At Bayonne, in 1725, a French officer, in a rage at billiards,
jammed a billiard-ball in his mouth, where it stuck fast,
arresting respiration, until it was, with difficulty, extracted
by a surgeon. Dusaulx states that he was told the fact by a
lieutenant-general, who was an eye-witness.

It is well known that gamblers, like dogs that bite a stone flung
at them, have eaten up the cards, crushed up the dice, broken the
tables, damaged the furniture, and finally 'pitched into' each
other--as described by Lucian in his Saturnalia. Dusaulx assures
us that he saw an enraged gambler put a burning candle into his
mouth, chew it, and swallow it. A mad player at Naples bit the
table with such violence that his teeth went deep into the wood;
thus he remained, as it were, nailed to it, and suddenly expired.

The other players took to flight; the officers of justice visited
the place; and the corpse was deprived of the usual ceremony of
burial.[10]

[10] Gazette de Deux-Ponts, du 26 Novembre, 1772.


The following strange but apparently authentic fact, is related
in the Mercure Francois (Tome I. Annee 1610).

'A man named Pennichon, being a prisoner in the Conciergerie
during the month of September, 1610, died there of a wonderfully
sudden death. He could not refrain from play. Having one day
lost his money, he uttered frightful imprecations against his