WHAT ARE TRUMPS?

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Issue 1160, 4 July 1912, Page 4

WHAT ARE TRUMPS?

When Louis XIV., the “Sun King,” was playing cards with three of his courtiers, one of the players was seized with a fit of apoplexy. “Monsieur de Chauvelin is ill!” exc’aimed his partner, in accents of alarm. “Ill?” said. Louis coldly, turninground, and looking at him. “He is dead; take him away! Spades are trumps, gentlemen.” Goldsmith tells the story of an old lady who spent her last dying hour in playing cards with a curate, and when she had won the ’ast shining he had on him she staked her gains, in a final game, against the cost of her funeral., The history of the card-table is full of stories equally dramatic and sensational, illustrating a passion which laughs in the face of ruin, disgrace, and even death. THE DEUCE OF DIAMONDS. Jack Mytton, the once-famous “Squire of Halstead,” light-heartedly squandered his entire fortune of half a million pounds at the card-table, and when he had played his last game was carried off to the debtors’ ward of the King’s Bench Prison to die. Lord Worthall, when gambling, had reduced his vast patrimony to one small estate, staked h’s last acres against £lO,OOO on a single game of put. Fortunately, he cut the deuce of diamonds, and to commemorate his escape from ruin he had the deuce of diamonds carved in marble and affixed to the parapet of his mansion. One cannot resist a feeling of admiration for the pluck and daring of

some of these spendthrifts of the past, among the prodigal of whom were Mr George and Colonel Mellish, both famous as “kings of the Turf.” At one sitting Colonel Mellish once lost £lOO,OOO at the card-table, and won every penny of it back the following night. On another occasion he lost £40,000 in a couple of hours to the Prince Regent. George Payne won and lost scores of thousands of pounds with an equally light heart and smiling face. One memorable hour he spent cutting cards at £lOOO a time, and lost £50,000. On another occasion he spent the night of Derby Day at the card-table, and when dawn came he counted his winnings up to £50,000. ON THE SPIN OF A COIN. It is said that George IV. lost £BOO,OOO at cards before he saw his twentv-first birthday; and one is noi surprised when one reads the gamUlin°- chronicles of the time in which he lived. At Almack’s, we are told, it was quite a common thing to stake £5OOO on a single card at faro, and for £1 00,000 to be won and lost in a night. At the Cocoa Tree, Mr O’Birne, an Irish gamester, once won £lOO,OOO in a. cast at hazard from a young midshipman who had just succeeded to a small estate on his brother’s death As the loser was unable to pay such a large sum, O’Birne magnanimously offered to take £lO,OOO, the spin of the coin going in favour of the midshipman. Of the mad gambling at White’s Club many remarkable stories are told—such as how one player lost his entire fortune of £1 50,000 at a sitting, and when the last card fell against him, produced a pistol and, before a hand could be raised to prevent him, put a buPet into his brain. —“Answers.”

Winning Way and Scottish Star have rejoined the Chokebore Lodge active brigade. Both fillies look well after the rest. On Paisano’s showing this season it would seem that when Mr P. J. Andrew, of Gisborne, gave Mr Oman 600 guineas for the gelding he paid the full value.