Viewing page 51 of 101

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

96
then some white tourists who go there mostly for [[strikethrough]] the [[/strikethrough]] curiosity sake. Anybody who calls these scrawny, squalid looking gambling places, "the Monte Carlo of the Orient" decidedly stretches his imagination. They are rather small houses, [[strikethrough]] with a high [[/strikethrough]] about 3 stories high; a larger room with high ceiling in the middle and 2 galleries one above another. On the ground floor sits the Chinese who handles the game (fan-tan) and who counts and rakes in the "cash" coins, while the 3d class gamblers, every variety of Chinese coolie, or chinese women silently watch the game eagerly. The gamblers sitting in the galleries lean over the balustrade and watch the game; looking at the table below, then bets or gains are handled in a [[underline]] little wooden basket, [[/underline]] which a fat chinaman
[[end page]]
[[start page]]
97
dangles on a string and pole as a fisherman, and [[strikethrough]] swings [[/strikethrough]] thus swings the money where it belongs.  One bets on the numbers one, two, three or four or on two numbers making a corner. The whole game is entirely passive and requires no effort on the part of the gambler.  The whole thing seemed very quiet and orderly and squalid. When a poor devil has lost his money, he pawns his watch, his knife, or his ring or whatever he happens to possess, and right then and there, without leaving the room he gets [[strikethrough]] card for [[/strikethrough]] money for it, in about the same way as if he would change a dollar bill for small change. [[underline]] When walking [[strikethrough]] home [[/strikethrough]] to the hotel in the evening, with Scott and Scotchmer, [[/underline]] we passed a street where a string of colored electric lamps, and artificial flowers