Antebellum Jefferson, Texas: Everyday Life in an East Texas Town

44. Vice

555 Vice implies moral fault: it is behavior that is both a manifestation of moral degradation and conducive to moral degradation. Attitudes toward vice were ambivalent. There was a widespread attitude that people should mind their own business; but they were acutely conscious of the personal, family, and social ramifications of vice and expressed strong opinions on these matters. Coercion was disdained, but people were not reluctant to legislate morality. Widespread support for public policies was coupled with indifference to enforcement , apparently under the recognition that popular vices could not be extirpated by laws. The primary reliance was on moral suasion, particularly in the form of large social movements such as temperance . There is evidence for the existence of a particular section of Jefferson in which vice was prominent. When smallpox struck the town in early 1859, the Harrison Flag reported that “it only existed in a portion of the town inhabited by persons of impure habits, a sort of hell’s half acre.” In late 1859, the “five points” was the scene of a bloody affray that involved employees of the Stanley & Nimmo meatpacking plant, in which at least one person was killed. The “five points” was probably the hell’s half acre. From the smallpox reports, the area was separated from the business section of town. This area may have been near the intersections of Broadway, Line, and Walnut, which provide a geographic setting for five points; however, it is more probable that 44. Vice 556 Antebellum Jefferson, Texas the name was derived from the notorious Five Points in New York and does not refer to geography. Gambling People loved to gamble and apparently were willing to bet on just about anything. Gambling was against state law. Many Jeffersonians were brought into court on charges of gambling (mostly card playing and operating faro banks), paid modest fines, and went back to their practices. The number of persons brought to court, which was quite large, represented an infinitesimally small portion of the infractions. State-sponsored gambling would have been considered by Texans to be an inversion of the moral order. When Loughery visited Jefferson in January 1853, he pointed out that “Gambling is carried on here pretty extensively, as it is all over Texas, notwithstanding the stringency of our laws.” The favored game at the time was Rondo, which was played openly, because the State Supreme Court had declared (in violation of the clear intent of the law according to Loughery) that forms of gambling not specifically mentioned in the state law were legal. Rondo was played with a billiard table , two open pockets, and small balls that were rolled from one to the other pocket. If an even number of balls remained outside the pockets, the house won. If the house lost, it took a percentage of the winnings. Loughery pointed out that legislation against gambling was ineffectual as long as it was countenanced by public opinion, but that the law at least kept gambling out of public places. He was not concerned about the professional gamblers, who were honest about what they were and who didn’t need to cheat because of their superior skills, but rather by the “gentlemen” gamblers, who tended to cheat and corrupted themselves and the youth: He is the man that decoys and ruins youth—if not by persuasion, at least by example. A young man of 18 or 19 cannot think a practice very bad when he finds himself sustained by and in the company of the most respectable men in the place. We should, therefore, make laws punishing more severely the respectable gentlemen who give their influence, and spend their time 557 Vice in gaming, instead of the professional gamester who takes no pains to conceal his vocation, and who will most certainly get the money of those with him, unless they understand the whole machinery of cards. I do not mean to assert that those who gamble are dishonest in the full sense of the word. When men gamble, there is a tacit understanding that the smartest man gets the money; and many of those who would, under such circumstances use all their ingenuity to carry their point, would not in their business affairs be guilty of any thing disreputable. I know many who have been very succesful in play, who are considered high minded liberal men. Yet the practice is pernicious and demoralizing and ought to be...