Broke the Bank.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXX, Issue 2, 9 January 1902, Page 1

Broke the Bank.

In Pudd'n-head Wilson's New Calendar Mark Twain works off this bit of wisdom : ' There are two times in a man's life when he should not speculate : when he can't afford it, and when he can.' When a man elects to make a sheep of himself he will find plenty of people to shear him. And for neatness, despatch, and thoroughness in the process of fleecing, the gaming-tables of Monte Carlo take the medal every time. They would satisfy even the capricious demands of the ' Jubilee Plunger.' Once in a blue moon the newspapers announce some exceptionally lucky gambler as being • a man who burst the bank at Monte Cah-ahr-10/ A few days ago the cabledemon forgot to slay the Pope, in the excitement of passing over the wires to the back of the earth the portentous news that the Earl of Rosslyn had won 100,000 francs (about £4000) by playing on a ' system.'

The young Earl — for he is only 32 years old — has had a varied career, not altogether free from adventure, lie has been an officer of volunteers, actor, racing-man, newspaper editor, war correspondent of the Daily Mail in South Africa, the author of the book, Twice Captured. One of the adventurous nobleman's captures occurred during- French's flanking movement before Johannesburg. It was effected by one William Dwyer, a Tipperary ' boy ' — 1 naturalised citizen of the Transvaal Republic. Dwyer, with all his countrymen's love of a fight, had escaped from hospital where he had been ' down ' with fever, and contrived to get to the front just in tiie thick of the ' divarshun.' Commandant Grobler, however, ordered him out of the firing line and sent him to take two mule wagons towards Pretoria. ' Dwyer st irted,' says the narrative, ' in command of about six Kaffirs, and, coming to Nelsfontein, noticed three horsemen away out on the veldt. He made the Kaffirs lash the mules, and got behind a kopje. In the meantime he placed himself in a position in the road to command the entrance between the hills, and the horsemen came trotting along, unconscious of a " hold-up," and congratulating themselves on bein^ the first to enter Pretoria. When Dwyer yelled "hands up,' up they went; "dismount," and down they came; "forward," and they went forward, with Dwyer in possession of the horses. Dwyer then put Lord Rosslyn and his companions 011 a wagon, and brought them to Pretoria a week before the occupation by the English.' * ' The system with which he proposes to break the bank at Monte Carlo, is,' says the Otago Daily Times ' according to his own conviction, infallible. It is of his own invention entirely, and he has been perfecting it for some years. To raise the necessary sinews of war, he had recourse to various private friends, before whom he gave an exhibition of 20,000 coups, with a view to convincing them that his system is infallible. The authorities, however, rather welcome men with systems at Monte Carlo. Hitherto the bank has not suffered, but the merry invaders have broken themselves on the wheel, Ixion-like. The lie has never yet been given to the old punning motto of Monte Carlo: Le noir perde, le rouge perde, mais le Blanc toujours gngne.' However, if Earl Rosslyn has really invented a system he may retrieve the fortune that he lost on the turf ana — what is alone to the purpose — may close the doors and put up the shutters of the greatest gambling hell on earth.