racing. It is the money men gamble for here, and they have no hesitation in saying so; hence, in a promiscuous assembly, each is attracted to such game as he fancies himself an adept in. The billiard-player gambles at pool, the card-sharper at poker, euchre, or old sledge, the lover of horses at racing, while the unskilled or indifferent lay down their gold at roulette, faro, or monte, notwithstanding in banking games the table has twenty or thirty per cent the adv^antage. The open-handed well-to-do Californian who flings his dollars around for the mere pleasure of seeing others scramble for them would call staking a few hundreds fun rather than gambhng; but the individual earnest and constant at the tables, whatever the game or the amount staked, you may be sure is after ' blood,' as he himself would tell you.
There is the legitimate gambler, one who keeps a table and pays his dues to society in shape of license, rent, and bar bills, like an honest citizen. Then there is the professional gambler, who, like the itinerant preacher, may have an occupation without fixed abode. He may deal, or 'cap,' or bet on the outside; he may grace this or that house or town as circumstances offer. He is not the legitimate, legalized, solid man of the fraternity, but he is none the less a professional gambler. Next comes the gentleman gambler, who cultivates the hazard of dice or cards as a recreation, openly and unblushingly. He may deal occasionally as an amateur, not as a legitimate or professional; but usually he exhausts the time in midnight poker or faro. Tinctured with politics, and he is welcomed at political clubs; if pleasing in manner and free with his money, women of a certain quality cultivate him. If a business man, it is necessary for him to be guarded and sly in his gambling operations; and if a churchgoer or salaried clerk, the vice proclaimed is absolute ruin.
In the professional gambler there is or should be much that is repugnant to the right-minded and hon
