SOME FEMALE GAMBLERS.

Otago Witness, Issue 2369, 27 July 1899, Page 56

SOME FEMALE GAMBLERS.

One of the most notorious female gamblers of the eighteenth century was Miss Pelham, the daughter of the Prime Minister. She not only ruined herself at cards, . but would have beggared her sister Mary as well had not their friends intervened and insisted on the sisters separating. Horace Walpole gives a pitiful account of " poor Miss Pelham sitting up all night at the club without a woman, losing hundreds a night and her temper, beating her head, and exposing herself before the young men.

did worse, for whereas the Aztecs only clubbed or stabbed, our forefathers burned their victims to death. It is said that on great occasions an immense statue was built of wicker-work, filled with living people, and then burned. A great many African tribes make human sacrifices now to Juju, and in some of our recent wars — notably the Benin campaign — we have taken native cities which were nothing better than vast slaughtering grounds, full of human remains. As will be remembered, the wells in Benin city were full of corpses, and every jackal in Africa seemed to be fattening in the neighbourhood.

The commonest kind of religion among savages in Shamanism. The Shaman is the medicine man or magician who practises witchcraft or black magic to please the spirits who rule the world. Generally he is a- pretty bad lo^, because he extorts from tho people more than even the chief, and anybody who disobeys gets murdered or sacrificed to the gods. ' In the South Sea Islands the Shaman and all his property are taboc — must not be touched on pain of instant, death. Among Red Indians, the Shaman heals the sick by driving out- evil spirits. He does this by sitting beside tne patient, howling and drumming night o~: day until the victim dies or gets well out of sheer desperation. In obstinate case 3 the Shaman jumps up and down <.ii the patient's chest," who has to pay f>, high price for the treatment. The sick suffer much for. their religion '

Among the British Columbia coast tribes a man has at certain feasts to give away everything he possesses — particularly all his blankets — in the world until he is reduced to nakedness. But the initiates who want to be medicine-men break the record. In certain tribes they used quite lately to bite everybody they met — bile out great chunks. Also they ate live dog, and up to the year 1889 they certainly ate corpses among the Quagutl.