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Show JUVENILE GAMBLERS. Any morning In Chicago or New Tork one may see girls of 16 and 17, with ' their heads close together over a newspaper news-paper tabulation trying to figure out "winners" during their street car or elevated road ride to the factories and offices where they are employed. Listen Lis-ten to them and you will hear the language lan-guage of the track. They know the rela-" rela-" - tive reputations of the Jockeys, and can talk glibly of their riding weights and of their seats in the saddle. They know . the horses and their supposed likings for track, weight and distance. They are ready for handbook plucking. Meet them on the way home and you will hear them say sadly that "luck" had not been with them that day, and will see them tear up their tickets and throw them away. Only one thing is worse for these girls than losing, and that is winning. Losses may bring a tardy, dejected reform. Winnings lead to the frenzy of dally trips to the race courses themselves; to the spurring of aH wild emotions; to the plunge Into the black, engulfing chasm where life ' Is the least of the things lost Observation will show that boys take ttielr first gambling lessons earlier than girls. If they have sucked the poison, they will be hardened gamblers when not half way through their teens. The Idea of working for a living Is lost .as soon as the fever of chance Is In their blood. In poolrooms, on race trains, at the tracka the majority of "regulars" are young In yeara though old In everything every-thing else. r But though their school Is sooner acquired ac-quired than that of girla it Is begun at the same place the handbook kindergarten, kinder-garten, and the Instructor Is the same the newspaper "dope sheet." Edgar Grant Bisson in the World Today. |