Charles Deville Wells.
For the next few months Charles Wells was to lead an extraordinary double life: as Charles Wells the cool, calm, courageous gambler, and as Charles Wells CE, patentee and rogue. On 4 November, or thereabouts, he reappeared at Monte Carlo.
Since his last visit Camille Blanc and the Prince of Monaco had come to a mutually acceptable agreement. One of the prince’s favourite occupations was research into marine life, and he dreamed of opening a prestigious oceanographic museum in Monaco. It would have been an enormously costly project, and was well beyond his present means. Acting as intermediary, the father of the princess, a businessman with impressive powers of persuasion, approached Blanc and secured a new deal. Blanc was virtually blackmailed into handing over an immediate payment of 10 million francs to the state treasury, a further 12 million for harbour improvements and charitable works and a percentage of the casino’s future profits. All of this was in addition to the annual ‘retainer’ already paid to the royal household. In return the prince graciously allowed the casino to continue to operate. The future of the business was guaranteed. In fact, things had never been better.
On this latest visit by Wells the atmosphere was noticeably different from last time. The season had begun and the casino was much busier than on his previous trip in the summer. He was no longer the anonymous Englishman: now he was famous as one of the most successful gamblers the world had ever known. And everyone wanted to know how he had done it. From the moment he entered the building, inquisitive eyes followed his every move.
His first stake showed extreme caution, as if he was dipping a toe in the water to see whether his luck – or his ‘system’ – had deserted him. He started by carefully placing six gold louis on the table. Once again, he played for eleven hours without a break. In that time he magically transmuted six gold coins amounting to about £5 (£500) into a pile of banknotes to the value of £4,000 (£400,000).
On the second day, ‘an excited crowd gathered round the tables’, The Times reported. ‘Mr. Wells made a vigorous attack on the bank, and at the close of play had amassed a pile of 70,000 f, bringing up the total of his winnings since his arrival in Monte Carlo to over 250,000 f. [£1 million].’
His technique was to watch for ‘runs’ or ‘series’: that is, when the same colour – black or red – came up several times in a row. He always gambled the maximum stake of 12,000fr., and on Thursday and Friday he broke the bank several times. On Friday night, ‘Mr. “Bonne-Chance Wells” had before him on the green tables a pile of 1,000 f notes a foot and a half high, [but] he never lost his head at play, and afterward slept soundly with them under his pillow at the Hotel de Paris, overlooking the Place du Casino’.
On the Saturday he played trente et quarante. He bet 12,000fr. maximums thirty times in a row and won twenty-three. Then he broke the bank again at the roulette table. By one o’clock he had cleaned the bank out of 10fr. and 1,000fr. notes, and the croupiers had to pay out the amounts he won in odd notes and rouleaux1 of gold coins until a further ‘float’ of 100,000fr. was delivered to the table. ‘All this naturally afforded splendid sport for the spectators, who rejoiced at so successful an attack upon the enemy,’ the Pall Mall Gazette told its readers.
However, he was unable to make any further progress that afternoon, and decided to leave. Just as he had done previously, he sent his profits – amounting to nearly £20,000 this time – back to London. This policy removed any temptation to gamble away the money he had already won, as before.
In contrast with his previous visit, when the press had not learned of his exploits until he was about to leave, Reuter’s Agency this time sent a cable to the major newspapers as soon as he reached the resort. Consequently, British journalists were able to get there in time to quiz him on the spot. He comes across as a reluctant and decidedly publicity shy interviewee. Naturally, reporters were anxious to establish who he was, since his background had been something of a mystery up to now. He told them his name was Charles Hill Wells – Hill being his mother’s maiden name. No doubt this was a ploy to avoid being identified with either ‘Will-Wells’, who was still a wanted man in France, or as the perpetrator of the patent swindle who was currently acquiring an unsavoury reputation in Britain through the frequent articles in Truth.
He told newspaper men that he had developed an infallible gambling system, but – unsurprisingly – he declined to say what it was. He did reveal, however, that he followed the table, watching for recurring numbers or sequences of numbers – as he had done on Friday. If other gamblers wanted to see how he played they were welcome to do so, but he felt that most of them would not have the courage to do what he did, nor would they risk the amount of capital that he was ready to stake. His system needed £6,000 capital as he always staked maximums.
One of the journalists challenged Wells to explain why he did not carry on winning until he had brought the casino to its knees. He replied:
Because the physical strain is beyond my strength. I have been sitting daily from twelve noon till eleven at night, playing without a break, and I am worn out. But I have decided to come again shortly. I have implicit faith in my system, and am perfectly sure I can win again.
The man from The Times was somewhat sceptical, and observed Wells at play:
After watching the game of this gentleman for some hours, it does not seem to me that he has made any very novel discovery in the science of playing roulette and trente-et-quarante. The secret of his success rather seems to be in the courageous way in which he attacks the tables and his cool-headed manner of treating either great success or any rebuff which may be encountered. Most men get excited in either event and lose control over their play … [and] few have had the courage to risk repeatedly for 11 hours a day close upon a thousand pounds at almost every coup.
Wells went on to say that he had no complaint about the way the games were run, but he was annoyed at the way in which casino ‘detectives’ followed him around outside the gaming hall in an attempt to find out who he was, where he was from and who his friends were. He was troubled by numerous people pestering him for gifts and loans, and had received hundreds of begging letters. A man who had gambled away his daughter’s dowry pleaded with Wells for its return. And a woman demanded that Wells give her £6,000: she had watched as the croupier scooped up her losing stake and handed it to Wells as part of his winnings. Applying her own brand of logic to the problem, she was now asking him to give it back.
Wells intimated that he had bought £2,000 worth of casino shares – a wise move as the casino had just enjoyed its most profitable year ever. Reports of Wells’ good fortune that summer had indisputably contributed to these record results. Wells said the shares were a good investment: he felt that the house would always win when pitted against ordinary gamblers.
Now that Blanc had renewed his contract with the prince, plans for the enlargement of the casino, which had been put on hold for the summer, were being dusted off again. Days after this most recent visit by Wells, a new gaming room, the Salle Touzet,2 reopened for the first time that season. Some of the older rooms were extensively cleaned and re-gilded.
With the extra space, the casino now had about twelve tables in all. These additional facilities came not a moment too soon because gamblers were already making their way to Monaco in droves. And, according to a report on 18 November, Wells was almost single-handedly responsible for the bonanza:
RUSH TO MONTE CARLO
The recent reports of enormous gains at the tables at Monte Carlo have produced their inevitable consequence in attracting to Monte Carlo swarms of visitors from every part of Europe, most of whom frequent the Casino with the one dominant idea, that of ‘breaking the bank.’ … A good many hundreds have attempted the exploit within the last week or two, to the no small profit of the Casino shareholders. Several well-known English ladies and gentlemen have made themselves conspicuous by the persistence with which they have endeavoured to work out to a successful issue the infallible system which Mr. Wells confided to the correspondents of certain London journals. The shares of the company … now realise 2,000 francs.
At the end of the month the publicity surrounding Wells’ good fortune was still in evidence:
The hotels are already well filled. Play at the tables has been high. There is no doubt that much of this is due to the reports which were so extensively circulated concerning large winnings made by Wells, for it is certain that at no time within the history of the Casino have the tables been so well patronised at such an early period of the season.
In the pages of Truth back in London, Henry Labouchère’s campaign against Wells continued tirelessly. As mentioned, several people had responded to Wells’ advertisement promising ‘£1,000 a day’ and on receiving his reply had forwarded it to Labouchère. On 5 November – the very day that Wells had been in Monte Carlo adding another 70,000fr. to his fortune – Labouchère threw down a fresh challenge to the authorities. ‘If it is worth while for a detective to hunt down an “astrologer” who advertises for shillings, why is this Wells left free to defraud the public year after year?’
Soon afterwards Labouchère became aware – rather belatedly – that the patent scam had involved much more than obtaining an initial £5 from each victim. One individual had been persuaded to part with £750, and was facing bankruptcy. Labouchère’s new discovery showed the swindle to be ‘of a far worse character than anything that has yet been disclosed respecting Wells’. But if Labouchère suspected that Wells of Monte Carlo and Wells the patent agent were one and the same person, he was keeping his suspicions to himself for the present. He even mentions ‘Wells of Monte Carlo’ – as though he were an entirely different person – in a separate article, in which he dismisses the ‘infallible system’ as a fiction. ‘The Nice correspondent of The Times seems … to be now hoodwinked by Mr. Wells in respect to an infallible system …’ (It is odd that Labouchère should ridicule gambling systems in this way, as he had invented one himself in the past: it is known to this day as the Labouchère System – or ‘Labby’.)
Charles Deville Wells.
It was left to the Evening News to put two and two together and reveal that Wells of Monte Carlo and Wells the fraudster were one and the same person. ‘Wells of Monte Carlo is clearly and unmistakably my Wells,’ Labouchère wrote a few days later, ‘the lying, swindling, bogus patentee …’ We can almost picture Labouchère rubbing his hands with glee, as he throws down a challenge. ‘I therefore appeal to Mr. Wells again,’ he writes a week later, ‘to let the public hear from him.’ Wells did not respond, of course. Yet it should be mentioned that other publications still referred to him in glowing terms:
Mr. Charles Hill Wells, the hero of Monte Carlo, is a civil engineer and inventor, who has been in business for about 23 years. He is a well-known figure in City circles, and is spoken of as being a very smart man. His coolness under all circumstances is proverbial amongst his intimate acquaintances. Nothing seems to disturb his equanimity whether good fortune or bad pursues him, and the fickle goddess has not always smiled upon his efforts. Indeed we may say that, like most of us, he has met with reverses, but has always, by indomitable pluck, overcome them.
Whatever Mr Wells’ secret is, it is evident he is a surprisingly acute man, and the only question is, Will he know when to stop, or go on until he has lost it all?
Charles Wells found himself in the unenviable position of continually having to fend off anxious enquiries from investors and creditors, while at the same time trying to generate fresh funds. Immediately before Christmas in that year of 1891, he sent a letter to Miss Phillimore – apparently from Great Portland Street – in which he wrote that he was ill and feeling ‘very week [sic]’. He would send her a cheque very soon, he promised, and closed by wishing her the compliments of the season. On 6 January he wrote to her again, stating that he was making up for lost time and hoped to send the cheque shortly. This letter had a Liverpool address, but like the preceding one was probably written in France or Monaco and reposted in Britain to cover Wells’ tracks – something he could have arranged with relative ease. Given her earlier reaction to his request for funds to gamble with, he was evidently at pains to keep her in the dark about his latest expedition to Monte Carlo.
Having told reporters that he had every faith in his ‘system’ and that he expected to be back soon, he kept his promise and reappeared on the evening of 7 January. Surprisingly, he turned up at the casino in the company of his wife, Marie Thérèse, from whom he had been estranged for several years. His 25-year-old daughter, Marie Antoinette, was there too. A press report of the time states that he had been staying since November at 1 Rue Saint-Roche, Paris (near where his wife lived around the time in question). The inescapable conclusion is that he had spent part of the Christmas or New Year holiday with them, and it is possible that, after a separation of some six or seven years, there was talk of a reconciliation. If so, Marie Thérèse is likely to have told him that she would only consider having him back if he gave up his dishonest activities. And perhaps, given his successes at Monte Carlo, this was a condition he could afford to agree to. But at some point in the discussions it was inevitable that the subject of Jeannette would crop up. Marie Thérèse must surely have insisted that he sever all connections with his mistress – something that Charles found difficult even to contemplate. For the moment, he and his wife had reached an impasse.
On the evening of his arrival Charles went straight to the casino after dinner, and began to play trente et quarante ‘with a big pile of notes’. January and February were the height of the season and the salons were crowded. ‘Every movement of his is watched with the greatest curiosity, and his play excites much interest,’ a news agency correspondent wrote.
One account claims that Camille Blanc himself acted as chef de partie, and watched over the table where Wells was seated. This must have been a deeply unnerving experience for Wells, who already found himself at a disadvantage. With his wife and daughter present, he had been obliged to abandon his habit of spending eleven solid hours at the tables. Instead he divided his time between his loved ones and the game, dropping in to the casino now and then for a few hours at a time. But the change of routine had serious consequences. ‘Mr. Wells started backing both chances for one, two, and three thousand francs each, but immediately began to lose,’ The Standard reported. ‘He tried all the dodges of his famous system, but the cards kept beating him mercilessly, and when the tables closed at eleven o’clock he had lost two thousand pounds.’
On the following day he did not go to the casino until late afternoon. He had some minor wins at first, but every time he amassed some money he lost it again. ‘Before the dinner hour he was cleared out of all his capital, and left the building.’
’He has several times reached the maximum amount permitted,’ another report explained, ‘but has invariably lost his biggest stakes. Mr Wells has now lost seventy-thousand francs since his arrival on Thursday.’
Next day he tried again. ‘Mr Wells has been playing all day, but he has made no headway. On the contrary, he continues to lose,’ the correspondent for The Standard disclosed. ‘I had a conversation with him this afternoon, and I asked him how it was that the famous system, of which he boasted to me on the occasion of his last visit, had now broken down so ignominiously.’
‘Oh, I am very much fatigued, and I cannot play with that care and persistency which are necessary. I have had some domestic troubles since I was last here, and I do not feel equal to sitting for twelve hours continuously at the tables.’
It seems certain that these ‘domestic troubles’ were to do with Marie Thérèse. He later admitted that he had lost between £3,000 and £4,000 (£300,000–£400,000) on this third visit to Monte Carlo, and explained that ‘he had his wife and family there worrying him about his meals, and so preventing him from working on his usual system’. The journalist remarked that Wells looked careworn and was much thinner than before (perhaps because of the illness he had suffered around Christmas time which had made him ‘very week [sic]’).
Having breathlessly eulogised Wells when he previously broke the bank, The Times reverted to its customary moral stance:
The return of Mr. Hill Wells to the gambling rooms of Monte Carlo is scarcely worthy of notice as an event of extraordinary import, because his case is simply the repetition of that of thousands of others who have had the good fortune to win large sums and then come back again to win a little more. This is only human nature, and particularly is it the nature of those under the insatiable influence of the gambling passion.
The newspaper hit back at Labouchère’s accusation that its Nice correspondent had been ‘hoodwinked’ by Wells and his ‘infallible system’, adding in rather sniffy terms:
Mr. Hill Wells is not a very fascinating personage, but he is a bona fide player for all that, and one doing his best to beat the bank. He came to Monte Carlo in August last and again in December3, and certainly won the large sums as telegraphed at the time … All the [gaming] rooms are now in use, and this week another table has been added, making eight for roulette and three for trente-et-quarante. They are all crowded, though there is a remarkable falling-off in the social standing of the Englishmen who frequent the rooms, which seems to be declining year by year.
The implication that Wells was of inferior breeding gave rise to a number of inaccurate and prejudiced accounts. Author Charles Kingston characterises Wells as a vulgar, scruffy, Cockney nonentity, and even tries to assert that his command of French ‘was confined to the more obvious parts of the menu card’ – an absurd claim, since Wells was bilingual and spoke perfect French. He may have been lacking in the finer social graces, and was sometimes rather neglectful of his appearance; however, he came from a genteel background and fully appreciated the value of being well groomed and smartly dressed when the occasion required.
But the slurs did him no harm. If anything, the description of him as an uneducated Cockney merely strengthened his growing reputation as a hero to the common man.
Charles Deville Wells may have captured the public imagination for a few months with his gambling conquests, but he might have been quickly forgotten had it not been for Fred Gilbert – a relatively unknown 40-year-old Londoner. Gilbert was the son of a music hall comedian and had entered the entertainment business in his own right as a theatrical agent. As a sideline he also wrote songs, none of which had ever been successful enough for him to give up his day job so far.
He happened one day to be walking along the Strand, not far from London’s theatre land, when he spotted a newspaper vendor’s placard, which read:
THE MAN WHO BROKE THE BANK AT MONTE CARLO
Something about the phrase enthralled him: he repeated the words to himself, over and over again. And on the following day he wrote a song to fit the headline.
Gilbert was convinced that he had a hit on his hands, but now it was a question of persuading a music hall singer to take it on. He hawked it around London, offering it to some of the leading performers. Through family connections and his own contacts in the industry, he knew some of the big names, including Albert Chevalier and Walter Munroe. But they rejected the song. Gilbert then decided to send a copy to another famous singer, Charles Coborn.4
Coborn later said:
[I] liked the tune very much, especially the chorus, but I was rather afraid that some of the phrasing was rather too highbrow for an average music hall audience. Such words as ‘Sunny Southern Shore’, ‘Grand Triumphal Arch’, … etc., seemed to me somewhat out of the reach of say Hoxton.
Coborn was, after all, an East Ender himself, and liked to think that he understood his audiences. He turned the song down, but began to have second thoughts a few hours later when he found it impossible to get the chorus out of his head. On an impulse he rushed back to Gilbert, and snapped up the singing rights for £10 before the composer had a chance to sell them to anyone else.
His initial qualm about the song was proved to be wrong: audiences in Stepney, Limehouse and Hoxton might never have been to the places mentioned in the lyric, nor were they likely to go. But the man in the street was better informed and better educated than ever before. Schooling had been compulsory for twenty years, and literacy was becoming the norm; public libraries and lectures were freely available and newspapers were cheap and ubiquitous. It was true that most of Coborn’s music hall followers would never see the marbled halls of the casino for themselves. Many would not earn £10,000 in the whole of their working lives, let alone acquire the unimaginable sums that Wells had won in just a few days.
(Words and Music: Fred Gilbert, 1891)
I’ve just got here, through Paris, from the sunny southern shore;
I to Monte Carlo went, just to raise my winter’s rent.
Dame Fortune smiled upon me as she’d never done before,
And I’ve now such lots of money, I’m a gent.
Yes, I’ve now such lots of money, I’m a gent.
As I walk along the Bois Boolong
With an independent air
You can hear the girls declare
’He must be a millionaire.’
You can hear them sigh and wish to die,
You can see them wink the other eye
At the man who broke the bank at Monte Carlo.
I stay indoors till after lunch, and then my daily walk
To the great Triumphal Arch is one grand triumphal march,
Observed by each observer with the keenness of a hawk,
I’m a mass of money, linen, silk and starch -
I’m a mass of money, linen, silk and starch.
Chorus
I patronised the tables at the Monte Carlo hell
Till they hadn’t got a sou for a Christian or a Jew;
So I quickly went to Paris for the charms of mad’moiselle,
Who’s the lodestone of my heart - what can I do,
When with twenty tongues she swears that she’ll be true?
Chorus
But they could dream about the money, the luxury and those ‘sunny southern shores’. And because they could vicariously live those dreams through the medium of Charles Wells, so to speak, they held him in awe – a mythical figure who had gone to Monte Carlo as if on their behalf, a man who had sat at the tables amid the royals, the aristocrats and the millionaires for them. He knew how to play this role to perfection, yet he was ‘not very fascinating’ – a regular fellow, in other words – just like themselves.
They knew little or nothing about Wells as a man, but Wells the legend earned a place in their hearts. The song based on his adventures was rapidly adopted as a music hall standard, and was assuredly the number one hit of a generation. It earned what one commentator called ‘the supreme compliment’ when it began to be played on the barrel organs of London.5
That phrase that Fred Gilbert had spotted on a newsboy’s placard entered the English language in mid-February 1892, when an announcement in a show-business paper, The Era, said that Mr Charles Coborn would be introducing a new song in his act: ‘The Man Who Broke the Bank at Monte Carlo’. As far as can be ascertained, this is the first time the expression ever appeared in any newspaper, journal or book. It certainly would not be the last. Gilbert’s composition helped to immortalise Charles Wells. Others before him had won fortunes at Monte Carlo (though probably not on such a large scale), but the song transformed him from just another lucky gambler into a lasting legend.
Ironically, just at the point where he was becoming a household name, Wells faced serious new obstacles. The losses on his last visit to Monte Carlo had severely depleted his finances. The Palais Royal was nearing completion at Liverpool, and was soaking up alarming amounts of money. Even as his fame was spreading through the power of the music halls and the press, Wells needed all his ingenuity to secure the cash flow that he would require in the coming weeks and months. In a letter to Miss Phillimore, he said that the English patent on his invention now had to be completed, and a French patent taken out. He offered a ‘guarantee’ that the ship would be floated within two weeks and asked for a further £1,500: if she could let him have this sum now she would receive at least £10,000 a short time later. As her mother had died just a few days previously, perhaps Miss Phillimore simply wanted Wells to leave her in peace. She sent the cheque.
Wells then went to work on the Honourable William Cosby Trench. He told him that the ship had been fitted with the new fuel-saving engine and would be operational within a week. In addition, a French company was to be launched to promote the invention. Trench advanced £1,500, followed by another £450.
In Liverpool, meanwhile, rumours had spread that the man who broke the bank was having an old cargo ship transformed into a splendid yacht:
There is now lying in the Herculaneum Dock the steam yacht Palais Royal, belonging to Mr. Wells, of Monte Carlo fame. The yacht … has been most elaborately fitted up with a ballroom, a dining room, a smokeroom, several state rooms, and every comfort and, indeed, luxury which could be thought of. All the fittings in the vessel are electro-plated, and the electric light is laid on throughout. The cost of the alterations has been, roughly speaking, £10,000 [£1 million], and it is estimated that the expenses of the yacht’s annual maintenance will be £15,000 [£1.5 million] … The Palais Royal will leave for Monte Carlo in about a week.
While work was being carried out in the dockyard, the ship became a kind of tourist attraction. A journalist wrote:
Many visitors inspected the Palais Royal while she was in dock at Liverpool, and were struck with the beauty of the fittings and the completeness of the appliances. On more than one occasion Wells was to be seen reclining in luxurious ease on the comfortable lounges of the cosy saloon.
The article went on to stress that Wells’ ordinary appearance gave little or no clue to the ‘alertness, skill and tact which naturally go to constitute the professional gambler and successful plunger who can break a bank at roulette’.
In February, Trench went to view the Palais Royal for himself, and saw workmen putting the finishing touches to the elaborate decorations. As Trench later recalled, Wells was going to ‘receive company promoters and Government officials on board, and show them his invention, and entertain them in the ball-room and the concert room – he offered to take me to France in her’. But, as before, Wells never kept his promise.
A few days later disaster struck. At about 1.45 in the morning of 23 February, a stove in the ballroom of the Palais Royal overheated and the vessel was set ablaze. Someone phoned the police station in Dale Street, and the fire brigade was sent to the Herculaneum Dock. By 2.20 a.m., the flames had been doused, but considerable damage had been done by the fire itself, and by the large quantities of water used to extinguish it.
Wells was not there at the time. In a letter to Miss Phillimore written two days after the blaze he described what had happened and told her he had lost £6,000. The insurers, he said, would not meet his claim until they had completed a full investigation. Three days later he sent a telegram to Trench: ‘Sad disaster. Ship gutted by fire. All insured. Am writing. Wells.’ It is not known whether the ship actually was insured, or whether anything was ever received from the insurance company. Later he wrote to Trench again asking for more money – this time promising a return of £100,000 (£10 million).
The year had hardly begun, but 1892 was already turning into a catastrophe for Charles Wells. And he experienced a further difficulty in early March. Emily Forrester, who had invested in one of Wells’ patents more than three years earlier, began legal action against him in the Bloomsbury County Court. Mrs Forrester was now a widow, her husband having died since she was first in contact with Wells.
Her lawyer told the court that she had ‘foolishly’ replied to the advertisement in late 1888, and invested £30. Since then she had received letters from Wells which had been posted from Paris and Marseille. This, the advocate said, was when he was breaking the bank at Monte Carlo. He considered that if Wells went into the witness box the scheme would be unmasked as a swindle.
The judge did not quite agree. Inventors always had high hopes for their ideas, which could sometimes take longer than expected to bear fruit. It would be a different matter, he admitted, if it could be shown that the money had been spent on riotous living. Mrs Forrester’s lawyer quickly responded. ‘Perhaps I can prove that,’ he said. Mrs Forrester herself was then called upon to give evidence. She was certain that the whole thing was fraudulent, she said, and that Wells had gambled her money at Monte Carlo. She did, however, admit to having seen a model of the invention, and to having said that she thought it must be valuable.
Wells reserved his right not to enter the witness box. The judge said that the action had been brought prematurely. He hoped that the plaintiff had not lost her money, and perhaps the day would come when she would recover it. If not, she would not be the first person to lose money by speculation. He then dismissed the case. It was a victory for Wells, but not a resounding one: he had a number of other investors, most of whom were growing impatient, and knew that any one of them might follow Mrs Forrester’s lead and take him to court. Most of them had read about his Monte Carlo exploits, and they probably all believed that he ‘must be a millionaire’ and therefore well worth suing. And another judge on another day might come to a different decision from the first one.
Incidentally, the Yorkshire Evening Post had published its report on the case under the heading, ‘ACTION AGAINST MONTE CARLO WELLS’. The name stuck. Thereafter, he was almost invariably called ‘Monte Carlo Wells’.
______________
1 A number of coins to a specific value encased in a tube of rolled-up paper.
2 After its architect, Jules Touzet.
3 Actually November.
4 Actually November.
5 The song was popularised in the United States by vaudeville artiste Bill ‘Old Hoss’ Hoey. According to his obituary in the New York Times of 30 June 1897, many Americans believed that Hoey was the man who broke the bank – an impression he did nothing to dispel.