AMERICAN SPORTS.

Waikato Times, Volume I, Issue 74, 19 October 1872, Page 3

AMERICAN SPORTS.

(From JJulorav/a.)

Nkxt to trotting-matches, awl even ranking before thorn an regards it,ft universality, I should say that, gambling at, cards wax (lie principal riH>uree of those jn want of something wherewith t;o get through their Hpare time in America; for it is largely indulged by Ip'gh and low, rich and poor alike, with no distinction whatever, nave as to the respective amounts of their stakes. As they are taxed by law, it may he naid t,!i:if lotteries lire openly rccignlsed by the executive, although none are supposed to he permitted to exist in any of those Stales incorporated in the I, r iron. This fact, however, is easily evaded by making their hcud-ipiarl ers at. Havana., or in some of the territories which are without, the pale of t,lie constitutional law. The drawings of these are to lie seen daily advertised in the riewßpapers, without any pretence whatever; and the agents of the lotteries or brokers, keep ollices called policy-shops, which are also duly licensed by the law that is presumed to prevent, them, and where you can any day walk in without, disguise and buy a share in 1,1k; next, "presentation!" The negroes are great fellows for patronizing these p'aces, and spend every spare cent they can scrape together in thus wooing Dame Fortune, most unsuccessful!y as a rule. There is n, legend current in darkey hind, that once upon a time an Ethiopian gentleman became a millionaire by dreaming of the lucky numbers 4, 5, and 15, and backing his vision ; but the generality of his countrymen who follow in his loolsteps do not by any means achieve ho happy a result. The richer and more speculative members ol the sporting fraternity play heavily at the different " Earo" banks, or private "hells," which a,re tolerated .sub rosa in New York and most of the other chief cities of the Union. At Saratoga, and one or two other favoured localities, gambling is allowed openly, as at Hamburg or l'aden- Baden ; but the " Finpire City" and its imitators in w-'ckedness, like l.lie virtuous Uoston, makes a pretence of decency, which cannot fail to redound to its credit when it is publicly known at I,lie same time that two of the principal judges at the bench, besides the whole erew of the city magi sir,'icy are as great gamblers, or " sport,snien," as t hey are characteristically called in the States, as could be found anywhere. I remember in the w inter of '(>(>, just after a great razzia by the police on some of the alleged chief gambling dens of .Manhattan, reading a few mornings afterwards in the columns of the leading papers of a great "sitting" held at " Faro," wherein chief-magistrate lien Wood had lost the sum of some two hundred thousand dollars to Congressman John Morrissy, the ex-prize-fighter, and backer of Uceiian, and now law-maker of the United Stales. It reminded one of the iniquitous times of the " .Finest Gentlemen in Europe," when Fox and Sheridan used to pauperise their unhappy descendants at chicken-hazard. Allot her popular game, before it was suppressed bv the police, was called Kino," resembling the old German one of Lotto. Each playcis furnished with a cardboard, oil which there are inscribed various numbers, taken at random apparently from the figures 1 to 70, although they are selected on the strict algebraical theory ol combinations, and no sets of ea>'ds are altogether alike When each player had paid his money —fifty cents it used to be —and selected his card, the proprietor of the establishment would turn a wheel, as in the drawing of a lottery, and call out each number that dropped out in rotat ion, the plavors covering up any that might happen to be on their cards similar to the one drawn with a round disk of ivory like the draughtman, and the one who should happen to cover all the numbers on his cardboard first, called out " Kecno! " and won the game, with all the slakes of the players, ton per cent being .primarily extracted on each game to pay the proprietor of the place. As a game rarely occupied more than ten minutes, the promoter of it used to find it, a most lucrative pursuit', until the police stopped it as contrary to law. A Dutchman whom I met one day on board a ferry-boat, in speaking of it gave me a very c incise description of the game, which I afterwards found on witnessing it was true to the letter. He said, " It is a ting vare one mans call out Kceno ! and everybodies else say, "Oh, tarn!" ■