cashiers from large manufacturing, commercial, or banking houses, no stock-brokers and others, such as you may see in the more high-toned and fashionable hells of Montgomery, California, or Sacramento streets. The players draw their money from their pockets with the air of men who earned it by the sweat of their brows, and are loth to part with it, but cannot withstand the temptation to indulge in the all-absorbing passion which consumes them. Some of these men are taking their first lessons at the gaming table; others have been depositing four fifths of their earnings here regularly every week for years, and will do so for years to come. The walls are hung around in places with cards, detailing the rules of the game, and everything looks and speaks "business."
There are no luxurious chairs and sofas, no costly pictures, no soft carpets, and no sideboard loaded with substantiate and delicacies, champagne, oysters, rich wines, and fiery liquors in glittering cut-glass and silver decanters and stands, with obsequious negro or Chinese servants, to press you to partake gratuitously of the good things spread before you, as in the high-toned hells. The business of the place is naked gambling, and there is no effort to hide it or soften it with the "social amenities." The players barely glanced at us as we entered, and the games go on. A man with the appearance of a mechanic, reaches over the monte table and chucks a pile of silver half-dollars down on a particular card. The dealer draws the cards with a steady hand, the player wins, and the assistant, without a word, shoves toward him the
