[From the same]
Christmas Day! Happy Christmas! Merry Christmas! Not that here, to me
at any rate, in this pandemonium of a city. Not a _lady_ to be seen,
and the women, poor things, sad and silent, except when drunk or
excited. The place full of gamblers, hundreds of them, and men of the
lowest types, more blasphemous, and with less regard for God and his
commands than all I have ever seen on the Mississippi, [in] New
Orleans or Texas, which give us the same class to some extent, it is
true; but instead of a few dozen, or a hundred, gaming at a time, here
there are thousands, and one house alone pays one hundred and fifty
thousand dollars per annum for the rent of the "Monte" tables.
Sunday makes no difference, certainly not Christmas, except for a
little more drunkenness, and a little extra effort on the part of the
hotel keepers to take in more money.