GAMBLING AND SUICIDE.

Temuka Leader, Issue 1758, 3 July 1888, Page 4

GAMBLING AND SUICIDE.

Much might be written on the tragic effects of an undue devotion to gambling, but it is not often that the loss of a small sum of money is productive of such disastrous consequences as have set the garrison and the inhabitants of Vincennes talking and speculating. A corporal in a line regiment (says the Paris correspondent of the Daily Telegraph) was refreshing himself a day or two ago in a wineshop at Vincennes when he engaged in conversation with an individual who professed to be well acquainted with the weight of the different arras, and offered to bet 25 francs that the soldier’s bayonet was heavier than he imagined it to be. The bet was accepted promptly, and the two men left the house together aud had the bayonet weighed. When they returnsd to the earbaret it was ascertainad that the soldier had won. The money was duly handed over to the winner, but the civilian was so upset at his loss that he soon “ bolted ” out to drown himself. The corporal and some of the other persons present ran after him, but he evaded their pursuit, and it now transpires that a man who stated that he had been robbed by a soldier and a publican was met on ihe bridge at Percy at two o’clock in the morning, and afterwards seen to throw himself into the Seine. The general opinion is that the poor fellow, deceived by the bayonet, lost hie wits together with his money, and actually carried out his threat of committing suicide.