GRUESOME GAMBLING.

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Issue 1159, 27 June 1912, Page 4

GRUESOME GAMBLING.

A craving for the eccentric and phenomenal is evidenced in many of the vyagers in which our forefathers indulged. ' In ‘ the reckless, harddrinking days of .the Eighteenth Century all kinds of wagers were made, says the “ Weekly Telegraph.” There is a true story concerning Heidegger, Master of the Revels to George IL, whose ugliness, it was said, could not be surpassed. Wagers were made on the point. After the slums of London had been searched from one end to another, an old woman was found who seemed to be more ugly than the Master • of the Revels. The judges were reluctantly bound to admit that Heidegger had met his match, until it was suggested that he should put •on the bld woman’s bonnet. But this •caused him to appear so much uglier than the old woman that he was unanimously declared to be the champion of extreme ugliness. Nothing was. too trivial —or too serious^ —for betting in these days. A famous musician used to tell a strange story of a wager which he averred he had really witnessed whilst bn a visit to London. One day as he was walking across London Bridge a poor wretch jumped up on to the parapet and leapt down into the river. There was at once a rush of -eager spectators, and a voice shouted, "I’ll bet he drowns!” "Two to one he’ll swim ashore!” "Done!” Meanwhile the musician had hastened to get a boat, and was rowing with a waterman to the rescue of the unhappy creature. As they reached him there was a cry, "Leave him alone—there’s a bet on!” The waterman, thinking that the man was swimming for a wager, did hot make any further attempt to save him, and the drowning man sank, to rise no more'. On another occasion a man dropped ■down at the door of a famous London club, and was immediately .carried into the house. Was he dead or not? Betting commenced, and the odds were taken for and against. Some, who had staked hundreds bn the man being dead, protested when

their opponents desired .to bleed the unconscious object of these wagers. To use a lance, .they argued, would affect the fairness of the bet. And thus the solitary chance of the individual perhaps regaining consciousness and life again was frittered away in this vapid and foolish manner.

In order to decide a wager, one night, after a number of boisterous young men . had been dining less wisely than well, one of them in a

fit of bravado, consented to enter at .midnight the vault of a church, and, in proof of his. haying done so, to stick a fork into a coffin which had been recently deposited there. This he succeeded in accomplishing, and was about to return triumphantly; when he found himself caught. He was so overcome with terror that he fel l into a swoon, and was discovered in that conditions by. his companions, who, being alarmed at his absence, had come put to look for him. The

fork which he had stuck into .the coffin had caught hold of his long ovjercoat, and this sudden terrdr had as nearly as possible proved fatal.