CREDIT AND CARDS.

Golden Bay Argus, Volume XII, Issue 17, 23 September 1909, Page 2

CREDIT AND CARDS.

SOME SOCIETY S’AYS.

There is an excellent Order of Roman Catholic ladies called "The Little Sisters of the Poor," who beg alms and broken meat front door to door. A graceless but amusing youth, a younger son of a great family, used to call himself and his congeners "The Little Brothers of the Rich," and declared that their pitiful and destitute condition appealed irrestibly to the kind hearts of Belgravia and Mayfair. "Why, dash it all ! my eldest brother has got fifty thousand a year, and I have five hundred. That, by itself is enough to draw tears from a stone. No wonder they stand me a bit of grub and n dio[> of fizz. They'd be «> Stony-hearted crowd if they didn’t. My brother's shooting is so ghostly bad that he may keep it to himself ; and I've got some decentish pals in Scotland. So I'm all right I'torn August, to Christmas. Tradesmen ? Why, 1 always toll ’em they got every mag I possess, so its sheer unreasonableness to ask for more—like a blooming kid crying for the moon, you know." Almost nil moral restrictions have been relaxed by smart society, but cheating at tar (Is still remains an unpardonable olTeiue, and society is even remaik a bly vindictive in punishing I lie offender. According to R tradition which I received from the whist.-players of my youth, there are three hundred English gentlemen wandering in destitution about the continent of Europe because they wouldn’t, lead trumps when, they had five ; and t.o this band of blameless exiles must he added some bearers of aristocratic names who, in my own time, have been detected in cheating at cards and Imve paid the penalty. The absolute cheat has, as a rule, a short, life, though perhaps a merry one. Suspicion is aroused ; precautions are taken ; exposure, ruin, and (light, complete the tale. The Baccarat case of IK!) 1 is not yet forgotten, and I well remember n n earlier tragedy where a man’s habitual companions and lifo-long friends formed themselves into a committee to watch his play. Day and night for weeks they maintained their scrutiny and took notes of what i hey saw. 'The notes were, not compared, but were handed separately to a (riminal lawyer, and his opinion was a sentence ol social death. Much greater villains than that cardsharper have incurred much lighter penalties. But outside the very narrow band of actual and detectable cheats there is a fringe or zone of acute practitioners whom Harry Koker (le sc.fihes with . perfect exactness

"They'll beat, you, my boy. evert if they play on the squfue, which l don’t say they don’t—nor which I don’t say they do, mind But I wouldn't play with ’em. You’re no match for ’em. You ain't up to their weight.” A gentleman ol this | type married his daughter to a very i ii.h man. Papa used t.o stay a | great ileal with the young couple— I unien was very niee lor everyone—32Uid,<w*. for fear lii» . WRlrf be* dull in the long, quiet evenings, lie i lioiigli ifiilly taught her Ecmt.e. When >lu: had learned the game, papa said—" Now, my darling. v<ju me quite good enough to play f«-r money,” and dining his visit he won from her a sum which n*-< essitated recourse to his son in law. The son-in law betrayed unreason able irritation ; but papa lived respected and died lamented. A worthy couple known as " The Staymakers” used to arrange with one of their sons to meet them in hospitable country houses. When the whist-tables were made up, father mother, and son used to sit. down and entire some unwary youth to be the fourth. The points were moderate —shillings and half-crowns —but whichever way the luck went, a greater or less sum was bound to find its way into the collets of the family. A hard-bitten old man ot the world used to take a grirn delight in pocketing the sovereigns of younger sons and clerks in public offices, saying as he did so, with a savage grin, “'There's no pleasure in winning money from a man who doesn’t feel it." 1 recollect a very ancient dame, who loved cards better than liie itself, and was undone when, staying in a Scotch house on Sunday, she found herselt debarred on Sabbatical grounds from her quotidian rubber. In high dudgeon she retired to her room and played Patience on the feed, till a Presbyterian, housemaid, who found her engaged in her unhallowed rites, ran down, horror-struck, to the servants' hall and reported that the old lady Horn London was playing cards with the devil. 1 once knew a very smart and handsome young couple who married, as the phrase goes, "on nothing.” it was obvious that they could not afford to lice in Loudon ; and after some prolonged visitations to their friends' country houses they settled down at Woolwich "Why Woolwich ?” everyone asked. The answer w a s forthcoming when we learned that they used to give nice little evening parties at which the Wool wich cadets were encouraged to play round games for money. ’The idea of setting up housekeeping on Utc pocket-money ot oabes and sucklings would probably not nave occurred to anyone who had not been through the social mill —From "An Onlooker 's Note-Book.”