Incwadi Yami; or, twenty years' personal experience in South Africa

by J. W. Matthews

No sooner had the governmental fiat against gambling gone forth than the sporting fraternity set their brains to work to devise some plan for rendering the new law abortive. The digging camps being close to the Orange Free State border, arrangements were made with the owner of Wessel’s farm, which is some six miles from Du Toit’s Pan, and in the Free State, to continue operations there. This is the locality which afterward became so notorious as a sort of harbor of refuge and base of operations for the illicit diamond trade of Griqualand West. To this rural retreat were transported roulette wheels and other gambling implements, and play was there recommenced, but without much success. Men who might succumb to temptation when it was thrust under their very noses were not weak or wicked enough to make active search for it; so the suburban “hell” died a natural death.

Your professional gamblers are, however, very pertinacious men, and whilst casting about for a new idea they decided to introduce “rondo en colo,” a game which combined the simplicity of “pitch and toss” with a capability for investing an unlimited amount of money. It had the further merit, moreover, of being an absolute certainty for the banker. In the other games which had previously been the fashion there was always a chance, though a tolerably remote one, of breaking the bank, or, at least, of winning greater or less sums from the establishment, but in “rondo en colo” all this was changed. The hawk had been forbidden to prey upon the doves, so he set the latter on to pluck each other, whilst he seized upon the feathers.

The modus operandi was as follows: The banker or croupier, who at this game required little or no capital, having secured the use of a billiard table, seated himself opposite to one of the middle pockets, and spread out upon the table in front of himself a semicircular piece of oil-cloth, upon the edge of which were painted the numbers one to eight, and certain other marks and combinations peculiar to the game. A round stick like a large ruler was provided, by which eight glass balls were propelled in an even line from one of the end pockets to its diagonal opposite at the other end of the table, and the stakes were won or lost according to the manner in which the balls were deposited in or near to the object pocket. One of the bystanders would stake say five pounds on the oil-cloth with a view of betting either on the number of balls that would run into the object pocket, or as to whether that number would be odd or even. If another bystander felt inclined to take up the bet he covered the stakes by placing an equal amount on the billiard cloth opposite to the sum already deposited upon the board. If the money were not covered there was no bet made. When a sufficient number of couples had backed their opinions the balls were rolled to the object pocket, the stakes were awarded according to the event, and last, but not least of all, the stakes were handed over to the winner by the banker, who, however, carefully deducted his five per cent, on the cast.

Of science there was none, the bank was sure to win. In fact if some unfortunate wight had the good fortune to win £100 for say twenty times, and then had ill-luck enough to back a losing event for £100 for twenty times following, the banker’s commissions of five per cent. would have swallowed up an amount exceeding the capital with which he commenced. This combination of safety and simplicity for the banker, however, failed to convince the authorities as to either the fairness or the legality of the game, and accordingly one busy evening when the game was in full blast, a tall, gaunt figure, with eagle eye and Roman nose, well known to all old residents on the Fields at the time, although since dead, suddenly came down upon the gamblers like “a wolf on the fold,” seizing all the money and dispersing the men, taking the proprietor into custody.

Curses both loud and deep greeted this summary proceeding, but it was all of no avail. The law took its course, a prosecution followed, at which divers ingenious arguments were raised for the defence by the late Mr. T. Mortimer Siddall, a most able lawyer, but all to no purpose. The new proclamation was so stringently worded as to preclude all loopholes of escape; every possible legal presumption was evidently to be construed against the accused; and a conviction and the heavy fine of £300 followed. This tolled the death-knell of public gambling at the Diamond Fields.

The prosecution could not, however, stop private gambling, nor in fact is such a desirable result practicable, for since the publication of the new law I have heard of very high play taking place. But though I have since known hundreds and occasionally thousands of pounds to change hands in private houses, the gambling nuisance is no longer flaunted before sober and respectable citizens, or what is of more importance, under the very eyes of those feebly pliant mortals who yield to the slightest solicitations of the gambling ogre.

The class of “wasters” which public gambling bred and fostered were a distinct outrage upon society. How could an honest and industrious but unlucky digger fail to draw invidious comparisons between his own hard lot and the “purple and fine linen” style of life which apparently marked the “rake’s progress” of the professed gambler? Had not some such proclamation been issued, I feel confident that episodes like that related in Bret Harte’s “Outcasts of Poker Flat” might have marked the progress of the fields, though I doubt whether any of the gamblers of that time would have compared very favorably with “John Oakhurst, gentleman.” The legitimate diamond industry afforded ample scope for the most enthusiastic speculator, and there was no need of any adventitious aid to add to the uncertainties of digging life.

In closing this chapter I may just draw attention to the fact that a new scheme, the “totalisator,” inciting and encouraging gambling on the South African race-courses has been introduced (1885). This, though it protects backers of horses from levanting bookmakers, and affords the current and proper odds on each race, ought at once to be stopped.[^[22]] Its very existence proves the truth of the old saying that “one man may steal a horse, while another dare not look in at the stable door.”

I may further relate, in order to show the harm which legalized lotteries do to the moral tone of a community, that at the spring meeting, 1885, of the Griqualand West Turf Club, a thousand pound lottery was so rapidly subscribed that a second was started and filled almost at once, the club receiving 10 per cent. of the winner’s money. At the Capetown autumn meeting in 1886 a somewhat similar lottery was started, when a well-known Kimberley gentleman chanced to draw the favorite, and the news of his luck soon spread. Judge of his surprise on receiving a telegram from the horse’s owner, a supposed honorable man, to the following effect: “My horse sure of a place, will you give a third of prize? Otherwise I shall scratch him.” The Kimberley gentleman did not see his way to accede to this modest request, and preferred, much to the disgust of the too astute owner, to publish his telegram in both the Kimberley and Capetown newspapers. This course of action caused the question of the legality of these race lotteries to be raised in parliament, but the premier’s reply at the time was considered to be vague, and was severely commented upon by the press of the colony.