UP-TO-DATE GAMBLING.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 11650, 11 May 1901, Page 2 (Supplement)

UP-TO-DATE GAMBLING.

The statement published recently to the effect that M. Ephrussi, the well-known sportsman, a son-in-law of Baron Alphonse do Rothschild, kid broken the bank at Monte Carlo twice in a single evening, at trente-et-quarante. brings back to memory five most delightful and amusing men " perfect gentlemen"three of whom were of American extraction, while two were " pure British"— men whose acquaintance I made on'hoard ship in the Inland Sea of Japan on a certain memorable New Year's Eve. Having thus come to know them. T. or I should say we. soon found it difficult to avoid them, and, in the end, we all journeyed back to England from Hongkong on board one of the German liners. That they proved capital company I have already said, and the fact that they carried about with them a roulette table quickly endeared our new friends to everybody, a fresh form of "amusement on board ship being at any time a. boon. Poor fellows—they lost, as they termed it, "a pot of money" at their own roulette, from first to last, and another "pot of money" at cards. Indeed. by the time we arrived at Southampton they had so ingratiated themselves with a certain wealthy young nobleman to whom they had lost considerable sums, that he. in the fulness of his heart, then and there begged them to spend a few weeks at his country place in the north. The house party at his place on that occasion consisted, I remember, of fourteen men and about as many women. I call them "women," not from any want 'of respect for the sex, but simply because such weird creatures nowadays masquerade as ladies," and a very cheery .and up-to-date party it was. But "the gambling that went on—Ach Himmel! I have seen a good amount of country-house gambling, and a good amount of "tricky work," as certain dubious proceedings are delicately termed in connection with it, but the wholesale looting-there is no other word for that went on in that house during those three weeks beat everything of the sort I had ever seen before or have seen since.

For the five "awful good fellers" who had lost so heavily on board ship suddenly reversed their " luck" (sic) in a most extraordinary and unexpected manner, winning in thousands, not only from our host, but from all his guests as well! And yet I would have defied anybody to detect how they worked their robberies—it was robbery pure and simple—without, of course, openly taxing the live "good fellows" with cheating, and so treat a considerable amount of unpleasantness all round. The rogues knew this well enough, and naturally they knew, too. that their host, being a gentle*111:111 "' the proper meaning of the term would sooner have strangled himself than have openly charged any of his own guests in his own house, with theft. Fortunately] all the guests upon that occasion were men and women well able to afford to lose heavily but they one and all felt extremely puzzled at the phenomenal "luck" of these five confederates, 01 whom tliev knew nothing, and whom they had never met before. Indeed it was not until the five had bidden Blank Hall farewell for ever that their identity was accidentally revealed to us—through the medium of the police, as it: happened. I he sums- lost by our hosts and his guests, collectively, to those five, men during those three weeks amounted, so my host told me only recently, to close upon £-185.000, or over £1000 each, every night, on an average. I hat the "perfect gentlemen" recouped themselves pretty considerably for their losses during the voyage home'it is therefore hardly necessary for me to add.— Corresuondent of Free Lance.