The daily morning journal and courier., 1907-02-01
GAMBLING CLUBS OF PARIS. Women Lose Fortunes at Baccarat il
 the Fashionable Houses.

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 the Fashionable Houses.
 Club life in its proper and normal aspects is English, not French. We have no guinea CT two guinea clubs where the lower professional man of own standing for quiet game of cards or for social intercourse.
 The reason is that suspicious gov ernment looks with unfriendly eye upon clubs. They may, and indeed, have in the past, become centers of political intrigue. Moreover, there is the fsc, always unsuitable in Franc. The fisc insists on it's tithe Is not the club of luxury--like an automobile and shooting estates?
 And so it exacts a contribution and a very severe one. levied on the mem bers' subscriptions. Yet while the so- cial club has not come to compete with the cafe, which is the poor mans house of assembly, there has appeared lately perfect crop of clubs of anoth- CT sort-for the most part purely gambling hells. Oddly enough, they shelter themselves behind the law the famous association law-which grants power of union to any body of persons who make the necessary declaration.
 Before the law came into existence, with, of course, quite other objects, the club when it formed itself, was forced to apply to the perfect for authoriza- tion. This formality enabled the po- lice to make inquiries as to the nature and scope of the club and to prevent the worst types from perpetuating themselves.
 By one of these sudden decisions for which he is celebrated, M. Clemen- ceau has taken strong measures against these gambling clubs. Almost without exception, they are kept by foreigners Belgians; the Minister has decreed their uxpulsion from France. The majority did not wait to be con- ducted to the frontier, but took the earliest train home One name is mentioned in the papers as a sort of Napolean of gambling land. His name is Marcuet
 It is said that he boasted he was protected" in high places, and there fore could not be touched. The Min ister of the Interior has just shown him his mistake Marquet is the founder of the notorious Club de France, which until forty-eight hours ago, fourished in the Avenue de Mac Mahon, in the rich quarter of the Etoile. Marquet purchased the prem ises for SOOOO pounds sterling, and spent a third of that amount in dec- orations and alterations. Then he be- gan business and a wonderfully prof itable business it was.
 So profitable was it that he was able the other day to offer a prize of 5000 pounds sterling, for the first inventor to fly by aeroplane from Paris to Os- tend--the prize, notably only repre- senting the takings of a single day at his establishment.
 The stake was not accepted. but there was an obliging jeweler on hand to turn the trinkets into liquid gold. Another lady, well known on the stage lost in a single evening at one of these establishments the bagatelle of 5000 pounds sterling. Complaints came in shoals to the police. Sometimes 1t was the players themselves, who complain ed of the manner in which the bacca- rat was played; more often it was a husband or wife or a parent.
 The most startling feature in con- nection with these clubs is the play of women. It is a new thing to admit women to the clubs in France, but the Belgian exploiters of gambling instinct were nothing if not "feministe." They found women the easies prey. They soon became carried away by their emotions Gan it jlease Mesdames les Suffragettes), and they are in conse- ouence, gamblers after the heart of the professional bankers. Baccaroa of a special kind imported from Belgium and known as "baccara a un tableau', made it all tie easier to lose money.
 The "cagnoste" or money box, fixed to the table as the depository of it's earnings, ,engulfed enormous sums. The women who play--women of fashion and women of the "demi monde could no longer pay their bills- Money allotted to the dressnaker and the mo- diste was engulfed by this hungry cag- notte. The tradespeople of the Rue de la Prix saw their money going to swell the profits of the gambling dens. And so they added theor complaints to those of the husbands and parents.
 By his decision M. Clemenceau has earned the pratitude of the trading classes, if not of the infatuated vic- tins themselves Cable to Lon don Mail Gazette.