A FASHIONABLE GAMBLER.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3121, 29 June 1881, Page 4

A FASHIONABLE GAMBLER.

Count Jaraczewski, who died so suddenly recently, was a curious instance of a foreigner, respecting whose family as little was known as that of Melehisedek, becoming one of the elect of London fashionable society. I knew him well many years before he came to England. He was the son, as 1 always then understood, of a Monsieur Jaraczewski, a Polish gentleman, who had long resided in Paris, where he died. His mother, on the death of her husband, had taken up her abode in Milan, but whether she is still alive I do not know. Jaraczewski, when I first knew him, used to pass his time at Gorman watering-places, where hs lost whatever money he had inherited from his father, for he was exceedingly fond of play. Then he went to Nice. Wishing to see England, he came over hei'e on a visit, with an elderly Pole as a companion, and being introduced to one or two clubs, he won about £20,000 at whist and escarte. The companion returned from ■whence he oame, and since then, with short intervals, Jaraczewski resided in England xxntil his death. He was a most intrepid gambler, and seemed eq\ially cool under good and bad fortune. Sometimes he won largely and sometimes he lost largely ; in the latter case he used sometimes to inform his friends that he must pay a visit to his mother in her Polish chateau and obtain from her a supply of money. With the exception of the harmless myth of the chateau, and an equally harmless myth as to his relationship with the Countess Kisselief, he never alluded to his family. How and where he obtained money was his own secret, and died with him. My own impression always was that in reality his winnings were larger than his losses, and that thus the former provided for the latter. Be this as it may, he was a most fair player, and, unlike a considerable number of English gentlemen addicted to the same pursuit, whether he lost money on the turf n- •* -.•aHs, he always paid it.—London Truth.