The business as carried on at, pre sent in'Shurn Chyn is not nearly sordid as one thight expect. "The grounds are clean and tidy and the Interior of the matsheds Is orderly and quiet save for the jingle of money or counters. The gamblers for the most part of the day consist of women who are there not to have a gay time or the thrill and excitement Which comes from losing money—there is no abandon about them—but in the wild hope that they will mul-Uiply their fortune, There is more sadness and pathos present than gaiety and laughter.
There {s fan tan, gluck gluck and roulette—only three games, with an amazing variety of ways of betting in each, The fan tan tables here, however, are not nearly so pictures ar as those in Macao where the count Fe polished brass tokens and white trouser buttons, where the stately old Chinese who presides like god over the fates of the gamblers, slowly but with great precision and dignity, separates four counters. at a time with his slender rod and deli fingers, and where the acute observers long before any un practised can see the number, shout the result up to the various tiers from which the gamblers are eagerly. watching. In Shum Chun it is not yet a ritual or a ceremony, it is simply and purely a gamble and nothing more. Instead of the tables being below the of all the gamblers they are]
the table 1s of white deal and by a white cotton cloth; and there is nothing to distract anyone from the chief business in hand, for this section the equipment. is cheap and tawdry.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.