CHAPTER VIII.

THE PANTATA OF THE POLICY SHOP AND POOL-ROOM.

Among its other achievements, the Lexow Committee enriched the vocabulary of our language by the word Pantata. It is a mysterious word of Bohemian origin. What it precisely meant none of the witnesses could explain. It had no exact equivalent in the English language, but there was no difficulty about understanding how it was applied in New York. Pantata, in its origin, the interpreters explain, meant father-in-law. The term was used in households to describe your wife’s father, but it was also held to be the equivalent of Old Man; and one witness declared that in Bohemia, the country from which the word was exported, it is frequently applied to the Emperor-King of Austria-Hungary, Francis Joseph, who is said to be Pantata to his Royal Bohemians.

Whatever may be the original significance of the term, it was applied by the Bohemian Liquor Dealers’ Association to the Police Captain of the precinct in which they did their business. He was their Pantata, and from this beginning the term came to be used as a generic title for the police official, who was on terms of family relationship with the vicious and criminal class under his jurisdiction. The New York police captain was in a special sense the father-in-law, or Father-in-the-Law, to a very numerous progeny of disreputable people. Instead of being a terror to evildoers, he became their Pantata, who looked after them with semi-paternal care, and generally acted as their Father-in-the-Law, regarding it indeed as his chief function to relax the law in their behalf in return, of course, for consideration received. So long as his dues were paid there was nothing that Pantata would not do. He could, for instance, and did, practically suspend the legislation for Sunday closing. But that is a mere trifle.

It was proved by the evidence of one witness that the Pantata police did not hesitate to issue irregular licences of their own for the keeping of unlicensed saloons, or shebeens, as we would say.

One witness, Anna Newstatel, held a licence once down to the year 1890. When running a full licensed saloon she paid five dollars a month to the police. After 1890 her licence was revoked, but in consideration of her having been a good paying subject, the police told her that she might go on selling all kinds of liquor without a licence, so long at she continued to pay her dues to them, in consideration of an initiation fee of £40 down. The following is the extract from the evidence:--

Q. What was your licence revoked for?

A. For selling liquor on a beer licence.

Q. And after your licence was revoked the police allowed you to sell everything without a licence?

A. After I paid them 200 dollars at the start and then 50 dollars a month.

Q. Now did you pay 200 dollars at the start?

A. I said I couldn’t afford to do that--I would sooner rent out the saloon; and they said if I rent out the saloon as a store, and I should live private upstairs and carry on my saloon business upstairs for half of the amount--for 100 dollars to start, and 25 dollars every month--and I should try that, and they will help me and see that I shall have customers enough to do business.

Q. In other words, they told you you must go upstairs?

Chairman Lexow: That is to say, they would reduce the amount one-half if she would do that?

Q. You sold on Sunday as well as on weekdays?

A. Yes, sir.

Q. Now, about the custom that you had. Did the detectives provide you with the custom; did they give you custom?

A. No, they did not; they came in sometimes themselves and like this, only they never paid when they came in; only they allowed me to keep open any hour and all the time.--Vol. v., p. 4,592.

This claim to be supplied with drink whenever they felt they wanted a glass appears to have been very generally recognised by the liquor dealers of New York. Sometimes the police would pretend that they would pay, but, as a matter of fact, the principle of free drinks seems to have been very widely recognised.

In the regular saloons there was comparatively little necessity for invoking the assistance of the benevolent Pantata. He had a much wider field in dealing with the gaming houses, which flourished in every precinct in New York. According to the law, no gaming house was allowed to run. Yet, by permission of the police, there were about a thousand of them running all the time the Lexow Committee was sitting. I had better quote here the extract from the Lexow Committee’s Report:--

The evidence is conclusive that with reference to this class of vice the police occupied substantially the same position as they did with respect to disorderly houses.

It was proven even that while the Committee was actually in session more than six hundred policy shops were in active operation in the city, running openly, and from day to day policy slips were secured in some shops in different portions of the city by detectives in the employ of your Committee.

Qualified witnesses swore that the general average of open shops was about one thousand. The testimony disclosed the remarkable fact that not only were these violators of the law protected by the police in consideration of a fixed sum of 15 dollars a month per shop, but that the area of operation of each “king” was so clearly understood and carefully guarded, that any intruder would be certified to the police, and would either be compelled to refrain from competition with a licensed “policy king,” or else would be arrested and condign punishment would be visited upon him.

It seems clear from the evidence that this division of territory was largely for the benefit of the police, insuring a more rapid and easier collection of the tribute to be paid the “policy king” to whom a particular district had been assigned, paying in bulk at the rate of fifteen dollars per shop for all the shops running in such district or districts.

Pool-rooms flourished all over the city in the same way. Large sums were extorted from their proprietors by the police, and they were permitted to remain unmolested, openly and publicly running, until a private citizen, Richard Croker, after a conference with a police commissioner, enforced their cessation practically in a single day. This is one of the most remarkable circumstances testified to before your Committee. And yet nothing was done or attempted to be done until the private citizen aforesaid commanded that they be closed, and they were closed, and closed without criminal prosecution.

It appeared subsequently in evidence that these pool-rooms, while running, had been assessed and had paid for police protection as high as 300 dollars a month.--Vol. i., p. 3,637.

We have too much betting in England--betting carried on with the active co-operation of the press--for any English journalist to be able to throw a stone at New York or Chicago, for the extent to which gambling is carried on in policy-shops or pool-rooms. The Turf is the great gaming hell of the Old Country, and nearly every newspaper in the land plays the part of a tout and tempter to those who wish to gamble. In New York, while there is betting enough among certain classes, the masses of the people seem to prefer other forms of risking their money.

A very curious picture is given in the evidence taken by the Lexow Committee of the prevalence of the gaming habit among all classes of the population, especially in the poorer districts. After making one or two ineffectual attempts, I have given up all hope of understanding, much less of explaining, the precise way in which gambling goes on in pool-rooms. From the explanations of the witness, the uninitiated outsider can only discern vaguely that policy is much more akin to the Italian lottery system than anything which prevails in this country. Any sum can be staked, from one cent upwards. The gambler chooses a number or concatenation of numbers. What is called a “saddle” consists of two sets of numbers, while a “gig” is composed of three. There are many kinds of “gigs,” which were duly described for the edification of the Committee, the “police gig” being one of those most in vogue. In the choice of “saddles” or “gigs”--or, in other words, in the selection of numbers on which to put his money--the New York gambler is exactly like a Neapolitan, and in nothing is the resemblance more remarkable than in the respect paid to dreams. Nearly every policeman, it was declared, had a dream book, and according as he dreamed, so he would put his money upon the number indicated by the dream in his pocket oracle. I made a small collection of dream books when I was in Chicago, and came to the conclusion that the dream book was much more constantly consulted in that city than the Old or New Testament. Judging from the evidence before the Committee, dream books are equally in vogue in New York, but any accident or incident would serve to suggest a favourite combination of lucky numbers, which would be in great request until some other incident arose to suggest a new combination. You staked a cent and stood to win a dollar.

One of the most painful features of this policy gambling was the extent to which it worked downwards, even to the children. Lads coming from school would beg a cent in order to try their luck. As they could only pay by attracting customers, it was impossible to run a policy shop in secrecy. In less than a couple of days the police were perfectly well aware that a policy shop had been opened, and it was therefore absolutely necessary to secure the police in advance. This seems to have been done on strict business principles, and the partnership between the various kings or satraps, to whom the police farmed out the precinct, appears to have been very harmonious.

Bucket-shop and gambling on the tape on the prices quoted on the Stock Exchange is as common in New York as it is in London; but one ingenious method of improving on the bucket-shop was brought to light in the course of this investigation. The disadvantage of the gambling in _bonâ fide_ Stock Exchange securities is that they are often sluggish, and do not go up and down with sufficient rapidity to stimulate the excitement of the gambler. In New York a bogus commission agency established a system of gambling which beat the bucket-shop hollow. Instead of waiting for the arrival of genuine prices of real stocks, the genius who ran this commission agency fixed up a tape machine in his office, and before business started in the morning wrote out a series of about five hundred different quotations for stock in purely imaginary companies. When his gamblers had assembled, he turned a handle, and wound off his tape. He made the stocks of course go up and down with the requisite rapidity, and from a gaming point of view it was in every way but one superior to the ordinary betting on the tape. The one exception, however, was a pretty considerable drawback, for the proprietor of the establishment knew in advance what figures would come out, and how the prices would fluctuate. So long, however, as he did not bet himself, this made no difference to those who wanted a flutter.

Into the ramifications of the gambling in New York it is not necessary to follow the Committee in their painstaking investigation. It did not even draw the line at the Chinese quarter; and those who wish to know all about Fantah, and the mysteries of the Button Game, will find their curiosity gratified if they read through the Report. All that need be said is that no form of gambling was carried on at New York which had not the police authorities as its protectors, and the rank and file as its patrons. Under such circumstances, it is hardly to be expected that much progress will be made in suppressing gambling in New York.

The task indeed, as every policeman knows, is one of great difficulty, even when the force is entirely free from any suspicion of complicity. Mr. Moss, who is now at the head of the police at New York, had to admit last September that, despite all his efforts, pool-rooms had been running; and, as the newspapers declared, some of the police are Pantatas still. It was, however, generally admitted that if the Pantata can be exterminated by zeal, energy, and severity, Mr. Moss is the man to do it.