The mirror., 1923-07-19

Camoens marks the spot in the grotto
where he composed his noble epic.
Macao has snoozed peacefully away on
its island in late years while controversies
have ragged around the handful of other
foreign holdings on the Chinese coast.
But recently the government of Southern
China is reported to have demanded that
there be cleanup" in the city, proce-
dure, which if carried out would entail
recognition of the Southern China govern
ment as well as acceptance of its right
to rule in what has long been considered
Portuguese territory.
Once in Macao the traveller may re-
main to contemplate an out-of-the-way
shrine of European history. But that is
not why most folk board the daily boat
from Hongkong to go there. 1t is sum-
mer resort for the Cantonese because of
its exposure to the cooling monsoons in
midsummer. Opium smugglers and gam
blers, in recent years, have loomed large
among its transients.. Formerly the Chin
ese coolie traffic also had headquarters
here. Within century its waters may
have warranted the characterization of
one traveller who called them "the most
dangerous waters of the world from
police standpoint" and added "a river trip
is spiced with the risk of piratical attack"
The ideas of Henry George and other
tax theorists have found a niggard soil in
Macao whose fiscal policy is simplicity
itself. Poo-chee and fantan provide the
revenues of the city. It has been said that
half the minted pieces of the Far East
find their way sooner or later to the
gambling boards of Macao, and the old
Rix dollar, the Mexican peso, and the
American dime are clinked upon the ta-
bles of the jeunesse doree, or of the rick
shaw coolies and harbor riff-raff of the
town, while daily flow of men, women
and dollars crosses the estuary from Hong
kong to Macao and pours into the hells
of the Roa do logo, or gambling street.
Fan-tan is the favorite game, but it is
nothing like the card game of that name
known to Americans. The Chinese crou-
piers sit enthroned before a square marked
at the corners with the numbers /, 2,
and 4. The banker reclines behind a
grating, smoking long pipe. Overhead
is a gallery running all around the room
and forming sort of ceiling, pierced
only by hole the size of the table. From
this gallery the bets are made, and the
stakes are alternately let down and drawn
up, accompanied by the sound of drawl-
ing minstrelsy.
The croupier takes handful of small
coins and covers them with reversed
bowl, while money is laid on one of the
four numbers. When the betting has
ceased he lifts the bowl and separates the
coins with his wand. Then he counts
them by fours, and the remainder, or the
last four, if there be no remainder, repre-
sents the winning number. Each hazard
is a one-to-three wager, and the banks
pay on that basis, after deducting the
house percentage. A number of these
licensed gambling dens, graded accord
ing to the limit of wager allowed, pay
the revenues of the city of Macao.
PreseW day Macao is not marred for
the casual traveller by either its fair for
fan-tan or its thriving trade in opium.
The latter is shipped away to wreak its
havoc; the former brings the bizarre and
the adventurous. The city of today is one
of the few Far Eastern coast towns which
have not been caught in the resistless cur
rent of commercial progress, and for that
reason it presents some interesting studies
to lovers of the picturesque.
He who lands from steamer is capti-
waited by its blend of Portuguese and Chi
nese people, by pagoda and western