GAMBLERS' SUPERSTITIONS.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3200, 30 September 1881, Page 3

GAMBLERS' SUPERSTITIONS.

Gamblers are proverbially superstitious, and the habitual patrons of Monte Carlo form no exception to the general rule. Some refused to play because the cards have been cut by a person whom they imagine to have brought them ill-luck on a previous occasion, while others scrupulously absent themselves when a certain croupier deals. A well-known Italian marchesa never sits down without a talisman in the shape of a tiny glass bottle hidden in the palm of her hand, and containing a live woodlouse ; and one of the most indefatigable votaries of the roulette, a Paris banker, positively declined a few months ago to commence operations, and returned to Nice, because a ticket bearing the number twent-nine had been given him at the door in exchange for his overcoat, Last January two habitues of my acquaintance were talking of a common friend of theirs, who, one of them remarked, was in deep affliction on account of the death of his only son. " Very sad indeed," observed the other. " I conclude that you ascertained the necessary particulars, and profited by them?" "I did and I did not," replied the first speaker ; " that is to say I found out that the boy was eight years old, and that he died on the 30th of November at six o'clock. Naturally, I played pretty heavily on these numbers, eight thirty, and six, one after another, and •what do you think happened ?" " They came up ?" suggested his friend. " Not they. The scoundrel of an employe—the thin one, you know, with the hatchety face — actually brought up twenty-seven, my pet number, three times running, and, of course, I was not on it. Can you conceive anything more unlucky!"—" Gleanings from Monte Carlo," in Time.