GAMBLING SCANDAL.

Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume V, Issue 620, 13 June 1891, Page 2

GAMBLING SCANDAL.

BACCARAT UNDER PATRONAGE OF ROYALTY. SCOTCHING THE PRINCE. Lord Chief Justice Coleridge, in summing up in the baccarat case, said there was only one law for peasant and prince alike. He did not blame the defendants for requesting Sir W. Gordon-Cuming to sign a confession in order to shield the Prince of Wales from a scandal, which they knew must arise if the facts were ever placed before a hard-judging world, which was not subservient to royalty as in the days of the Tudors and the Stuarts. He doubted whether the plaintiff had lost his head under stress of the painful condition in which he was placed. The learned Judge went on to say that if the Prince of Wales and General Williams had broken military rules they should be subjected to a military tribunal. The Daily Telegraph deplores the disclosures, which showed that baccarat has so deep a hold on its devotees as to induce them to carry about with them the apparatus necessary for the playing of the game. The Daily Chronicle condemns the verdict, and suggests that the readiness divulged by the Prince of Wales to be the prize guest of rich vulgar families, and to gratify their taste for the lowest type of gambling, has shocked and disgusted the people. The Welsh Baptist Conference, now sitting at Banfor, has passed a resolution deploring the gambling habits of the Prince of Wales. The whole of the Press comments on the Baccarat case have apparently fallen on the Prince of Wales. The provincial Press and London evening papers, like their morning contemporaries, severely condemn the Prince for his conduct; many of the papers warn His Royal Highness that he is only imperilling monarchy by pursuing his past career. The Tories fear that the disclosures made will seriously affect their chance of success at the forthcoming general elections. Quite a number of dissenting bodies have denounced the Prince of because of his gamblirig habits. Every newspaper that has referred to the case has been very outspoken in its criticism. Sir W. Gordon-Cuming was married ts-day to Miss Gardner, of New York, a lady possessing a fortune of £20,000 a year. At the end of the trial he offered to break off the engagement, but the lady did not wish him to do so.