The Pacific Commercial Advertiser

THE GAME OF RUSSIAN WAR

It is Much Affected by the Boat Boys.

Officer Patterson Discourses on the Difficulty of Making Arrests for Gambling Offenses.

"See those fellows over there in that boat on the Kinau's wharf," said Harbor Policeman Patterson yesterday afternoon. "They are bending over now and have their eyes directed on a spot near the center of the circle which they form. Now you see them sit up. Some are disappointed and there is one who seems to be in good spirits. They are playing at a game of chance called 'Russian War.'"

"A small piece of canvas with six figures in as many squares is spread out before a lot of gamblers. A player puts his money down on a certain one of the figures. A box containing three dice each marked with the same figure represented on the canvas, is shaken. Should a figure on one dice correspond to the one on which the 'player' has placed his stake, then the banker is forced to give him the amount called for. Should two dice turn up with the same figure the player gets twice the amount from the banker. In case of three, the amount is trebled."

"I have been watching the progress of this game for the past week. The crowd that you see yonder is made up entirely of native boys whose ages do not exceed twenty years. They never seem to be doing any work, and yet are always 'flush.' Where they get the money from is a mystery to me. I have sent persons around to watch the game and these have reported to me that the stakes run as high as a dollar. Of course the banker is the winner in the end, as usual.

"The boat is a very convenient place for them, since they can hide the gambling apparatus whenever any police special approaches. Again, they have full survey of all the approaches. As soon as I get anywhere near the place those rascals at once get up on the gunwale of the boat and commence discussing the news of the day.

"Nothing can be done unless they are 'nabbed' in the act of gambling, and that is not so easy as it looks on first sight. You can see them from a distance and you can hear them talking about gambling, but to catch them is an entirely different matter."

About 5 o'clock yesterday, owing to information sent to the police station, a squad of mounted and unmounted police surrounded Wilder & Co's lumber yard and captured thirteen natives in the act of playing this game. They were escorted to the police station between two files of police, to the delectation and wonderment of passers-by. A story started and gained credence that a mutiny had occurred on the whaler Gayhead and that the whole crew had been arrested, but it was not so. In conversation with one who knows, the ADVERTISER representative was informed that the term "Russian War" applied to this game is really a corruption of "Rouge et Noir," the game played at Monte Carlo, Homburg and other fashionable gambling resorts.