FLUKE FORTUNES.

Taranaki Daily News, 11 March 1922, Page 12

FLUKE FORTUNES.

MONEYS WHICH HAVE COME FOR THE ASKING. We may all live to wake up one morning to be told our names are in the papers, chronicling the fact that something or other has caused us to be included in the number of world’s millionaires.

Poor to-day, rich to-morrow, may happen to any mortal, as some of the’ following cases of Get-Rich-Quick Wallingford's prove. That Lady Cathcart accumulated thousands of pounds at the gambling tables with negligible outlay is a case in point, for only a few days beforehand her husband refused to have anything to do with the paying of her debts.

The captain who won this year’s Cal cutta Derby sweep, valued at £69,000, can have little to grumble at now, whatever his monetary status had previously been. Nor can Mme. Pavelet, a war widow of Brittany who invested a few francs in Credit National Premium Bonds of France. In the last drawing she drew the winning ticket, which provides her with a fortune of nominally £40,000. Her two young children will never know want again.

In no place on earth are fortunes won and lost so easily and so quickly as at the roulette boards at Monte Carlo. A tall, blonde man not long ago began playing roulette with such extraordinary hick that with the aid of a croupier he soon began making bets on two tables at once. He broke the banks of 65,000 francs each on six successive occasions, finally retiring a winner of 350,000 francs (nominally £14,000). He was by no means an experienced gambler, as the occasion was his first visit to a casino.

There is a group of men in Marseilles who once wished to try to kill the superstition that 13 was an unlucky number. The dlub was thus called 13 Club, which they formed, and at each monthly meeting it was arranged that 13 members should sit. On May 13 las»t, to celebrate the meeting, it was decided they should motor to Monte Carlo and try their fortune at the tables. Tn a car bearing the number Vl3 they proceeded and began to play at 13 hours 13 minutes. Each member laid out 1,300 francs on the number 13. The number turned up immediately, so that each member won nearly £2,000. In this way they not only killed the superstition locally, but earned in a couple of minutes the value of a few years salary each. The Pope of Rome acquired the sura of £40,000 last year simply for permitting cinematograph operators to take films of the Joan of Arc canonisation. Considering that it involved no worry, thp money was well worth the privilege given the cinema companies. For inventing the paravane during the war, Commander Burney, C.M.G., found himself one day the fortunate possessor of £30.000. In the war period many such fortunes were made, of course, but like the competitors in an international boxing match, the principal stars (who could turn out anything useful) just demanded their own price. Perhaps the cheapest horse which reaped a fortune for his owner was Comrade, belonging to a Frenchman named M. de St. Alary. Originally £25 was given for the horse by his trainer, and when later £11,500 was refused for him at Newmarket, he was bought for £12,000. He proved his worth by winning the Grand Prix and ; the richest turf prize in the world, worth £12,000. Now his value is estimated at about £■50,000.