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27 chapters
PREFACE.
PREFACE.
Of all the vices which have enslaved mankind, none can reckon among its victims so many as gambling. Not even the baneful habit of drink has blighted so many lives or desolated so many homes. Its fascination is insidious and terrible, and its power is all the more to be dreaded in that it appeals to a latent instinct in nearly every human breast. In view of these considerations it appears strange that English literature contains no authentic work specially devoted to this subject; while there ex
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INTRODUCTION: Hon. Chas. P. Johnson
INTRODUCTION: Hon. Chas. P. Johnson
It is now several years since I first met Mr. John Philip Quinn, the author of this book. During my contact with him in a professional way, I became well acquainted with him. During the necessary association of professional duty, I became convinced that there were many good qualities in Mr. Quinn, and all that was necessary to make a worthy citizen of him was to induce him, if possible, to overcome the effects of early experience and eschew, the indulgence of pernicious habits. With no indicatio
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INTRODUCTION: Rev. John Snyder
INTRODUCTION: Rev. John Snyder
I am intensely interested in Mr. John Philip Quinn’s book on Gambling. I met Mr. Quinn several years ago in St. Louis. I became convinced that this book is the fruit of an earnest purpose to set before the young men of this country the radical evils which so closely cling to the gambling habit. I was especially pleased with the practical notions which Mr. Quinn entertained respecting the wisest methods of reaching and eradicating the evil. While he is himself convinced of the immorality of gambl
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AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF JOHN PHILIP QUINN.
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF JOHN PHILIP QUINN.
Early education, family training, and circumstances often apparently accidental are potent influences in the formation and moulding of character. Yet not infrequently an event of seemingly little consequence may overturn the best considered plans for a successful career and alter the entire tenor of a man’s life. The invisible power “that shapes our ends,” to-day, lifts one born in a humble station to a pinnacle of fame and power, while to-morrow, it casts down from his exalted position the man
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THE THREE STAGES OF A GAMBLER’S LIFE.
THE THREE STAGES OF A GAMBLER’S LIFE.
The foregoing illustration presents, in a form calculated to strike the eye and impress the mind, a view of the gradations in the downward career of a gambler. Starting out, with high hopes of pleasure to be derived and wealth to be gained through a life devoted to the ruin of his fellowmen, he boldly enters upon the way whose end is death and whose steps “take hold on hell.” Costly is his attire and elastic his step as he at first ventures upon the road whose path is a quagmire and whose downwa
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CHAPTER I.: PRELIMINARY REMARKS—FOOD FOR REFLECTION.
CHAPTER I.: PRELIMINARY REMARKS—FOOD FOR REFLECTION.
Only gamblers defend gambling. Those who play faro, roulette, hazard; those who buy mutual pools or “puts and calls;” and even those whose instinct for gaming is satisfied with a partly legitimate business, go on with their practices without an analysis of their actions. It is the object of this work, not only to trace the history of gaming, so far as is recorded, but to expose to the mind of the most casual reader the sophistries upon which the art of gambling is based. In other words, the auth
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CHAPTER II.: HEBREWS, PERSIANS, CHINESE AND JAPANESE.
CHAPTER II.: HEBREWS, PERSIANS, CHINESE AND JAPANESE.
The Hebrews, in resorting to the casting of lots, believed it was an appeal to the Lord. It was not thought to be gambling. It is useful that the reader should understand this. Thus by lot it was determined which of the goats should be offered by Aaron; by lot the land of Canaan was subdivided; by lot Saul was chosen to wear the crown; by lot Jonah was discovered to be the cause of the storm. It is well to note that herein gambling had its sacred origin. Man cannot easily surrender the idea that
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CHAPTER III.: ANCIENT AND MODERN GREEKS AND ROMANS, TURKEY IN EUROPE, AND ASIA MINOR.
CHAPTER III.: ANCIENT AND MODERN GREEKS AND ROMANS, TURKEY IN EUROPE, AND ASIA MINOR.
It is probable that the fall of Greece was due to the license that prevailed as to gaming, and consequently to all other and lesser forms of dissipation and corruption. Philip of Macedon was planning the battle of Cheronea at the very time when dicing had reached its most shameful height in Athens. Public associations existed, not for the purpose of defending Greece against her foes, but for the encouragement of the basest passions that surge in the human breast. Both Philip and Alexander knew t
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CHAPTER IV. : GERMANY, RUSSIA, ROUMANIA, BULGARIA AND SERVIA.
CHAPTER IV. : GERMANY, RUSSIA, ROUMANIA, BULGARIA AND SERVIA.
“The Huns,” says St. Ambrose, “a fierce and warlike race, are always subject to a set of usurers, who lend them what they want for the purpose of gaming. They live without laws and yet obey the laws of dice.” The Father adds that when a player has lost he sets his liberty and often his life upon a single cast, and is accounted infamous if he does not pay his “debt of honor,” as a debt of dishonor has always been named. We are told by Tacitus, in his history of the Germans, that the warriors gamb
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CHAPTER V.: ITALY, MONTE CARLO, FRANCE, SPAIN, MEXICO, CENTRAL AND SOUTH AMERICA.
CHAPTER V.: ITALY, MONTE CARLO, FRANCE, SPAIN, MEXICO, CENTRAL AND SOUTH AMERICA.
Histories, accessible to the author present but few glimpses here and there of the gambling vice as it has prevailed in modern Italy. He found but few allusions to the subject by historians, and only an occasional word in books of travel. However, from what is generally known of Italy, and Italians, it is beyond question that in gaming this people are not behind the rest of their fellow men. In Naples, while under the Spanish dominion, there was scarcely one viceroy who did not issue a decree ag
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CHAPTER VI.: ENGLAND.
CHAPTER VI.: ENGLAND.
Under the second Henry, when the courtiers grew weary of the minstrels and jugleurs, or when they were not occupied in making love, they beguiled the lagging moments by gaming in every form then known. Before the third crusade, there was no check upon the gaming vice, and no limit to the stakes. The gamester, when he had been defrauded of his patrimony, in turn preyed upon the unsuspecting youth. He lived upon the weaknesses of human nature then as now, and watched with pleasure the trembling fi
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CHAPTER I.: GAMBLING IN THE NEW WORLD.
CHAPTER I.: GAMBLING IN THE NEW WORLD.
It may be questioned whether any other country on the globe affords a more striking illustration of the prevalence and the power of the gambling mania than does the great Republic of the North American Continent. Nor are the reasons far to seek. Hereditary titles of nobility are not recognized by the American constitution. In the general scramble for position and power, wealth counts for more in the United States than in any other land under the blue vaulted dome of Heaven. At the same time it s
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CHAPTER II.: FARO GAMBLING AND GAMBLERS.
CHAPTER II.: FARO GAMBLING AND GAMBLERS.
The general belief that cards were invented in the fourteenth century to amuse the imbecile Charles VI. of France is one of those popular errors which, despite the proofs arrayed against them by modern research, seem destined to be perpetual truth, though booted and spurred, seldom overtakes a plausible historical fable if the latter has the advantage of a start of three or four centuries, and therefore the idea that cards were originated by Gringonneur, a Parisian portrait painter, to tickle th
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CHAPTER III.: POKER AND POKER PLAYERS.
CHAPTER III.: POKER AND POKER PLAYERS.
The game of poker is undoubtedly one of the “peculiar institutions” institutions” of the United States and, like base-ball, may be called a “National game.” It finds an abiding place alike among the pineries of the frozen Kennebec and the orange groves of Florida, in the gilded salons of Manhattan Island, the backwoods of Arkansas, and the mining camps of California. It numbers among its devotees men of letters and of the proletariat, the millionaire and the shoe-black, the railway magnate and t
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CHAPTER IV.: SHORT GAMES.
CHAPTER IV.: SHORT GAMES.
The name “short” games is applied among gamblers to those which require comparatively little time in which to determine the issue of the hazard. In the present chapter, those best known and most commonly played in gaming houses will be described and the methods of trickery employed by those who conduct them will be pointed out. Chief among games of this description are “rouge et noir,” “roulette,” “keno” and “rolling faro.” These will be taken up in the order indicated. As played in this country
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CHAPTER V.: VARIOUS CARD GAMES.
CHAPTER V.: VARIOUS CARD GAMES.
The game, sometimes called Old Sledge and Seven-Up, is played with a full pack of fifty-two cards, which take rank as at Whist—the Ace being the highest and the Deuce the lowest. The players cut for deal. The dealer then gives six cards to each player, three at a time, and turns up the thirteenth, if there be two players, and the twenty-fifth if there be four. The turn-up is the trump. The non-dealer then looks at his hand, and determines whether he will hold it for play, or beg. If he is satisf
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CHAPTER VI.: DICE AND THE DICE BOX.
CHAPTER VI.: DICE AND THE DICE BOX.
The origin of dice is shrouded in obscurity, but it is certain that their use has come down to modern days from a period of remote antiquity. Dice throwing has always been one of the most popular forms of gaming, and in days gone by immense fortunes have been staked and lost upon the throwing of the cubes. Of late years, however, the popularity of this method of gambling has been rather on the wane, as compared with the past. It is by no means so common a recreation of gentlemen gamesters, who d
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CHAPTER VII.: GAMES AT FAIRS AND CIRCUSES.
CHAPTER VII.: GAMES AT FAIRS AND CIRCUSES.
There is scarcely a person who has visited a county fair, or patronized a circus, whose attention has not been attracted by the presence upon the grounds of an immense number number of “fakirs,” as peripatetic tricksters are often called. Probably many excellent people have wondered how it happened that men of this class were allowed to introduce gambling devices upon grounds which were supposed to be used for purposes of rational entertainment, even if not of instruction. No gambling device can
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CHAPTER VIII.: “GOLD BRICKS.”
CHAPTER VIII.: “GOLD BRICKS.”
Of all the devices which the fertile brain of the confidence operator has originated, it may be questioned whether any is more ingenious in conception or has reaped a richer harvest for the scoundrels who have operated it than has the “gold brick swindle.” Notwithstanding the fact that the secular press throughout the country has, for years past, repeatedly directed public attention to the general nature of this method of fraud, yet even in the present year of grace the newspapers are month afte
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CHAPTER IX.: CONFIDENCE GAMES.
CHAPTER IX.: CONFIDENCE GAMES.
The devices of confidence operators for fleecing their victims are more numerous and ingenious than the minds of unsophisticated, honest men can readily conceive. These gentry know neither honor, pity nor remorse. Among their ranks, however, may be found men of brilliant intellect and high education, who, had they devoted to some honest pursuit the time and thought which they have expended upon the conception and execution of schemes of fraud, might have acquired a comfortable competence and occ
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CHAPTER X.: GAMBLING STORIES AND PERSONAL REMINISCENCES.
CHAPTER X.: GAMBLING STORIES AND PERSONAL REMINISCENCES.
As illustrating the inherent uncertainty of betting, the following story of the adventure of an old negro slave in Alabama during the days before the war may serve at once to “point a moral and adorn a tale.” “Old Mose” was a tried and faithful servant whose inclination towards amusement his mistress was disposed to indulge. One day the aged African became possessed with the demon of gambling, and confided his desires to his mistress. Finding that remonstrance was in vain, she finally determined
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CHAPTER XI.: MY WIFE.
CHAPTER XI.: MY WIFE.
Fannie May Harvey was the daughter of Dr. W. C. Harvey, of Roanoke, Howard county, Mo., a physician who, in addition to the social prominence which his profession conferred, had accumulated a competence and enjoyed a lucrative income from his practice. Tenderly nurtured in the surroundings of a home of wealth and luxury, of which she was the pride and pet, gifted with rare graces of mind and person, and endowed with education and accomplishments unusual even for one of her age and station, throu
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CHAPTER XII.: LOCAL GAMBLING.
CHAPTER XII.: LOCAL GAMBLING.
Like all kindred vices, gambling flourishes best in large cities. Centres of commerce are also centres of speculation, and the man whose brain has been busy all day in the consideration of perplexing problems of trade finds it easy to transfer the theatre of his ventures from the counting room to the gambling hell. There is, besides, a class of men,—and notably of men engaged in the learned professions—who claim that they find at the faro or poker table a relaxation and a healthful amusement. It
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CHAPTER I: THE TURF
CHAPTER I: THE TURF
Of all the evils connected or associated with games of chance in this country, perhaps the most vicious are those which surround the race-courses of the land—not only those extensive parks which are recognized as having a legitimate existence, but as well the country tracks where racing events are casual and sporadic. The “turf,” as we are popularly accustomed to term the race course with reference to its gambling features, implies not only the element of chance as manipulated by systematic knav
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CHAPTER II.: THE EXCHANGE
CHAPTER II.: THE EXCHANGE
The origin of the commercial exchange is coeval with the beginning of commerce. According to that eminent Oriental scholar and historian, Rawlinson, the city of Babylon contained several of these marts, each devoted to the sale of some particular description of merchandise, and Herodotus intimates that one of them was set apart exclusively to the sale of wheat, corn, barley, millet and sesame. Athens and Rome also had their exchanges, and during the middle ages the traders of Venice were wont to
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CHAPTER III.: NATURE AND EFFECTS OF GAMING.
CHAPTER III.: NATURE AND EFFECTS OF GAMING.
Gambling holds a high place among the vices of society. It proposes to the young that they secure money without earning it honestly. It thus asks thousands of persons to disregard the noble pursuits and to become gamblers. True manhood is made by the following of an honorable industry. If we contrast Watt, who made the engine, with some gambler, the difference at once appears between the noble callings and the games of chance. The lawyer, the physician, the mechanic, the inventor, the writer can
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CHAPTER IV.: ARRAIGNMENT OF GAMBLING IN ITS MORAL ASPECTS.
CHAPTER IV.: ARRAIGNMENT OF GAMBLING IN ITS MORAL ASPECTS.
“Did you ever see the autograph of the President?” said Warden B., of the I. State Penitentiary. He had been a member of my congregation for years, and at his request I had visited the prison to preach to the convicts. The wagon which brought me from the station carried the mail bag, and, while looking over his letters, he held up a large official envelope with the above question. “No,” I answered, taking my eyes from the intelligent convict who sat in striped clothing writing at a desk, and who
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