After all that has been said the press is, on the whole, the best detective--the most reliable and efficient agent against evil-doers. When a crime is committed the daily newspaper, with its Argus eyes, gives such minute and circumstantial details, together with such exhaustive particulars concerning its environment, and the details of its perpetration and supposed authors, that the public at large, so instructed and informed, become detectives. Hence "crooked" and wicked people are really more afraid of the thunderbolt exposure of the newspapers than of the slower and more uncertain action of the law. CHAPTER XX. GAMBLING AND GAMBLERS. _The Delusins that Control the Devotees of Policy--What the Mathematical Chances are Against the Players--Tricks in French Pools--"Bucking the Tiger"--"Ropers-in"--How Strangers are Victimized_. "And there were several offered any bet, Or that he would, or that he would not come; For most men (till by losing rendered sager), Will back their own opinions with a wager." --_Byron's "Beppo."_ Some people are born gamblers, and resemble Jim Smiley, of Mark Twain's "Jumping Frog." Jim was "always betting on anything that turned up, if he could get anybody to bet on the other side; and if he couldn't he'd change sides. Any way that suited the other man would suit _him_--any way just so's he got a bet, _he_ was satisfied." If there was a horse-race, we are told, "you'd find him flush or you'd find him busted at the end of it; if there was a dog-fight, he'd bet on it; if there was a cat-fight, he'd bet on it; why, if there was two birds setting on a fence, he would bet you which one would fly first." Despite all efforts of repressive legislation, games of chance are in vogue all over the country. Gambling is practiced everywhere. Tourists to and from Europe engage in draw-poker and other games of chance, while they make pools and lay wagers on the distance sailed per day, or the length of the voyage, and on the number of the pilot-boat that will first be hailed. Gambling prevails on board those splendid steamers that ply up and down the great rivers of the country, and more than one passenger, driven to distraction by his losses at the gaming-table, has thrown himself overboard. Our legislators occasionally while away the time in traveling between Albany and New York in a poker-game, and they frequently meet each other at their lodgings around the capitol for the same purpose. At picnics in summer, when Nature wears her most enticing garmenture, groups of young men may be discovered separated from the merry-making multitude, jammed into some nook with a pack of cards, cutting, dealing, playing, revoking, scoring and snarling, wholly engrossed in the game.