Heview of Heviewi, 117106, 



Leading Articles. 



59 



THE FOLLY AND DOOM OF GAMBLING. 



The Quarterly Review has an interesting discus- 

 sion on the art of gambling as developed in connec- 

 tion with Monte Carlo, horse-racing and the Stock 

 Exchange. The writer describes what goes on at 

 Monaco thus : — 



The roulette Is a wheel whicli lies on its face with its 

 centre on a fixed pivot. The croupier causes the wheel to 

 revolve rapidly ahout its centre, and then jerks a small 

 ivory ball in the opposite direction around the rim. When 

 tile ball losea its momentum, it falls into one o£ thirt.v- 

 eeven stalls cut into the surface of the wheel. These stalls 

 are marked in irregular order with the numbers from zero 

 to thirty-six inclusive; and they are coloured alternately 

 red and black, except zero, which has no colour. The even ■ 

 chances, so called because a successful bet upon one of 

 them earns the value of the stake, are red against black, 

 odd against even, first eighteen against second eighteen. 

 Zero does not belong to any of tliese groups. When zero 

 appears, the bank takes half the stakes, and thus gains, 

 on tlie average, S in 37, or 1.35 per cent, on tlie even 

 chances. If the gambler bets on a nvmiber and wins, the 

 bank pays him thirty-five times his stake instead of thirty- 

 aix times, and thus wins on the average one stake in 

 tliirty-seven, or 2.7 per cent, from the numbers. " Trente- 

 et-quarante," a game of cards, is also played at Monte 

 Carlo. Tliere are only even chances. The advantage of 

 the bank, called refait, can be insured against for 1 per 

 cent- 



These small percentages of from 1 to 2.7 sutBce to bring 

 in an annual profit of about £1,250,000. This, then, must 

 lie nearly tlie whole of the amovint talcen into the gam- 

 bling-rooms in the course of the year for the purpose of 

 tieing staked. . . . most of the gamblers do habitually 

 stake their winnings until they are lost: and the bank 

 wins a sum nearly equal to what the public provides for 

 the purpose of gambling. 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE GAMBLER. 



The writer next considers the psychology of the 

 gambler. He says: — 



Few would admit that they have been lucky in lite 

 generally. Most men believe that they have deserved 

 srreater rewards than they have received. It is precisely 

 this feeling of being misunderstood, of having virtues 

 which human lieings are too dull to recognise, which gives 

 rise to the idea tliat. when omniscient Fortune is con- 

 sulted, inhei-ent merit will at last be appreciated. The 

 pangs of despif^d worth are then exchanged for the crowu 

 of divine recognition. 



The winning of a stake produces a sense of elation far 

 out of proportion to its value. The winner is one marked 

 out from his fellows by the approval of .a non-human 

 power called chance. Moreover, he has evidently a peculiar 

 faculty for perceiving the drift of things. Those who win 

 are very clever: those who lose exceptionally stupid. 



The amateur who uses :i roulette system, or backs a 

 horse, or speculates on the Stock Exchange is, in fact, as- 

 suming powers of prophecy which are not natural to 

 human beings; for he is asserting that he can. without 

 sj>ecial training, see more clearly than those whose busi- 

 ness it is to understand these subjects. ;ind th;vt his 

 divinine iinwer will en.able liini to beat the professional, 

 even when weighted with that functionary's fee for intro- 

 duction to the gambling arena. He is claiming super- 

 human qualities. 



Passing to forms of vice practised at home, the 

 writer remarks bv the wav that if there were no 

 betting there would be no horse racing. 

 THE REMEDY. 



While admitting that "many harmful forms of 

 gambling could be lessened by legislation, the writer 

 maintains that the only logical cure for reckless 

 gambling is to be found Pt last in the cultivation of 

 the human brain : — 



No individual having a true conception of the prin- 

 ciples that fovern roulette would risk any eerious su.m of 

 money a.t Monte C.arlo. Now there is a steady growth in 

 the understanding of roulette- Modern mathematicians 

 i'now more of the laws of nrob;Tbility than did Pascal or 

 d'Alemliert. Modern system-mongere, great as is their 



folly, have at least got beyond some of the puerile super- 

 stitions of their predecessors. Few now believe in an in- 

 fallible system. Thus the gambling at Monte Carlo be- 

 comes, by slow degrees, less irrational. 



It is not suggested that wagering on games of chance, 

 on horse-races, on the rise and fall of stocks, will come to 

 an end; but, when the individual understands what he is 

 about, iie will iiave less confidence. He will stop sooner; 

 and the average wager will be reduced to a comparatively 

 liarmless amoiint. The spirit of gambling is nearly allied 

 to, and ina.v easily be transformed into, the spirit of 

 rational enterprise. The man who, for a worthj' object, 

 risks a carefully-prepared amalgam of money and know- 

 ledge may sometimes be a loser; but such losses can be 

 utilised as steps towards future gain. The gambler may 

 never l.>e abolished; but we may liope tliat in time, with 

 the growth of intelligence, he will be domesticated and 

 harnessed for the use of mankind. 



THE REDEMPTION OF THE NEGRO. 



What Has Been Done at Tuskegee. 



In the North American Review for April Dr. 

 Booker Washington describes what he has accom- 

 plished at Tuskegee Institute, the success of which 

 led Lord Grey and the Rhodes Directors to ask Dr. 

 Booker Washington to visit South Africa and advise 

 them on the native problem: — 



THE aOVBRNING IDEA. 



From the first, it has heen the effort of the Tuskegee In- 

 stitute to teach lessons of self-help hy furnishing an ex- 

 ample. To establish this idea, the 'l\iskegee Institute, with 

 its 1500 students, its 156 officers, teachers and employes, its 

 eighty-six buildings, and its varied ramifications for exten- 

 sion work, has come into existence. Starting in a shanty 

 and a hen-house, with almost no property beyond a hoe 

 and a blind mule, the school has grown up gradually, 

 much as a town grows. W'e needed food for our tables; 

 farming, therefore, was our first industry started to meet 

 this need. With the need for shelter for our students, 

 courses in house-building and carpentry were added. Out 

 of these brick-making- and brick-masonry naturally grew. 

 The increasing demand for buildings made further speciali- 

 sation in the industries necessary. Soon we found our- 

 selves teaching tinsmithing. plastering and painting. 



\\TfAT THE NEGRO XEEDS. 

 During the early days of my work at Tuskegee. I found 

 that the Negro people in this section of the country earned 

 a great deal of money, and were willing to work, and did, 

 for the most part, work hard. Wliat they needed waa 

 stimulation and guidance. In order to reach tlie maseeB 

 witli tlie knowledge that thev most needed, we have worked 

 out several methods of popular education which seen) to be 

 peculiarly adapted to the needs of the Negro farming com- 

 munities. Among them we have il) mothers' meetings, con- 

 ducted by Mrs. Washington; (2) visits of teachers and 

 students to communities distant from the school; (3-5) local 

 special and general Negro conferences; '6) the County 

 Farmers' Institute, together with the Farmers" Winter 

 Short Course in A°Ticulture. and the Countv Fair held in 

 the fall; (7) the National Negro Business League, which 

 seeks to do for the race as a whole what the local business 

 leagues are doing for the communities in which they 



NOT POLITICS. BUT EFFICIENCY. 

 Dr. Washington thus sums up the conclusion re- 

 sulting from a quarter of a century's experience: — 



Daring the twenty-five years that I have been working at 

 Tuskegee I have l>ecome more and more convinced, as I 

 have gained a more extended experience, of the value of 

 the education that is imparted through systematic training 

 of the hand. 



The most imiwrtant work that Tuskegee has done has 

 been to show the masses of our people that in o^riculture, 

 in the industries, in commerce, and in the struggle toward 

 economic development there are opnortuuities and a great 

 f"ture for them. In doin" thi.s we have not soui?ht to give 

 the idea that political riglits are not valuable or necessary, 

 liut rather to impress our peonle with the truth that 

 economic efTiciency was the foundation for political rights, 

 and that in prniwrtion as they made themselves factors in 

 the <'connmic development of tlie country political rights 

 would naturally and necessarily come to them. 



Wliv nnt a Tuskegee Institute in every South 

 African colony ? 



