Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1892-11-20
WOMEN WHO GAMBLE.
They Are More Numerous Than Men
at Continental Resorts,
BUT THE NUMBER ISN'T GROWING.
An Equality of the Sexes When Tempting
the Tickle Goddess.
FATE OF THOSE WHO LOSE FORTUNE

IcoRREsPoNDEScE OF THE DrsPArcHt
LONDON, Nov. 10.-A brief glance at the
crowds assembled round the seductive
green tables of Continental resorts assures
one of the fact that, whatever may be their
other distinctive characteristics, women
are, here, numerically, in excess of men.
Yet, strange and parado1ical as it may ap-
pear, considering that this is an age OF loco
motive facilities, and the emancipation of
women, whereby they can be seen zen voy-
age" unaccompanied by a male escort
without entaiiing the social ostracism it
would once have eventuated in, the female
gambler is not one of an increasing com.
munity.
= Whether the ever-growing outlets for
their energies at home and the means of
acquiring wealth, Independent of a hus-
bands support, are more within their grasp,
and are helping to fill void, and to divert
the current of their powers into healthier
channels by bestowing the pleasurable e1-
citation of money making without the des-
perate odds Of the gaming table, which was
once their great resource, time alone can
prove. But at the present moment, even
allowing for these creeping changes, women
still predominate Where their younger
sisters are seeking and finding platforms at
home, on which they can stand on an
equality with their brother workers, the
older ones, women who have outlived the
warm emotions of youth, the feverish ties
of womanhood and the ambitions which
up1h cd int cit
round these garish centers of attraction,
where they, too, are on even ground with
the other sex, having the same end and
aim, securing the same law.
No Distinction of Sex There.
For every sweep of the croupier's
"rateau" deals the same unerring measure,
the same alterations of momentary triumph
or more lingering beartburning. Women
play with greater concentration and more
stolid patience than men. When losing they
become obstinate, when winning they do
not so quickly lose selfcontrol or undo any
profitable results.
in most of the serious affairs of life they
possess endurance to higher degree than
men, and this quality serves them to good
purpose even here. As, in the outer world
they can bear personal discussions and an
tagonistic debates more calmly than men,
by the same token they can here look more
dispassionately on the chances of regairing
their losses. or regard the painful alterna-
tive with greater composure, although they
may not have so much command exteriorly,
or hide their inward perturbation so per-
fectly as men, who can play IN, smiling, to
1.-A Al. y. - L.
pocket pistol which, in few moments, will
end all. Men play for higher stakes, and
the raging fever which pride makes them
hide causes them to play quickly. The
agony of suspense is not so long drawn out
as with women, who. hour after hour, circu-
late round the tables, oblivious of time,
while health, looks, meals, physical and
mental fatigue, all, are held in subjection
by the one overwhelming vortex of interest.
True as in Other Features.
"'Tis womau's whole e1istencer' is true
in this as IN other human idolatries! It is
soul-absorbing pursuit, and becomes a
tyrant from which they cannot escape, and
yet its end is not so often disastrous to life
with them as with their brother players.
Rare, indeed, it is to hear of an occurrences
such as thrilled even the well-seasoned cal
lousness of Monte Carlo the other day when
q
mense fortune, deliberately took her own
life. To some extent gambling is grated
in every heart, but it is opportunity, satan's
stanch ally, that first calls it into life, and
this feeling once permitted, like Aaron's
rod, it swallows up all others, obliterates
all sense of anxiety and distress of mind,
and elevates the heart into a state of ex-
pectancy and transient delight!
Want and necessity have nothing to do
with it. Women who are placed above the
shadow of pecuniary care, to whom large
amounts are easily available, prefer to OBJ
tain them through the path of excitement
rather than with the cold and spiritless ease
Of gifts, and this is the keynote of Its
tension of the nerves is
created, attainable in no other way. Once
under its influence the vice is omnipotent.
The heart may suffer dull pain, the brain
may grow torpid by sheer exhaustion of ex-
still it gains force, even over the
strongest natures, strong for good or evil,
stubborn and seli-confdent, until the last
'ay of hope is extinguished, the last re-
ource exhausted, and they must accept de-
eat with what grace they may.
When the Glamor Is Past.
Then only do they begin to realize that
he coins cast away meant money, not mere
Inning counters. and the notes which are
zone forever had not been meant for waste
,aper. The glamor is past, the false lights
lave lost their delusive brilliancy, daylight
nters their understanding and their foolish
less is made clearl
They can say with Dryden:
trust on? and think tomorrow will repayf
ro-morrow's lalser than the former day!
Then comes the test of woman's char.
cter! She has passed through the fire and
er wings are scorched. She sees herself
n all her .feebleness, but while life lasts
wo roads are still open to her.
She may step on her mortal vice and rise
o nobler things, or sink to that social per-
ition from which there is no recall
---. ASTORIA.