[Illustration: GAMBLING SALOON, MONTE CARLO]
That is not all. Next day Lord Rosslyn and Mr. Lewis again tried their luck, and lost at whatever they tried, whether at roulette or at trente-et-quarante. Lord Rosslyn staked fifteen times in as many minutes, and never won a single “coup.”
“Considered from a purely mathematical standpoint, it would appear very remarkable that he should win seventeen consecutive times in the evening, and lose fifteen consecutive times the following morning.”
Captain Weihe of Hamburg, of the German Marine Artillery, has published in German and Italian a _brochure_, entitled, in the former language, _Das Falschspiel in Monte Carlo_, in which he brings a charge of fraud against the company, based on his observation during three seasons of steady watching the play. Now the chances of the ball entering a given pocket are calculable. According to him, the number of times, say in a thousand, in which, by the law of chances, the ball ought to enter a given number is calculable, here, however, it does not obey the law of chances.
Further, he says that he noticed that wealthy players were encouraged to proceed, by winning stake after stake, and then, all at once, luck would declare against them. Why, he wonders, should such men be lucky at first and only unlucky afterwards?
Then, he asserts that the agents of the company occasionally encourage a timorous player by advice, given with all secrecy, to stake on a certain number, and that then, by some remarkable coincidence, this number will win. These observations, he says, led him to the conclusion that there existed some method whereby the ball could be directed to go where the croupiers desired that it should go. Then he asserts that he assured himself that a piece of steel was inserted in a certain number of the balls, and that these loaded balls could be drawn into any pocket desired, by the _chef de partie_, by means of an electro magnet manipulated by himself. He further asserts that by close observation during three seasons, he was able, by watching the fingers of the _chef_, to predicate with something approaching to certainty into which number the ball would run.
The pamphlet in question is not sold at Nice or Mentone, and it need not be said is not allowed to pass over the frontier of the principality of Monaco, but it can be procured at Bordighera.