Pony Express
I spent an evening at the club-rooms, where there was some heavy card-playing. One man lost nine hundred roubles in half an hour, and they told me that such an occurrence was not uncommon. In all card playing I ever witnessed in Russia there was ‘something to make it interesting.’ Money is invariably staked, and the Russians were surprised when I said, in answer to questions, that people in America generally indulged in cards for amusement alone. Ladies had no hesitation in gambling, and many of them followed it passionately. ‘Chaque pays a sa habitude,’ remarked a lady one evening when I answered her query about card playing in America. It was the Russian fashion to gamble, and no one dreamed of making the slightest concealment of it. Though I saw it repeatedly I could never rid myself of a desire to turn away when a lady was reckoning her gains and losses, and keeping her accounts on the table cover. Russian card tables are covered with green cloth and provided with chalk pencils and brushes for players’ use. Cards are a government monopoly.