Democratic Sentinel, Volume 8, Number 43, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 November 1884 — A MAN WHO BET ON TAYLOR. [ARTICLE]

A MAN WHO BET ON TAYLOR.

(Ft. Worth Correspondent Globe Democrat.) At the table of the El Paso the reporter was introduced, m his professional capacity, to a big, burly, pleasant-faced man, whose manners indicated that if he wasn’t boss of all 1 exas he had pretty much the biggest share in maintaining her prosperity. The individ-

ual m mieston was Colonel J. x. Chideshor, proprietor and operator of a stage line from Fort Worth to Fort Yuma, in Arizona Territory, in liis idea there were but two great en terprises on earth—The GlobeDemocrat and the Fort Yuma stage line. Oh, but he was a jolly kind of a chap, wholesouled, and full of vim and fiin. , Coming up from Fort Worth to Dallas he told how he made a fortune betting on General Zachariah Taylor’s election to the Presidency. He said:

‘I bet everything I had, money, house and home, and farm, pasture land, stock, wagons, harness, cloths, and everything you could think of. As long as I had credit I bet it. Then one day I bet my hat, coat, vest, pants and shoes, and 1 was five miles from home at that. But ‘ was sure Taylor would be elected. I bet on his election; on his election by different majorities; on his living to be elected, and had side bets of all sorts and shapes. In those days I used to drive round —this was in Mississippi— a band of music and a six-pounder cannon, and I tell you we had rousing times and stirring speeches. But my man had got elected, as ■ knew he would, and I calculated wh*m I figured it np-for Hid J clerk to keep track of my bets—that ‘ had won 30,000 in gold, l collected all of the bets, too. One man didn’t like to give up a mule he had bet— it was the only mule he had—and so 1 took his mule and gave him another and a better one, and to-day he writes me every month and says what a good fellow, I am. And when I knew I had won I "Kept open house for i week, and invited the whole country. I had charcoal made by the thousand bushels, and oxen cooked whole in trenches, I don’t know how long. 1 decorated every post, flag pole, chimney, _ lightning rod and tree-top in the vicinity with the Ame ican flag, and when the flag gave out i sent tor more e fired a salute of thirty three guns—one for each State then—every morning < bes or e breakfast, and again in the evening, and I guess had over 700 people at my house for a whole week and more, eating and drinking and making merry. And after I deducted all my e x p e n s e s I had about *6,00J left.