Brooklyn 1887 Confusion with the word pool

[justnum]

"Gambling laws" have constantly been used to target businesses unfairly.

From The Brooklyn Daily Standard Union 1887.

Among these indictments was one against John. Y McKane, to whom Gen Catlin had sent instructions to suppress gambling. Mr McKane, it appeared, requested Gen Catlin to dismiss the indictment against him: but Mr Backus advised strongly against such a dismissal stating that the evidence against Mr McKane showed that he had appointed officers and assigned them to duty to keep them in line when they went there to get their pool tickets cashed; that the evidence showed now only that, but that he had gone into Brighton Beach pool room and had bought pools." None of the pool selling indictments were pressed, but all remained-untried until Gen Catlin left office.

Pool gambling is a social order, why is it a crime? In 1887 the writer concludes that legal mechanism was used in poor taste.

 

[justnum]

Catlin was an Army solider, lived in Brooklyn and traveled to the Philippines. It is likely he knew about billiards and maybe even participated as a social hobby. Why did Catlin target gambling pools? President Grant favored playing billiards. Both served the US military around the same era.

Gen Catlin
Catlin was mustered out of the volunteer army on June 4, 1865, and joined the regular army as a captain on May 6, 1867.

At the outbreak of the Spanish–American War in 1898, Catlin volunteered for military duty but was turned down due to his advanced age. He instead visited Cuba and the Philippines and wrote widely published reports on the situations in those areas. His son, George de Grasse Catlin, served in the U.S. Army during the war and rose to the rank of captain.[4]

In his later years, Catlin split his time between homes in Brooklyn and Owego. He was a member of the New York Society of Colonial Wars. In January 1916 he had a stroke and died a week later, on January 19, at his apartment in Brooklyn's Hotel St. George.[4] Aged 80 at his death, he was buried at Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington County, Virginia

Isaac S. Catlin - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[kling&allen]

"Gambling laws" have constantly been used to target businesses unfairly.

From The Brooklyn Daily Standard Union 1887.




Pool gambling is a social order, why is it a crime? In 1887 the writer concludes that legal mechanism was used in poor taste.

View attachment 727138

That looks like a good example of the original “pool halls” where gamblers congregated to place pooled bets by telegraph and also engaged in other gambling games (including billiards). They were called pool halls because of pooled betting and not billiards. And they were illegal because of the pooled gambling and not billiards.

There is some evidence that American pocket billiards earned its “pool” nickname due to these halls.

 

[justnum]

That looks like a good example of the original “pool halls” where gamblers congregated to place pooled bets by telegraph and also engaged in other gambling games (including billiards). They were called pool halls because of pooled betting and not billiards. And they were illegal because of the pooled gambling and not billiards.

There is some evidence that American pocket billiards earned its “pool” nickname due to these halls.

I met some fisherman and sailors that operated radios.

Brighton Beach would be a prime location for marine vessels during that time period.
The suspicion for my research is the gambling dens were radio stations for fishing boats. Gambling dens would be the only location that are close to the water and within radio range of ships. The unusual hours of gamblers coincide with the infrequent transit of supplies.

I suspect there were many play on words for the use pool, hall and billiards.
Could you imagine what the language level of 1880 America is like?

Correction:

In 1880 radios on ships were not used. It is likely instead of a radio an actual sailor was used as the go between for the ship and receiving station. Radios were developed and recorded in use on ships in 1900s.

Imagine George Washington on a row boat going out to meet the capital warship carrying the troops.

 

[justnum]

The suspicion that gambling or pool halls did not achieve validity may be due to the McCarthyism or the failure to understand European standards were being adopted. Billiards and baseball are the two original American sports.

General Isaac Catlin served as a bridge between two worlds. This is the second report with Gen Catlin identified in Brooklyn in the 1870s era. In an earlier post I state Gen Catlin is anti Gambling and now he is also pro Confederate sympathizer but after serving the Union.

Further research will focus on public news articles targeting President Adams or Grant as a gamblers for having pool tables. Who would launch a smear campaign against pool table ownership?

Apparently the US military was conflicted over whether to keep an American sport like billiards and fix the gambling problem. Whoever decided billiards was a gambling problem is person of interest number 1. The following sources provide a good indication that billiards was political issue due to gambling.

The link makes nice points about the legal targeting of billiards.

The “Troubles” with Billiard Tables in 19th Century Tennessee and America

In Meredith Willson’s popular Broadway musical The Music Man , pool tables are controversial in the small town of River City, Iowa. As con m...

tslablog.blogspot.com

The following article is of interest because if billiards and baseball was the sport of choice for the early US military than other records may exist.

At the North there has been considerable opposition on the part of the members of the Grand Army Republic to any open courtesy to the Confederate dead buried in out midst. A difficulty of this character in Brooklyn was happily bridged and on the 30th there were memorial addresses by the ex-Confederate general Roger A Pryor, and the ex-Union general, Isaac S. Catlin, in the Academy of Music, Still, with few exceptions, the preparations this year embraced a like respect to the victims of each cause, where buried in the same cemetery or city. On the 10th of May the Federal military, with their band, went to the Confederate cemetery, near Chattanooga, Tenn., and assisted the Confederate Memorial Association in decorating the graves of South victims of the battle of Lookout Mountain.

In the vicinity of New York City the draw proved to be one of unusual interest. At New Rochelle, in Westchester County, there was a united celebration. During the war a great many Confederate soldiers who had been wounded were taken to the hospitals on David's Island, where their wives or other relatives constantly visited them; and after the deaths of the soliders, the widows in many cases, took up residence in New Rochelle. They proceeded to place flowers on the graves of their husbands on Decoration Day and too part in the general ceremony. The Twenty seventh Regiment and Fire Department of New Rochelle also participated in the common observance.