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Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume IV, Issue 484, 24 July 1890, Page 2

A farm labourer in Dumfries had been sent by hie employer ou a message to a neighbouring farmer. When he came back with the answer to the message, he remarked, “ Aa’m thinkin’ Mr Joblin must be tornin’ blind, sor.” “ How is that ?” asked the farmer. “ Wey, becaas when aa wos in his parlour he asked us where ma hat wes, when aa had it on ma heed aall tbe time ?’’ Reckless gambling and imprudent speculation, it appears, have (says the Sporting Chronicle) brought the great Austrian peer, Prince Trauttmauadorff, to such a pass that his relatives have been compelled to invoke the aid of the law in order to avert his utter and irremediable ruin. In the course of one night’s play at the Jockey Club in Vienna, last December, he lost £90,000 at baccarat. With a view to remedying this tremendous disaster, he straightway purchased “for the rise ” a large number of “ options ” of spring wheat and March cereals, which “fell” to an extent rendering him liable for “ differences ” to the tune of 15,000.000 of florins—about a million and a half sterling. His disappearance will be painfully felt by Auetro-Hungarian turfites, for he kept a magnificent racing stable, and was honorably notorious for running his horses “ straight. ” As far as his own betting is concerned, it was said, he was rarely beset by the ill luck that pursued him at the card table. The large sums, however, that he won ou the turf from time to time were as naught as contrasted with his enormous losses at play and on ’Change, which are computed to have considerably exceeded two millions sterling. By comparison with this stupendous squandering, the wastefulness of such silly greenhorns and dupes as the “Jubilee Plunger" dwindles into insignificance.