I received a letter from my blanket friend. He
informed me that he could not sell the blankets, and
had traded them off for flour, and would start the
next day for the Yuba, which was the most remote gold
river. That was all a lie. He did that so
that I would not follow him up. He had not a
dollar invested in them. They were my property.
I knew at once I had been dealing with a rascal, but
I was powerless to do any thing about it, so I wrote
him back that it was all right; that I had bought a
brig; and that I had it running to Stockton, and he
could take ventures up on that and make up what we
had lost on the blankets, and much more. (More
of him later on.)
THE GAMBLING OF THAT DAY.
It was public most everywhere. Faro tables, the
great American gambling game, Monte, the Mexican and
Roulette. The Eldorado, on the corner of the
plaza, was the most celebrated gambling house of that
time. There had been a great deal of money expended
in fitting it up. It had an orchestra of fifteen
persons. It was run all night and day, with two
sets of hands. It was gorgeously fitted up.
What they used to stir up the sugar in the drinks
cost $300. It was solid gold. Numerous gambling
tables, piled up with gold and silver, to tempt the
better, behind which were hired dealers. The
owners of the Eldorado were not known. Many a
miner has come with his few thousand dollars to San
Francisco to sail for home, and taking in the sights,
visited the Eldorado, got interested in the different
games, and lost it all and went back to the gold regions
broken and penniless to try his luck over again.
I heard of one that lost his all three times in that
way. I saw a man once put down a bag of gold,
which contained $5,000, bet $1,000 on one turn of the
card at Monte. He lost. While I was looking
at him in the course of half an hour, he lost it all.
I thought what independence that amount would have
given some family in the East.
In those early days there was often but a muslin partition
between you and the next room, and you could hear
every word in the next apartment. About 1 o’clock
in the morning I was awaken by two men entering and
taking the next room to mine, whom I saw running a
Roulette table on the plaza. They seemed to be
considerably excited. They said they would be
willing to lose some money to get rid of that tapper.
Of course, I could not understand, at first, what
they meant by that expression, but come to find out
from their conversation, they had their Roulette table
arranged so that they could make the ball stop on the
red or black, as it happened to be for their interest
to have it do. So, if there were $20 bet upon
the red, the tapper would bet $10 on the black, and
they could not make the red lose without making the
black win. So the tapper was getting half of
their gains. I would advise all my friends to
let Roulette alone, unless they are sure they can
place themselves in the position of the tapper.
