The Savannah morning news., 1901-05-14

Il have been for many years connected
in one capacity or another, but principal
jly as a croupier, with several of the gam
bling casinos of Europe" said croupier
who. until recently, presided at one of
the roulette tables at famous continent
tai public gambling establishment.
Few people have much idea of the
enormous amount of money that has been
earned by the various gambling establish
ments. In the early days the annual
profits of the gambling house at Aix-la-
Chapelle were said to be $4,000 At HON.
burg the annual expense of the Kursaal
were 10000, and yet there remained
very handsome profit, though L forget the
| amount; neither can l now recall the
profits of Baden-Baden, but as the COM
| pany which rented the CONVERSATIONAL
(as the gambling establishment was called
paid about I'll GOO a year for it and con-
trected to spend. besides 900 in i'm
proving and maintaining the premises and
| grounds, equalling f36, coo, and still show
big profit, you can guess the gross TAX
| ings must have been pretty heavy
"At Spa (where the gambling establish
ments al one time belonged to the Bishop
of Liege) the profits were over 100000 per
of three months managed. after paying a
tax of 10000 to the municipality. to make
a net profit of f2SO,OOO.
THE splendid revenue earned by the
| Monte Carlo tables has now become a
| proverb. That these public gambling ca
| sinos are productive of considerable harm
it would be idle to deny. AS matter
| of fact many more cases of suicides, MUIR
der and scandal occur at the various
lie ear at all, for the administration of
most of the gambling tables expend a
princely sum annually in substituting a
| large number of Europeans and American
newspapers; in fact, all that they can in
order to prevent such horrors from being
reported.
THE papers thus subsidized are also
| freely used for occasional puffs and par
| agraphs relating to sensational and Of
ten impaginary 'breakings' of the bank.
| Indeed, you may be surprised to hear that
quite a number of mushroom JOURNALS
are continually being started for the mere
| purpose of securing the retaining fee
paid by the administration l could tell
you the name of one little paper the
| proprietor of which was paid by the 'ad-
ministration' of a certain gambling ca
sino' 100000 francs (f4.C00) to keep it in a
| friendly frame of mind at a rather criti-
cal time Besides the command they OBJ
tain of these papers the administration
have other methods for making the best
| of tragic occurrences.
AT one of the gambling towns where
l was employed there were three doctors
| --dssipated, ignorant rascals, with no
practice, and whose names would in Eng
land have long since been struck of the
| Medical Register-who were secretly and
unofticially paid handsome salaries by the
administration for rendering certain pro-
| fessional services as occasion required. If,
for instance, some ruined gamester, aft
er losing his last louis, shot himself in a
quiet corner of the grounds, two of the
doctors would be sent for and would, in
| a number of instance, certify the death
| as 'apopleXy,' 'syncope,' heart disease,
aneurism or 'sunstroke.' and thus the in
convenience of an inquest and 'undesir-
+ able publicity was avoided. One of these
| rogues, 1 heard, was paid f7O0 a year.
Murders, too, were whenever circum-
| stances made it possible either similarly
hushed up or reported as occurring some
where else. remember such a case
some years ago. The only son of a
wealthy English merchant won about "a,
| Geo at the trente-et -quarante table In
stead of leaving it in the care of the
administration which NJ could have
DONE he insisted on taking his winnings
home with him to his hotel. Before he
had got very far he was robbed of the
whole sum and knocked on the head.
And in what form do you think the
news reached the public? Why, in this
The unfortunate young man, who hao
been on mountain-c climbing expedition
was found lying at the bottom of a preci-
pice with his head broken. He had APP
parently missed his footing and thus met
his untimely end That was the way II
appeared in those papers that mentioned
il at all AS a matter of fact the poor
fellows body had been Surreptitlously
conveyed from the spot where 1t was
first discovered to the supposed scene OF
the accident the better to substantiate
the explanation given.
1T is astonishing how the gambling
habit dominates some people. l knew one
lady as an habitue of the rooms at Monte
Carlo with whom gambling became such
an absorbing mania that she made several
applications to magistrates and also to the
resident doctor of a lunatic asylum, and
used considerable efforts 10 get herself
placed under restraint as being the only
means by which she could be prevented
from gambling. Not being successful, she
managed to get incarcerated I'M another
way, by forging check for 100, though
she had no need of the money. and she
got two years imprisonment Her story
was fully told IN court, winch proDa Oily
accounted for her not getting a longer
sentence.
THE persistence with which born
| gambler will pursue his own ruin is ca
traordinary Many years ago major In
the army who had just inherited f25,00-
came 10 Homburg. Being aware what an
| incorrigible gambler he was he took the
precaution of paying three months in all
vance for his board and lodging at the
| hotel and. furthermore, handed to the
| landlord 5000, which the latter was in
| structed to hold in trust for him and
on no consideration whatever to repay to
him until he had returned to England. nc
matter how much he might entreat him.
He began at the trente-et-quarante table
by winning 5000.
Next day he netted $4,000. Then he
alternated his transactions between
| trcnte-et-quarante and the roulette Ia
bles. but the refait and zero occurred SO
frequently that in few days his capital
was reduced from $4,000 to los, end mat
ly to nothing. Then he went
to the landlord of his hotel
and ordered. begged and entreated
him to give him his 5000. The landlord
refusing. he went and borrowed $50 fyom
friend. lost II. then went and sold his
watch and chain. jewelry and all his
clothes. except what he stood up in. re-
turned to the tables with Gao and again
lost every farthing
THE hotel landlord being still inexor-
.l.I. n la fhn tsrhN