, 1888-12-05
THE RAIN GAMBLERS.
A GAME IN WHICH NATURE TAKES
A THIRD HAND"

Getting on the Amount of Rainfall in
Bombay-LfvelY Times During the Rainy
Season Cheating Impossible Simple
Tools of the Game.
The Bombay police are at present ex-
ercised over a point of public morals
which suggests grave reflections to those
who imagine that human nature can be
regenerated by act of parliament. In
England we ave done our best to check
gambling by the suppression of lotteries,
and betting houses, and "list shops" and
by withholding all legal protection from
the goose who has backed his fancy and
finds it hard to collect the proceeds. But
still the evil is not e~xterminated. and SO
far as risking money on the performances
of horses on a race course or of men on
the ash path is concerned, the mischief is
perhaps more rampant than ser it was.
In truth, the ennui of existence, among
men with no internal or ex-
ternal business, must be relieved in some
way. And this, the Bombay authorities
discovered, is supplied among the native
population by means of the rain gambling
BETTING ON THE RAINFALL.
Whether this form of betting is new or
old we are not informed, though, as
everything in the east is very ~antiquated,
the chances are that it has been going on
from time immemorial, though it is only
recently that it has come prominently
under the notice of the police. All kinds
of gambling are, of course, plentiful in an
Indian city-from the purchase of lottery
tickets to the vulgar excitement of chuck
farthing, But the rain gamblers, though
not drafted solely from the upper circle of
native society, are in Bombay confined,
for the most part, to men with some
means. In vulgar parlance, 1t is known
as ~"sutta," and consists in betting on the
amount of rain which will be discharged
from a passing cloud.
Naturally in a country where the sky is
rs brass for more than half the year, this
form of speculation can be INDUCED in
only during the monsoon season when
business is partly suspended and the world
generally in western India is a peg low"
With the southwest monsoon the rainy
season in Bombay sets in and lasts with
amazing regularity, from the second week
in June till near the close of September.
At this period the air is moist and ,clammy
and the citizens move, as 1t were, in
a kind of vapor bath, though old residents
are fond of declaring that the monsoon is
pleasant enough when one gets accus-
toned to the rain" In any case it gen
orally caves off for an hour or two in the
evening, when a ride or walk is possible.
But that is just the period when the rain
gambler HES him to the sutta saloon. The
principal of these haunts-the only one
indeed with which the police seem ac-
quainted-is situated in close proximity
TO one of the principal police stations.
CHEATING IS IMPOSSIBLE.
According to a description in a local
Journal the place is perfectly easy of &c
cess, and there is no attempt to hide any
thing from the authorities, or from any
one else. Nor, in truth, except for the
temptation which it affords to people with
no money to lose to risk their earnings,
or, h is worse, the earnings of their
employers, rain gambling is about the
most innocuous of all forms of betting.
Cheating is impossible, and though expe-
rience counts for something, there can
not be any chance of the %greenhorn being
hoodwinked, since the game is the sim
plest imaginable, and the fact of Nature
taking the third hand" in the sport pre-
cludes the suspicion of the willy "shroff'
manipulating the implements of the
game.
Implements, indeed, in the gambling
sense of the term, there are none; and,
80 long as a gamester has learned to read
tho signs of the heavens, the merest tyro
has as much chance of winning as the
most regular frequenter of the sutta
saloon. The room is occupied by the
stalls of the shroffs, or bankers, who pay
to the owner of the establishment a GER
tain percentage of their gains; and to this
magnate all disputes are referred, his de-
cision, like that Of the umpire In a cricket
match, being final.
IMPLEMENTS OF THE AME
The only tools of any kind in the place
are two rough rain gauges. One of them
consists of a long gutter running along
the caves of a shed. At one end there Is
an aperture, to which is affixed a spout,
through which the water trickles when
the rain comes down in a drizzle. But
when 1t pours the water shoots over the
end of the gutter, and 1t is on this event
happening that bets are laid. The other
gauge is planted in the center of a trough,
supported on four pillars, some seven feet
high, and on the amount Of rain which
will fall in a specified time bets also are
a From morning to evening this
meteorological and, 1t must be confessed,
somewhat scientific gambling hell" is
described as crammed with all sorts and
conditions of natives, entering bets and
waiting for the result.
When a heavy black cloud passes over
head, every swarthy face is ~anxiously up
turned, INT then wagers are eagerly
mad whether it will or will not break,
and as to the amount of rain which will
be discharged from it. The scene is said
to be wonderfully picturesque, the various
hued faces, the gay colored garments and
the many fashioned costumes of the
gamblers of different races giving the
the interest which the different passions
displayed impart to this curious Indian
Monte Carlo.-London Standard.