BROKE THE BANK

Greymouth Evening Star, 10 April 1931, Page 8

BROKE THE BANK

SEQUEL TO A FREE DRINK. Colonel Sir David Harris, a native of the City of London, who went to the South African diamond fi-elds in 1871, with £l5O, which represented his mother’s savings, and subsequently played an important part in the development of the South /African Union, gives in Pioneer, Soldier, Politician, his memoirs of the 58 years he had spent there up to the time of his retirement from the Union Parliament in 1929. It was at the age of twenty years that Colonel Harris reached the diggings at Dutoitspan—now Beaconsfield —with a capital of £l9. In five weeks he had exhausted all his capital, and he had recovered only one stone. He abandoned his claim and procured a billet in a general store. Then he discovered that the better end of digging was diamond buying, so with £lOO and a pair of pocket diamond scales borrowed from his “boss,” he began “Kopje Walloping”— a name given to itinerant diamond buyers. One night young Harris was persuaded against his wish to enter Dod’s Canteen, one of the gambling saloons which had sprung up. Here was the principal roulette table. Free drinks were served ad lib. to punters. He had a glass of champagne with a friend, and one of the proprietors made a remark that some men visited the rooms only for the purpose of getting free drinks.

“This remark roused my ire, as I thought it was meant for me,” Sir David Harris writes. “So purely out of pique I put a sovereign on No. 13, with the intention of losing it and clearing out. But, strange to tell, the ball eventually rolled into this number, which paid out 35 to . “To cut a long story short, I played on till 1,30 in the morning, and punted with such luck that I broke the bank.

I eventually left the premises I had been so loth to enter with £BOO in cash and a cheque for £6O0 —£1400 in all. I have never entered a gambling house since.”