The Yankees and the gamblers.
--The
Matamoras correspondent of the Houston
Telegraph says:
‘
Business got dull in
Matamoras and the gamblers wanted to get at the
Yankee officers greenbacks.
So the gamblers and officers (all the
Yankee officers gamble) made application to the
commanding General for permission to open a "club room"--The object of this club room arrangement was just as well understood by the
General as it was by the gamblers and the subordinate officers.
Permission was unhesitatingly granted upon the payment in specie of $250 license; whereupon the club room opened.
The richly ornamented roulette commenced rattling through the chuck a luck stand, and the ever-enticing monte bank opened.
The official gamblers, to the number of forty of fifty, were cautious about betting the first night, but made every preparation to break the bank, and run the roulette off by betting upon the sure principle of "the more you lay down the more you take up," (if you win) The second night opened with every prospect of doing an extensive business in "depositing, " "drawing out," and "making a run." The game was furious, betting was high, but the bank all the time "won." Suddenly there came a rush of soldiers at the front door; then others at the back doors, so that look which way the bewildered gamblers would, bayonets stared them in the face.
The officers were allowed to walk out; but the other gamblers were made prisoners in their own house, and there kept till next day, when, at the point of the bayonet, they were put over the river, minus over $8,000 in specie.
Thus ended the successful scheme to rob the Matamoras gamblers, and so my letter is ended.
’
