GAMBLERS FOR LTFE.

Hokitika Guardian, 15 June 1922, Page 4

GAMBLERS FOR LTFE.

(By Andree Viollis.)

MONTE CARLO. ,Everybody is going, has been, or will lie going to AltonLc Carlo. It is one of the world’s greatest places ol pilgrimage. Rut there also exists a fixed population, strange and heterogeneous, in which all races, castes and types are represented add cdiiipouiideJ. It, is loiiiid the green table of Monte Carlo that the most grotesque, the most lamentable types of human until; c are to lie met with; men in worn and greasy clothes with the, faces of beasts —tigers or jackals; with the profiles of birds of prey—vultures or hawks; old women fantastically decked out in dowdy liiieiy, long black skirts, green with age, moth-eaten furs, hats trimmed with moulting featheis and dusty flowers, ragged veils, with extraordinary straw baskets or string bigs.

These individuals sit stolidly, as immobile and terrifying as Negro fetishes at the gaining tables or circle nervously round theiii like birds of the night. They never stake more than 40 or 50 francs a day (18s to £1), and by itint of long experience and patient calculation succeed in earning just about wl.nt is necessary to keep body and soul together. If fortune frowns they do not defy it but hold their hand. Among themselves the gaming rooms are always known as “la fnbrique,” which might be lendned in English •'the simp.” Certain of tab habitues b 1 mg to a higher grade and live in eoinfoi table lintels or villas. A great lady of the English aristocracy was pointed out to me as cue who came to M nte Carlo folly years ago as a rich and beauti.ul young widow and was never t bio to leave it- Little by little she lest le. fortune and eventually her vill i. Now she lives on an all aw., lice from relatives. At tile Casino they have orders to give her daily only a certain number ef counters. All day long she sits there, and there, no doubt, one day she will die with her head in the green cloth. In the train which every day conveys to Monte Carlo those denizens of the looms who live at Nice, Villefraiche or Mentone, i heard a woman,

whoso ago was uncertain hut whose paint and pearls were all too obvious, confide to another Pillar of Monte Carlo: “I lost so much the day before yesterday that 1 ih Lei mined to stay away from ‘the shop’ for at least a week. But what is there to d<> if one doesn’t go there? I was too bored fir words, so I am going hack again.” In a corner I wo girl typists gaily narrated their adventure. They had come from Paris with their savings, amounting to 2,(100 francs (£4O) each and 2,000 francs more advanced by a girl fiiend. They had won steadily for a ' month, winning uninterruptedly insolently, .■ n average of 2,000 francs a clay. This was their unheard-: f experienc ; red had turned up 21 times running. Thin suddenly the luck had gone against them. They had lost everything again, inexplicably, inexorably, the winnings, savings and the pn c.eds of the r

watches and jewellery, and now remained with their hotel expenses to pay an] only tlieir pretty eyes to weep with. But. like ganie. little Parisio. lines, who never lost their ser.se <:f humour they laughed. They were waiting for tlieir father, who was coining to letc'i them home and to give them the Lai .- ing to they deserved. Now they were hastening back for the last time to the white and gold palace towering like a colossal magnet over the sea. In her eyes the vision of golden di e ms the elder of the two yomi g gills sighed: “Next time. .. .” Alas! it is always ".Next time.