The Anaconda standard. [volume] (Anaconda, Mont.) 1889-1970, 1899-07-23
GAMBLERS SUPERSTITION
The Reliance They Place Upon
Charms.
LUCK BRINGING POTATO
An English Gambler Who Always
Carries One in His Pocket-A
Jockey Who Carries
Pearl Button,

Seeing that gambling is nearly al
ways a matter of luck or iIl-luck, it
seems consistent with the eternal fit
ness of things that habitual gamblers
should be superstitious and place a GER
tain amount of reliance upon charms
and presentiments; but, nevertheless, it
is truly extraordinary how much inn
portance many gamblers attach to triv-
lal things and occurrences such as any
one else would simply ignore.
One of the most notorious gamblers in
the British aristocracy is an implicit
believer in the luck-bringing powers of
small kidney potato, without which
ne rarely plays at any game at the risk
of losing large sums of money. The
history of his extraordinary charm is
wrapped in mystery" and no one has
been able to drag out of the noble lord
for he is member of the house of
peers) in what way he became pos
sessed of his plebeian potato. But he
stoutly asserts that but for his tails
man he would have been ruined years
ago by his gambling habits.
He is one of the luckieSt men who
ever cast a die or cut a pack, and it
is notorious that an evenings play at
his favorite club has more than once
put e1,000 into his pocket and it really
seems that the superstition attached to
his potato has solid basis, for on one
occasion, when by chance he left mis-
charm at home-a very rare thing for
him to do-he lost heavily: whereas it
is most exceptional thing for him to
rise from card table a penny the poor
er for a long evenings reckless gam
bling.
A well known jockey who is reputed
to have won ten times as much in bet
ting as he has by his profession, al
though he has been wonderfully sue
cessful, never rides in race or backs
horse for a half penny if he has not
on his person at the time a smoked
pearl button, and to attempt to argue
with him that his charm could not pos
sibly affect his fortunes would be use
less; he would tell you of a hundred &C.
casons on which the button changed
his luck, and finally inform you that it
had, when he was child, saved his
life by catching in the upholstery of
a railway carriage when he fell out of
the improperly closed door.
How he gets over the fact that he
always carries the button when racing,
but does not always get his horse
place, we do not know. Probably he
believes it saves him a fall even when
it does not carry him to victory, and
he has certainly been remarka bly, lucky
in the matter of accidents.
A leading light of London society
who is a frequent visitor to the gaming
palaces at Monte Carlo and Ostend
when gambling wears on her wrist part
of a broken clock spring to which she
attaches the greatest importance. 1t is
said that on the occasion of one of her
visits to Monte Carlo a friend persuad-
ed her to leave her strange looking
| bracelet at her hotel and to play with
out it, and the result was that, unable
to resist the fascination of gambling,
even when losing, she lost between
$1,000 and $4,000, not thinking how the
money was going until it had actually
gone.
Since then she has never gambled un-
less wearing her famous clock spring
and she has often surprised the COM
1 pany at her table by her wonderful
runs of luck. She is perfectly calm
when gambling with the bracelet on her
wrist, while without it she always lost
her head at the first loss of money and
then plunged.
Every one knows how superstitious
racing men are concerning dreams, but
we came across a case a short time
since which appears so novel that we
include it in this article, although the
actual subject is so hackneyed.
The supersttious gentleman is one
with whose name every sporting man
is acquainted, and relies absolutely
upon suggestions made to him in
the turf; and since he made it his habit
to do so he has never lost a penny upon
a race, or lost a race in which one of
his horses was running!
Cheerful idiot.