PARIS GAMBLING HOUSES.

Hawke's Bay Times, Issue 1635, 8 December 1874, Page 453

PARIS GAMBLING HOUSES.

Daily News. I Most of the Parisian gambling is carried ! on in private Mpots, some of which are winked at by the police for the facilities they are supposed to effect in netting sharpers and foreign adventurers ; while the rest flourish clandestinely until the day when some victim goes to the police and lodges a complaint, which generally occurs within three months after the establishment has been set going. M. Konault, the prefect of police, has energetically set his face against Mpots, and not a week passes without his agents unearthing one and bringing its conductors to punishment. As the present is the season when, owing to the incursions of foreign tourists and provincials, the Paris gambling hells make most dupes, we may as well spend an hour in seeing one of them brought to grief by what in police slang is called a razzia. We have obtained leave to accompany the detectives, and at.midnight find ourselves in the Rue de Jerusalem talking with M. Claude, chief of the Surete Department. A terribly keen man is M. Claude. Short, thickset, and bluff, with a grey moustache and blue eyes, clear as a hawk's, he enjoys a bodily strength almost prodigious, and is endowed with a memory so retentive that a person once arrested by him hangs up his photograph, as it were, for ever after in M. Claude's mind. In other respects M. Claude is a pleasant, chatty man ; and nothing can be less fussy than the way in which he marshals his agents and discloses to them on what business they have been summoned. There are eleven of these agents. They are unarmed, and carry handcuffs, but each has in his pocket a bit of stick about two inches long, used for better clenching the fist in case of blows, and also a yard of strong whipcord. When they have all arrived we issue on to the quay, where six cabs are waiting. The agents break up into pairs, one to each vehicle, and away we go in the first cab, which bears M. Claude and a whiskered detective, six feet high, over the first bridge, and so to the right bank of the Seine towards one of the wealthiest quarters of Paris. The precaution of not apprising the detectives until the last moment of what business they are to perform is said to be necessary lest one of them should be tempted by the weakness of human nature to sell his information to the interested parties; and, indeed, so well is the information kept that none of the agents will know until they reach the door of what particular house they are going to invade. M. Claude is not so reticent, however, with amateurs, and from what wo can gather of his confidences whispered in English—a tongue which the six-foot agent does not comprehend—the house in question is one that has been at work for almost two years, and is respectably conducted. The owner describes herself as a Polish widow, countess of course, and receives guests of great fortune and distinction. Whether the police have condoned her proceedings M. Claude naturally does not state; but he says that measures are being taken now because a young gentleman of 20 lately lost 70,000 francs there, and was driven to confess the debt to his father, a nobleman of considerable wealth, who did not receive the tidings philosophically. By the time this explanation has been given we reach the street where the Countess resides, but we do not drive up to the door. Our cab pulls up round the corner of the adjoining street, and the five others come to a standstill behind it. At the same moment about a dozen policemen in uniform walk quietly out of the recesses of different doorways, where they had been standing, apparently waiting for us, and as fast as the detectives alight from the cabs they get in and take their places, drawing down the blinds, however, so that no crowd may be attracted by their appearance. From'this moment no time is lost—everything is done at post pace. M. Claude leading the way, the agents drop behind in the order of their riding, and it is understood that the last two are to remain on the pavement outside the house, the next two in the first vestibule of the house ; the following pair on the first flight of stairs, while the remaining five will accompany M. Claude wherever he goes, but always keeping their places in couples, and remaining about a yard separate from other pairs, so that there may be no crowding or confusion. He would be a clever gambler that could break through such an army of sentinels; and not one of those in the house does break through it. They are destined to be caught every one of them. The first to fall into the net is the welldressed and pompous concierge. In answer to the bell he has pulled the door chain; the door has clicked open, and before he can recover from his surprise this janitor has seen eight men walk coolly past his lodge without deigning to notice him. It is only on the arrival of the ninth or tenth, who are to keep watch in the vestibule, that he learns he is a prisoner, and must neither stir from his place nor raise a cry unless he would pass his night at the Prefecture. The second victim is a footman in black clothes, who is carrying a tray of wine-glasses up the staircase. An expressive though mute gesture from M. Claude causes him almost to drop this tray in horror ; but he turns back without a word, Binks down pale and abashed, and becomes the prey of the two agents who are to mount guard on the stairs. Up we ■ go over the thick-pile carpets, past the groups of statuary and flowers in the corners of the landings, past wall panels beautifully painted with subjects a la Watteau, and illumined by the soft light falling from globes of tinted glass, and thus to the oecond flight preceding the first floor. On the landing of the first floor, however, sits a footman in charge of hats and clothes-brushes; and on catching sight of M. Claude he springs up, wrenches open the drawing-room door, and can be heard shouting in a voice that cracks right through the middle from emotion, " Lc Eousse!" (Anglice, iir £\iQ Peelers !" By this warning he has spoiled the coup de theatre which results from the police personally introducing themselves ; but M. Claude does not leave the gamblers time to profit much by their scare. He has reached the landing and passed through the door almost on the footman's heels,

! and, in ringing tones that admit of no ' trifling, he cries, "Au nom de la loi, que personnene bouge!" ■Nobody does stir, at least in the sense of trying to get out of the house, for they have felt by instinct that escape is impossible. A few gentlemen, in the first impulse of fright, have rushed into neighboring chambers, and a showily attired lady has fallen over a footstool in making a dart over the hearthrug ; but the majority have merely risen to their legs and stand like a group of waxworks with eyes staring and features blanched. There are four ladies present and about 20 men, most of them in evening dress, and congregated round a table at which haccaret was being played. The gentleman who was dealing has a large heap of gold and bank-notes before him, and he has brought his two hands down on it with a natural gesture of protection. He is U -gentleman-like looking person, with a swarthy complexion and a foreign accent; but he makes no difficulty in surrendering his heap of money to the couple of detectives who intimate to him so to do, and, indeed, he does not appear to understand that he has been guilty of an indictable offence. Several of the other gentlemen are in a similar case, and seem to resent the intrusion of the police as an unjustifiable entry into a private house. There are guileless travellers from Southern and Eastern Europe who have taken their hostess quite au serieux, or very young Frenchmen—there are two who do not look eighteen—who have been thinking complacently that they were enjoying themselves in highly fashionable society. But some half-dozen of the male gamblers, and the four ladies who are whimpering " Oh, mon Dieut" are evidently much less innocent. There is especially one bearded gentleman, with a geranium in his coat, who is a trifle too well known to M. Claude, and putß on a very sickly smile as the latter nods him a recognition. As for the countess—she is a handsome, vivacious woman, rather past thirty, and very splendidly arrayed in blue silk and with jewellery. With trembling lips and a face grown cadaverous, sho affects to be indignant at this invasion of her privacy, and mutters broken threats of complaining to the Russian Ambassador ; but this bit of acting is not very successful, and soon finding no one disposed to listen to her, she collapses on to a mauve satin sofa and cries. Meanwhile the'six agents, paper and pencil in hand, are going round collecting names; and when this formality has been completed, M. Claude makes a painful statement: " I am very sorry, ladies and gentlemen, but you will all have to come to the Prefecture. Those of you who have satisfactory references will bo liberated at once—so the sooner we start the better." At this there is another outburst of remonstrances, especially from the ladies who are not likely to have satisfactory references ; but the gentlemen who feel, or pretend to feel, secure of their own integrity, content themselves with a mere formal protest. Then comes the moment for drafting out the company in pairs. First the ladies are motioned out. They are allowed to fetch their cloaks—being escorted the while—and they descend the staircase two by two ; when they reach the street door they will find the cabs waiting for them, and will be driven to the Prefecture in the custody of the policemen in uniform. The same fate awaits the gentlemen whom M. Claude suspects to be sharpers, but the others are allowed to walk out quietly, each with one detective accompanying him, and when they get out of doors other cabs will be hailed to convey them to the Rue de Jerusalem. It should be mentioned that all the stakes found on the table have been collected in a handkerchief and shovelled into M. Claude's pocket; and the whole process of invading the house and conveying away the delinquents has required little more than half an hour. And now what will become of the prisoners? This is often a matter of mystery, for the Parisian police have sufficient power to deal with gamblers without appealing to the courts, and without making any noise. If the Countess were particularly guilty she could be prosecuted and sent to prison for two years; but the police would most probably dispose of her and of the other three ladies by imprisoning them summarily at St. Lazare for six months—that is, provided, of course, that the " Countess " had not a tacit understanding with the police. The sharpers could also be dealt with summarily by being expelled from Paris as vagabonds after a three months' " precautionary detention," during which their antecedents would be carefully inquired into. As to the " pigeons," they would be released, or if minors, restored to their families immediately after furnishing satisfactory references. They would aIBO receive a friendly warning to be more cautious for the future ; but experience does not prove that these warnings profit much.