MAN WHO "BROKE THE BANK” AT MONTE CARLO.

Rangitikei Advocate and Manawatu Argus, Volume XL, Issue 11405, 23 October 1915, Page 5

MAN WHO "BROKE THE BANK” AT MONTE CARLO.

THE WONDERFUL STORY OF MR EDGAR KINGSTON. AT SCHOOL WITH THE KAISER. FROM WEALTH TO PENURY AND THEN SUICIDE. There is, writes a correspondent, a wonderfully human story behind the mysterious suicide of Edgar Kingston, formerly a commission agent and well-known money lender, on whom an inquest was held in the week.

Kingston, whose family name was Katchinstein —he was of German birth and good parentage—went to school with the Kaiser at Cassel. He figured in a novel called “The Modern Market Place,’’ hut bis real history was as remarkable as any page of fiction. In his capacity of commission agent he was associated with one of the undying stories of the Turf in England in connection with the sale of a racetiorse which practicaly made the fortune of certain parties interested in it. He himself did so well that he lived “en prince’’ at Monte Carlo, and did wonderful things at the gaming tables. His methodical German temperament showed even in his gambling. Jtie played on a system propounded to him in London, and as one of a syndicate of five. It has been said that the hank at Monte Carlo will always defeat the player, but, the syndicate, whether through luck or their wonderful system, did “break the bank’’ six times. On one day the five partners netted £35,000, One reward of this prowess was that Kingston, with his chief partuer, a certain captain, had a worldwide circulation for his picture, and he was feted by the Prussian Press. MAN ABOUT TOWN.

For many years, in fact, Edgar Kingston lived luxuriously, and was a man about town, familiar in West End restaurants and a known figure at race meetings. His business place was Egyptian House, Piccadilly, an elaborate brass plate bearing the inscription “Kingston and C 0.,” and his clients were the flower of the nobility. He had married an English wife, and for some years had expensive chambers in Ryder Street, St. James. But Ins business relations with the nobility did not prove altogether the profit expected. He had serious monetary losses, and had to pass through the Bankruptcy Court. Thereafter things were not so rosy with the Anglicised German, and not many years ago he stood in the dock at the Old Bailey to answer a series of charges of forgery. He was adjudged a common felon and sentenced to a term of imprisonment.

111-luck haunted the man henceforth. The death of his wife and child broke his heart. Friendless and forlorn, the erstwhile pet of Monte Carlo was called upon to face a stern and uncompromising world, and although he was as well dressed as ever and lived in luxury he had scarcely a penny to his name. Then, he tried the dangerous friend, morphia.

For the past three years he was put to the necessity of frequently changing his hotels, being reduced to very slender resources, and having creditors everywhere pressing him for payment. Early in the year he applied for a commission in the Army, and one may feel considerable saitsfactiou in the fact that he was refused.

He took to gambling as a living with apparently poor success, and yet in tins hopeless degenerate there was a soul. He worshipped the memory of the dead English wife. A fox terrier, once her property, was his sole companion and friend. The fox terrier Bobbie was, in fact, the means of identifying him at the end, after he had taken the fatal sleeping draught. , The name of Kingston' and the address on the animal’s collar -enabled the police definitely to establish who he was.