The Machine's Secret Ballot

In dire need of their votes at the coming city election, the republican machine, it is said, has made arrangements for the return of 20 gamblers who left the city when the law making gambling a penitentiary offense became effective. At the time the gamblers left, it is understood that a deal was made that if their votes were needed, they would return. Railway fares, board, and something besides will be paid each individual out of the pot subscribed by machine candidates, which will total a tidy sum, as several of the gamblers have emigrated to towns several hundred miles from Walla Walla. Before leaving the city, every gambler registered. As a further promise, it is intimated that if the machine succeeds in winning out in the coming election, gambling will be allowed to reopen in a quiet way. It is not expected that games will be permitted on the lower floors and in plain sight as they had been running before the new law became effective, but they will be relegated to upstairs rooms where lookouts may be stationed and only those who are known to be all right will be admitted.