wo ways of
cheating, according to one authority, and "both are practicable during
the last moments of the race, when the horses are coming up the
home-stretch. At this time everybody is anxiously intent upon the
contest and nothing else, so that it is an easy matter for the operator
to see what horse is ahead, and then quietly add five or ten tickets to
his record on the indicator; or, on the other hand, if the horse favored
by the 'ring' is away behind, he can quietly take off some of his
tickets and so save $50 or $100 out of the five. The former, however, is
the easier method and can be with difficulty detected, for very few
people keep transcripts of the French pools, more particularly that
before they are closed everybody is off trying to secure a good place to
see the race."

The prohibition placed upon pool selling naturally renders the
book-maker's occupation to be at a premium. Book-making is reckoned a
"science," and is based upon the principle of the operator betting up to
a certain limit, "play or pay," against every horse entered.
Despite all statements, official or otherwise, to the contrary, there
are a large number of "hells" or gambling houses in New York city, in
which millions of dollars are lost every year by unwary persons. The New
York _Herald_ of June 14, 1886, contains a synopsis of the experiences
of an educated and high-toned young man belonging to a good family, who
had descended from gambling to the practices of a sneak thief. According
to the story he told Inspector Byrnes, he was in love and at the same
time

"became infatuated with the gambling craze. I wanted to make my sweetheart
some presents, and hoped to make enough at the gaming table to purchase
what I wanted. My game was _rouge el noir_--"red and black"--and the
establishments that I visited were on Sixth avenue, between Twenty-eighth
and Twenty-ninth streets, and in Thirty-second street, near Jerry McAuley's
Mission House. Instead of winning I lost. I bucked the game and it
'bucked' me. Then I was penniless and became desperate. By honest
ways I knew it would take a long time to pay my debts, and as I was in
desperate straits I determined to steal. As I did not associate with
professional thieves I had no reason to fear betrayal, so I became a
rogue again."

There is this insuperable difficulty with the born gambler that he is
unteachable. The fool who ruins himself at Homburg or Monte Carlo
belongs to the same type as the