The Gambling Hell

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXIV, Issue 6, 8 February 1906, Page 2

The Gambling Hell

The cable-man has sent over the submarine wires a story which runs substantially thus : A little Frenchman tried to become, like another ' Jubilee Juggins,' ' the man who 'burst the bank at Monte Cah-ahr-lo.' He staked a goodly bundle of notes on the trembling chances of rouge-et-noir. He lost. The croupier was about to rake the notes into the treasury, when the Frenchman exclaimed dramatically, ' The bread of my wife and children,' suddenly grabbed the roll, bolted, and got clean away before the officials of the Casino could recover from their surprise. The gambling tables of Monte Carlo have many ways of shearing the innocents abroad who make sheep of themselves. The little Frenchman discovered one way by which broken gamblers may draw lost money from the maelstrom of the treasury of the bank at Monte Carlo. • Another and more normal way is to dip into the fund ' for the prevention of suicides ' — some thirty to forty of which take place at the great gambling hell every year. Many years ago (so the story runneth) a ' broth of a boy ' from the Green Isle contrived to lose his last shilling in the gilded halls of the Casino at Monte Carlo. With despair in his eye, he strode into the Casino gardens, drew a revolver, presented it towards his face, fired, and fell. There was a hasty patter of feet. Two figures were promptly on the spot. They swiftly thrust their hands into the pockets oi" the prostrate form, and as quickly dashed out of sight into the adjoining shrubbery. They had scarcely gone when the ' dead corpse ' arose, stuffed his hands, into his pockets, found them comfortably lined with bank-notes, and went his way rejoicing. The suicide was a mere rus&— the broken gambler having fired over, not into, his head. The two dark figures were officials of the Casino Company, who have a special fund for dealing with ' deadbrokes ' and self-murderers, and who are keen to lead the public to believe that the frequent suicides which disgrace Monte Carlo are not occasioned by losses ai the gambling tables. The story bears repetition. And we give it as we gpt it. ' Vero ' or * trovato '—true or imagined— it emphasises the moral that holds good for every kind of Monte Carlo, the race-course specially included : ' There are two times in a man's life when he should not speculate— when he can't afford it, and when he can.'