The North-Eastern Weekly Gazette. — 1883-07-21 (Stockton-on-Tees, Cleveland, England)

GAMBLING AND SUICIDES AT BERLIN.  The Berlin correspondent of a contemporary points out that it requires no very subtle psychology to account for many of the frequent suicides in the higher ranks of society in that capital, especially among officers. Everyone knew why a gay cavalry officer of the Prussian Guards, who moved like a meteor from one hospitable saloon to another during the Berlin season, was last winter suddenly removed from the scene of his social triumphs. The Berlin newspapers of Wednesday evening announce the suicide at Hamburg of a general owing to unsuccessful play, and the arrest there of two gangs of professional gamblers. The correspondent does not speak of the Bourse, which a Prussian Minister, Herr Mayhach, not very long ago described as a "poison ' plant," and which indulges to an incredible extent in transactions that require the exercise of the very same faculties as card-playing, but of private gaming, which is so generally practised in restaurants, clubs, and even in t'ue himily circle. According to some statistics recently published by the .North German Gasette, the Imperial revenue for the year 1882-3 profited to the extent of 1,056,838 marks from this practice of card-playing, no fewer than 3,121,846 packs of cards having been bought and used in Germany during the twelve months. It was mainly owing to the efforts of Prince Bismarck, when Prussian member of the Old Diet at Frankfort, that public gaming tables in Germany were abolished, but the vice which be endeavoured to put down was merely thus compelled to assume a new form. That this is so was proved on Wednesday by the trial of Reuter for "professional hazard playing," of which he was found guilty, and for which he was sentenced to eight months' imprisonment, with a fine of 6,000 marks, bail to the extent of 40,000 marks being demanded of him. It formed an additional count in the indictment against him that when arrested in a fashionable restaurant in Berlin he endeavoured to soften the heart of his capturer by slipping into his hand a thousand mark note. Reuter lived in a fine West End street in great style. He discounted bills at-a high rate, went to all the chief watering-places, attended all the race-courses, and enjoyed the services of an adroit confederate, with whom he managed to fleece opponents to the tune of as much as 200,000 marks at a sitting. He consorted much with officers and other aristocratic gamblers and with sporting men—and all the Jewish youth and the jeunesse dorie of Berlin affect to be sporting men, hitherto an unknown race in Germany—and was a sort of peripatetic bank for needy players at trente et oitarante, roulette, makao, and similar games of hazard. Once he won from a companion 180,G00 marks, and contented himself with the payment of less than a third of the sum. At last, however, his invariable good luck led his victims to suspect false play, and although this could not be clearly brought home to him, he has now been made an example of. A peculiar thing about the reports of his trial is that the witnesses in it are not mentioned by name. Witness R or Banker 8— is all the description that is vouchsafed.