboard is greeted with derision. Reports are circulated that the
horse is “sick,” particularly just before the event for which he is
being held back. He makes his appearance when his time has come.
Nobody will bet on him. The wildest sort of odds against him are
cheerfully offered, and as quietly gathered in by the confederates of
the owner and pool-seller. He takes the field and comes in an easy
winner in such a handsome manner that old sports who were not in
the combine, recognize, with words not loud but deep, as they go
down into their pockets to settle, that they have been “sold again.”
In this as in all other ways the average bettor or amateur gambler
stands no show. He has no chance, though he may think he has. He
is simply food for sharks.

THE JOCKEY.
As the “king maker” to the claimant to the thrones of the days of
old, so the jockey to the horse race, and to the high hopes which
rest upon the particular animal in his charge. The jockey is generally
a kind of person who would be a stable-boy, a boot-black or a street
sweeper, if he were not a jockey. Being a jockey, he is clothed in
purple and fine linen, and gets his $10,000 or $12,000 per year—
which would pay salaries for two ministers of the gospel of the very
first water, or of at least four superintendents of schools. Is the
jockey paid this magnificent salary for being a jockey? Not at all; nor
is he paid for being honest. It is for being honest to his employer in
carrying out his wishes in regard to the horse, as it may happen to
be more profitable to the owner to win or lose. Do jockeys ever sell
a race? Probably: sometimes in obedience to the orders of the
owner, and occasionally on his own account. In the latter event it is
generally his last race; but he can afford to retire to an opulent
private life, for his reward is exceedingly liberal. Who shall tell when
the jockey is riding honestly or dishonestly? He alone knows the
minutest shade of the temper and capacity of the horse. Half a nose
may lose a race when he has seemed to have done his best. And yet
he might have won by a neck had he so elected. The plain amateur,
everyday sport who is slated to be swindled in any case, as well as
the anxious owner, the vendor of pools, and the maker of books, are
all at the mercy of the discretion of the jockey. Hence the frills upon
his raiment; hence a salary so large that it is concluded that life can
offer him no other temptations. In very many instances, indeed, the
jockey is the instrument through whom the thousands of dupes are
sold, the owner sometimes directing the robbery, and on other
occasions being included in the list of goods delivered. The high-
salaried jockey is a part of an evil system. Take away the gambling
feature from horse racing, and let us have honest sport, and the
jockey would be glad indeed to ride “square” for a dollar a day and
found. And there will be no honest competitions of speed on the
race-track until the immoral, rascally and thieving element of betting
on the result, or gambling, as you may be pleased to term it, has
been abolished, either by legal enactment, by public opinion, or by
repudiation on the part of the people who now patronize it—in which
latter case, the victims refusing to come to the fold to be sheared as
they do now, the evil would die for want of pockets to pick.

THE HANDICAP FRAUD.

In the “handicap” race lies one of the great opportunities for
rascality on the race track. There is no doubt that some of the
events which offer the largest prizes, in which the public takes the
deepest interest, and which seem on the surface to be about the
fairest tests of all for a square contest of speed, have become
masterpieces of organized scoundrelism. The theory of the handicap
is that all the horses are so exactly weighted that they start on a
footing of perfect equality in the race, and that if it were possible for
them all to cross in an exact line at the starting point, they would
come under the wire nose to nose. Of course, to secure such an
exact start is an impossibility, and the struggle is presumed to be a
supreme effort on the part of each jockey to make up the space lost
at the start. It makes a grand and thrilling spectacle to witness a
handicap race: but it is generally a delusion. They are just going
through the motions, and any gentlemen in the combination can tell
you when the “start” is declared which horse is destined to come out
first at the finish. In cases of crooked races of this kind, the horse is
generally selected a season in advance and a combination between
certain leading horsemen is made to allow him to be the winner and
divide stakes and betting winnings. The stable from which this “dark
horse” comes will have generally two or three others in the field, and
the selected winner is ridden falsely for a whole season, and given a
bad record, so as to give him so ridiculously light a weight at the
handicap race that his winning is a comparative certainty. To be
sure, other elements of fitness to win the race have been carefully
ascertained, and his exact speed and staying qualities are well
known to those interested. When he goes into the field a certain
winner, he gets lightest weights and the longest odds to be had, and
when he comes under the wire he is worth his weight in gold to his
owner or managers. Sometimes it happens that there are two
cliques working in the dark in this fashion, and then a division has to
be made. A private meeting between the two selected horses is had,
and this is a race for keeps and in which the best horse wins. Then
both parties form a common syndicate, and labor to double the
anticipated profits. Being leaders of the turf, they have ample
opportunity to gull the public. The sporting papers, or sporting
editors are “tipped” to systematically “bear” the winning horse, and
to “write up” other horses which appear to give the public a fair
chance for winning, or at least an even chance in betting upon the
few favorites which have been selected for “stool pigeons,” which
are “bulled,” in the estimation of the public without stint. When it
comes to the test, the dark horse has a comparative walk-over; the
syndicate reaps a golden harvest, and the public can divide the loss
between the individual suckers who have been gulled. Sometimes it
has happened that a genuine dark horse has honestly won, and
these schemers come to grief. But that is as rare as teeth in the
mouth of a hen, and the fact remains, generally speaking, that in
this as in every other department of betting on the events of the
turf, the confiding public is swindled on a deliberate system by which
the professional gambler could not lose if he chose, unless he were
to conspire actively to attain that end. This, however, there is no fear
of, for a more selfish, cold-blooded and rapacious breed of blood-
hounds never pursued a defenceless prey.

OFFICIALLY PROTECTED CRIME.

The author of this work has traveled over most of the surface of
the United States, and has set up the green tables in towns and
cities in nearly every State in the Union, and in each and every
instance he has been compelled to purchase official protection for
his unlawful trade; making payments in some cases to mayors;
sometimes to the chiefs of police or city marshals, and on other
occasions to individual policemen. In this way the authority that is
invested with the duty of protecting society is suborned and
prostituted to the vile end of extending official protection to the very
crime which it is its sworn duty to exterminate. That this perversion
of public authority is almost universal seems to be unquestionable.
We have recently been furnished with a forcible example of this in
the great city of Chicago, where it has been strikingly illustrated that
when rogues fall out honest men sometimes get their own. For
months in the western metropolis efforts had been made to compel
the public authorities to the enforcement of the law regarding this
vice. It was persistently denied by the local authorities that there
was any gambling going on in Chicago, and this in the face of a
general public knowledge to the contrary. In order to prove the
hypocrisy of the position of the officers of the city government in this
matter, a daily newspaper entered upon a crusade upon its own
account. Private detectives were hired and raids constantly made for
some weeks, resulting in many arrests, the seizure of a large
quantity of gaming apparatus and its destruction in the court-rooms
of the city. Yet, still the authorities refused to act and continued to
ignore the prevalence of gambling rooms throughout the city, even
after the press had given lists of names and full information upon
which to proceed. It was publicly and very directly intimated that
this alleged ignorance on the part of the city government was a
matter of bargain and sale—that specific money payments were
made by the criminals for immunity from the proper consequences
of their criminal operations; that, in fact, the officials of a great
corporation had been suborned to become accessory to the
operations of the gamblers. One part of this nefarious understanding
was that while the races at Washington Park were in progress the
down-town pool-rooms should remain closed in order that the race-
track swindlers might be enabled to make the most of their
opportunities. With the same scrupulous fidelity which is said to
characterize transactions between some other violators of the law,
this agreement was carried out. Then followed another race meeting
at the track of one Corrigan, a noted horseman on the West Side.
Corrigan claimed the same privilege of shutting out the pool-room
competition as had been extended to the Washington Park club.
The pool-room keepers refused to recognize any obligation of the
kind. They claimed that their agreement with the city administration
had been completed; that they could not afford to remain longer
closed up, and that by reason of their payment of the assessments
which had been regularly levied upon them by the representatives of
the city administration, they were entitled to continue their business
without molestation. Then Corrigan began a war upon them by the
aid of a private detective organization, and the shameful fact that
the gamblers had the protection of the police force and its
management became apparent beyond dispute. Not only was this
the case, but the officials who had hitherto placidly ignored general
and widespread gambling in the center of the city, became the active
and open allies of the city gamblers, and used their legal powers in
an endeavor to punish Corrigan by making arrests at the race-track.
Corrigan resorted to the courts for protection against this
interference, and secured a bill of injunction restraining the Mayor
and Chief of Police from interfering with book making at his track. In
the bill filed to secure this injunction the whole disgraceful bargain
between the representatives of the city’s police force and the crooks
and gamblers was distinctly related, alleging a direct compact of
corruption by which crime purchased a stipulated protection at the
hands of those sworn to uphold and enforce the laws. There is little
reason to doubt that this practice is not confined to Chicago. It
exists everywhere. It calls for a remedy, because it is a dangerous
and deadly menace to morality, and to the security and safety of
society. An aroused public opinion is needed everywhere to offset
this great evil, and it is one of the earnest purposes of this work that
good people may be awakened to the sense of the danger that
threatens the public welfare in this particular. The foundation of
justice, the fountain of the law, are thus assailed with an
unscrupulous boldness that would be incredible if the facts were not
beyond dispute. It is impossible to conceive a graver danger to the
best interests of the republic than this widespread pollution of the
honor of the custodians of law and morality, and the instinct of self-
preservation on the part of all the decent elements of society should
point the way to a united effort to secure reform and redress.

THE EXTENT OF THE MANIA.

Year by year the fever of gambling on the races increases in
intensity and the range of its operations. Thousands upon thousands
go to the races who would not be able to distinguish between a
Kentucky thoroughbred and a Miami valley towpath mule. They do
not go for the “sport” there is in a splendid contest between the
noblest of the brute creation. They go to “speculate,” to “buy pools;”
in short, to gamble, in the idiotic hope that by some blind chance
they may return a “winner,” with a hat full of gold bought for a silver
dollar. In fact they go out sheep and they return home shorn.
Speaking of the recent universality of this gambling mania, a story
goes that lately a St. Louis wholesale merchant’s cashier came to
him one day and said:
“I should like to get away this morning sir; my sister is to be
married to-day.”
“Certainly, certainly,” said the good-natured merchant.
Presently came the book-keeper, with a rueful countenance, who
said:
“I’m feeling very unwell, sir, and if you could spare me, I’d like to
be excused for to-day.”
The amiable merchant cheerfully gave the requested permission.
Shortly after the errand boy appeared.
“Please, sir; my grandmother died last night, and she’s to be
buried this afternoon. Please may I go home?”
“To be sure, my boy,” said the merchant. “Sorry for your mother;
here’s a quarter for you.”
“Well,” soliloquized the merchant, “since they’re all gone, I might
as well shut up shop. I guess I’ll call and see the doctor to-day.”
At the doctor’s he got word that the physician had just been called
away to visit a patient in the country, so he concluded to do some
business with his lawyer. At the latter’s office he discovered that the
man of law had gone to file a paper in the probate court.
“Well, if I can’t see anybody,” said he to himself, “I might just as
well go over to the races awhile.”
As he approached the grand stand he observed astride the roof a
small animate object, which closer inspection proved to him was his
office boy, who was thus attending his grandmother’s funeral. In
front of the stand stood the doctor holding a roll of bills in one hand,
and shouting for bets on his favorite horse. Up on the stand he
observed the lawyer wildly swinging his hat and hallooing like a
maniac. Passing around the corner of the stand he came upon his
sick clerk and the one who was marrying his sister, each with a
schooner of lager in his hand and in an evidently hilarious condition.
 “Well,” mused he, “King David was a good judge of human nature
when he said, ‘All men are liars.’”

A FALSE GUIDE.
There is one topic more that may appropriately be used to
conclude this chapter, and that is the recalcitrancy to the highest
welfare of the people, and the best interest of true public morality, of
the most powerful instrument for good or evil that to-day exists. The
press of the country is not only fully cognizant of the deplorable evils
that arise from gambling on the turf, but lends to it countenance,
encouragement and aid; and it does so undoubtedly for the money
there is in it. The newspapers spread page after page of the turf and
its events over their daily issues. The attractions and the interest of
the race meetings are set forth with all the skill at their command.
They become agents of thieves by publishing “pointers” on the
races, and giving advice to bettors which is no more honest nor
reliable than that of the sharks of the pool-room. They are thus false
to their high mission; false to their lofty responsibilities, which
should in all things guide and direct; false to the interests of society,
and to the welfare of their readers and patrons. Surely it is time to
call a halt in the prostitution of this noble influence to the purposes
of race track gambling and systematic knavery. The sordid influence
which leads them to become an active party to the debauchery of
public morals would no doubt give them the cohesion in action that
grows out of a common source of plunder; but newspapers are
amenable to one influence—that of a united public opinion. Let the
ministers of the gospel, the natural guardians of our morality; the
teachers, the parents, and all good men everywhere, bring a united
and emphatic protest to bear upon the press, to induce it to desist
from encouraging this national crime, and from familiarizing the
youth of America with the methods and fascinations of turf
gambling, and we may yet hope to see the newspapers of the land
stand upon this question on the side of the family hearth, and of
God and morality.