GAMBLING AT MONACO.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3219, 24 October 1881, Page 4

GAMBLING AT MONACO.

Tl'.o women are b*'.fpr known «-.ti,::!,•!>.' tables t l ran the men. I am •. and they are more pertinacious, and tinvs even more adventurous, in thei • than men. I heard a gentleman, played a little himself, protesting the ,ir ;r evening that the spectacle of a wom>\n making herself at home in the gaming-room--was enough to rob him of all his r:=. He pointed out several of the lady gamblers, who seemed oareless of their personal appearance, who were dressed in the rustiest of rusty black, without lace at tbeir throa ■ or wrists—their bare hands moving 1: claws about the five-franc pieces—and . asked how could a man lose his heart ; sunh n direction ? That a man shoul 1 led astray was nature•', he said ;it was almost expected of him that he should join v every infamy—take a turn at e\<uj vice—if only as a matter of experience. But wonuiv was expected to watch over him, to re->tr:n":> him, to check his evil leanings—to be. it: short, his ministering angel! But what if the 'ministering angel' took it into her b r ' to play roulette at Monte Carlo? Wii. then her position as the regenerates* n f man would be entirely gone! This is, a? may be gathered, the land, par excellence, of < money. It would not be wise fo< tradesfolk or hotel-keepers to allow bills tr be run up ; for one day, when luck w»against him, the debtor might stroll do wthe hili of Monte Carlo and into the liHl. station, and take his ticket, with his las' louis, for Paris, without realising the vnnr toifcy of his action. Does not the Tunisian proverb say, " The foot follows w 1 •—j the heart leads ? " So there i? no question <> getting credit; everything must be paid on the spot; and even the local doctors, instead >f sending in a bill for the season, as is the custom in other places, r.ro in the habit o ( ' receiving their fees day by day. Tho hotelkeepers are obliged to be very observant, and to display an amount of perception of character that might be a stock-in-trade for some novelist. From a certain class of persons they have to stipulate for diil settlements,* while with certin other pers-m----they feel justified in allowing a day or two'delay. The French people talk about thei 1 gains and losses with the utmost I heard one lady relating, at the table d* liote, how she had lost her every sou, and had been bliged to send to her friends m Vienna for reinforcements, "Here I am. penniless, until I hear from them!" sin said with a brilliant smile. " However, 1 have paid my laundress ! " And she px plained, amid general laughter, how, befoi" she went to the Casino with her last in-t«' ment uf money, she bad insisted on pa--' that one modest creditor. She displayed n repugnance at the fact that the mhitr iVbStel and the waiters heard every wor- 1 she said. This spirited lady ultimately go* out of her difficulties ; for I met her om afternoon later on at Nice, deploring the fact that she had been forced to leave Monaco and was then on her way home, and promising herself an early return.—Tinsleys' Magazine.