CHAPTER VIII.
GAMBLING AT THE GERMAN BATHING-PLACES. The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims, In all Times and
Countries, especially in England and in France | ||
HOMBOURG.
`In 1842 Hombourg was an obscure village, consisting of the castle of the Landgraf, and of a few hundred houses which in the course of ages had clustered around it. Few would have known of its existence except from the fact of its being the capital of the smallest of European countries. Its inhabitants lived poor and contented — the world forgetting, by the world forgot. It boasted only of one inn — the “Aigle&” — which in summer was frequented by a few German families, who came to live cheaply and to drink the waters of a neighbouring mineral spring. That same year two French brothers of the name of Blanc arrived at Frankfort. They were men of a speculative turn, and a recent and somewhat daring speculation in France, connected with the old semaphore telegraph, had rendered it necessary for them to withdraw for a time from their native land. Their stock-in-trade consisted in a Roulette wheel,
`Let those who are disposed to risk their money inquire what is the character of the managers, and be on their guard. The expenses of such an enormous and splendid establishment amount to £10,000, and the shares have for some years paid a handsome dividend — the whole of which must be paid out of the pockets of travellers and visitors.'[78]
Mr Sala in his interesting work, already quoted, furnishes the completest account of Hom
`In Hombourg the Kursaal is everything, and the town nothing. The extortionate hotel-keepers, the “snub-nosed rogues of counter and till,&” who overcharge you in the shops, make their egregious profits from the Kursaal. The major part of the Landgrave's revenue is derived from the Kursaal; he draws £5000 a year from it. He and his house are sold to the Kursaal; and the Board of Directors of the Kursaal are the real sovereigns and land-graves of Hesse Hombourg. They have metamorphosed a miserable mid-German townlet into a city of palaces. Their stuccoed and frescoed palace is five hundred times handsomer than the mouldy old Schloss, built by William with the silver leg. They have planted the gardens; they have imported the orange-trees; they have laid out the park, and enclosed the hunting-grounds; they board, lodge, wash, and tax the inhabitants; and I may say, without the slightest attempt at punning, that the citizens are all Kursed.
`In the Kursaal is the ball or concert-room, at either end of which is a gallery, supported by pillars of composition marble. The floors are
`There is a huge Café Olympique, for smoking and imbibing purposes, private cabinets for parties, the monster saloon, and two smaller ones, where *from eleven in the forenoon to eleven at night, Sundays not excepted, all the year round, and year after year — (the “administration&” have yet a “jouissance&” of eighty-five years to run out, guaranteed by the incoming dynasty of Hesse Darmstadt), knaves and fools, from almost every corner of the world, gamble at the ingenious and amusing games of Roulette, and Rouge et Noir, otherwise Trente et Quarante.
`There is one table covered with green baize,
`Now, on either side of the wheel, and extending to the extremity of the table, run, in duplicate, the schedule of *mises or stakes. The green baize first offers just thirty-six square compartments, marked out by yellow threads woven in the fabric itself, and bearing thirty-six consecutive numbers. If you place a florin (one and eight-pence) — and no lower stake is permitted — or ten florins, or a Napoleon, or an English five-pound note, or any sum of money not exceeding the maximum, whose multiple is the highest stake which the bank, if it loses, can be made to pay, in the midst of compartment 29, and if the banker, in that calm voice of his, has declared that 29 has become the resting place of the ball, the croupier will push towards you with his rake exactly thirty-three times the amount of your stake, whatever it might have been. You must bear in mind, however, that the bank's loss
`There are more chances, or rather subdivisions of chances, to entice the player to back the “numbers;&” for these the stations of the ball are as capricious as womankind; and it is, of course, extremely rare that a player will fix upon the particular number that happens to turn up. But he may place a piece of money à cheval, or astride, on the line which divides two numbers, in which case (either of the numbers turning up) he receives
The twin or elder brother of Roulette, played at Hombourg, Rouge et Noir, or Trente et Quarante, is thus described by Mr Sala: —
`There is the ordinary green-cloth covered table, with its brilliant down-coming lights. In the centre sits the banker, gold and silver in piles and rouleaux, and bank-notes before him. On either hand, the croupier, as before, now wielding the rakes and plying them to bring in the money, now balancing them, now shouldering them, as soldiers do their muskets, half-pay officers their canes, and dandies their silk umbrellas. The banker's cards are, as throughout all the Rhenish gaming-places, of French design; the same that were invented, or, at least, first used in Europe, for crazy Charles
`The dealer first takes six packs of cards, shuffles them, and distributes them in various parcels to the various punters or players round the table, to shuffle and mix. He then finally shuffles them, and takes and places the end cards into various parts of the three hundred and twelve cards, until he meets with a court card, which he must place upright at the end. This done, he presents the pack to one of the players to cut, who places the pictured card where the dealer separates the pack, and that part of the pack beyond the pictured card he places at the end nearest him, leaving the pictured card at the bottom of the pack.
`The dealer then takes a certain number of cards, about as many as would form a pack, and, looking at the first card, to know its colour, puts it on the table with its face downwards. He then takes two cards, one red and the other black, and sets them back to back. These cards are turned, and displayed conspicuously, as often as the colour varies, for the information of the company.
`The gamblers having staked their money on either of the colours,
the dealer asks, “Votre jeu
`As the aces reckon but for one, no card after thirty can make up forty; the dealer, therefore, does not declare the tens after thirty-one, or upwards, but merely the units, as one, two, three; if the number of points dealt for Noir are thirty-five he says “Cinq.&”
`Another parcel is then dealt for rouge, or red, and with equal deliberation and solemnity; and if the players stake beyond the colour that comes to thirty-one or nearest to it, he wins, which happy eventuality is announced by the dealer crying — “Rouge gagne,&” “Red wins,&” or “Rouge perd,&” “Red loses.&” These two parcels, one for each colour, make a coup. The same number of parcels being dealt for each colour, the dealer says, “Après,&” “After.&” This is a “doublet,&” called in the amiable French tongue, “un refait,&” by which neither
`The cards are sometimes cut for which colour shall be dealt first; but, in general, the first parcel is for black, and the second for red. The odds against a “refait&” turning up are usually reckoned as 63 to 1. The bankers, however, acknowledge that they expect it twice in three deals, and there are generally from twenty-nine to thirty-two coups in each deal. The odds in favour of winning several times are about the same as
`I have heard of one gentleman, indeed, who, after a ruinous loss, put a pistol to his head, and discharging it, spattered his brains over the Roulette wheel. It was said that the banker, looking up calmly, called out — `Triple Zero,' `Treble Nothing,' — a case as yet unheard of in the tactics of Roulette, but signifying annihilation, — and that, a cloth being thrown over the ensanguined wheel, the
`When people want to commit suicide at Hombourg, they do it genteelly; early in the morning, or late at night, in the solitude of their own apartments at the hotels. It would be reckoned a gross breach of good manners to scandalize the refined and liberal administration of the Kursaal by undisguised felo-de-se. The devil on two croupes at Hombourg is the very genteelest of demons imaginable. He ties his tail up with cherry-coloured ribbon, and conceals his cloven foot in a patent-leather boot. All this gentility and varnish, and elegant veneering of the sulphurous pit, takes away from him, if it does not wholly extinguish, the honour and loathing for a common gaming-house, with which the mind of a well-nurtured English youth has been sedulously imbued by his parents and guardians. He has very probably witnessed the performance of the “Gamester&” at the theatre, and been a spectator of the remorseful
`The first visit of the British youth to the Kursaal is usually paid with fear and trembling. He is with difficulty persuaded to enter the accursed place. When introduced to the saloons — delusively called de conversation, he begins by staring fixedly at the chandeliers, the ormolu clocks, and the rich draperies, and resolutely averts his eyes from the serried ranks of punters or players, and the Pactolus, whose sands are circulating on the green cloth on the table. Then he thinks there is no very great harm in looking on, and so peeps over the shoulder of a moustached gamester, who perhaps whispers to him in the interval between two coups, that if a man will only play carefully, and be content with moderate gains, he may win sufficient — taking the good days and the evil days in a lump — to keep him in a decent kind of affluence all the year round. Indeed, I once knew a croupier — we used to call him Napoleon, from the way he took snuff from his waistcoat pocket, who was in the way of expressing a grave conviction that it was possible to make a capital
For idle hands to do.&”
The unfledged gamester watches the play more narrowly. A stout lady in a maroon velvet mantle, and a man with a bald head, a black patch on his occiput, and gold spectacles, obligingly makes way for him. He finds himself pressed against the very edge of the table. Perhaps a chair — one of those delightfully comfortable Kursaal chairs — is vacant. He is tired with doing nothing, and sinks into the emolliently-cushioned fauteuil. He fancies that he has caught the eye of the banker, or one of the gentlemen of the croupe, and that they are meekly inviting him to try his luck. “Well, there can't be much harm in risking a florin,&” he murmurs. He stakes his silver-piece on a number or a colour. He wins, we will say, twice or thrice. Perhaps he quadruples his stake, nay, perchance, hits on the lucky number. It turns up, and he receives thirty-five times the amount of his mise. Thenceforth it
`At least one-half of the company may be assumed to be arrant rascals — rascals male and rascals female — chevaliers d'industrie, the offscourings of all the shut-up gambling-houses in Europe, demireps and lorettes, single and married women innumerable.'
In the course of the three visits he has paid to Hombourg, Mr Sala has observed that `nine-tenths of the English visitors to the Kursaal, play;' and he does not hesitate to say that the moths who
The season of 1869 in Hombourg is thus depicted in a high class newspaper.
`Never within the memory of the oldest inhabitant (who in this instance must undoubtedly be that veteran player Countess Kisselef) has the town witnessed such an influx of tourists of every class and description. Hotels and lodging-houses are filled to overflowing. Every day imprudent travellers who have neglected the precaution of securing rooms before their arrival return disconsolately to Frankfort to await the vacation of some apartment which a condescending landlord has promised them after much negotiation for the week after next. The morning promenade is a wonderful sight; such a host of bilious faces, such an endless variety of eccentric costumes, such a Babel of tongues, among which the shrill twang of our fair American cousins is peculiarly prominent,
`Certainly the demon of Rouge et Noir has never held more undisputed sway in Hombourg than in the present season; never have the tables groaned under such a load of notes and rouleaux. It would seem as if the gamblers, having only two or more years left in which to complete their ruin, were
`The King of Prussia has arrived, and, with due deference to the official editors who have described in glowing paragraphs the popular demonstrations in his honour, I am bound to assert that he was received with very modified tokens of delight. There was not even a repetition of the triumphal arch of last year; those funereal black and white flags, whose sole aspect is enough to repress any exuberance of rejoicing, were certainly flapping against the hotel windows and the official flagstaffs, but little else testified to the joy of the Hombourgers at beholding their Sovereign. They manage these things better in France. Any French préfet would give the German authorities a few useful hints concerning the cheap and speedy manufacture of loyal enthusiasm. The foreigners, however, seem determined to atone amply for any lack of proper feeling on the part of the townspeople. They crowd round his Majesty as soon as he appears in the rooms or gardens, and mob the poor old gentleman with a vigour which taxes all the energies of his aides-de-camp to save their Royal master from death by suffocation. Need I
`Of course the town swarms with well-known English faces; indeed, the Peers and M.P.s here at present would form a very respectable party in the two Houses. We are especially well off for dukes; the Fremdenliste notifies the presence of no fewer than five of those exalted personages. A far less respectable class of London society is also, I am sorry to say, strongly represented: I allude to those gentlemen of the light-fingered persuasion whom the outer world rudely designate as pickpockets. This morning two gorgeously arrayed members of the fraternity were marched down to the station by the police, each being decorated with a pair of bright steel handcuffs; seventeen of them were arrested last week in Frankfort at one fell swoop, and at the tables the row of lookers-on who always surround the players consists in about equal proportions of these gentry and their natural enemies — the detectives. Their booty since the beginning of the season must be reckoned by thousands. Mustapha Fazyl Pasha had his pocket picked of a purse containing £600, and a Russian
But the days of the Kursaal are numbered, and the glories or infamies of Hombourg are doomed.
`The fiat has gone forth. In five years[80] from this time the “game will be made&” no longer — the great gambling establishment of Hombourg will be a thing of the past. The town will be obliged to contend on equal terms with other watering-places for its share of the wool on the backs of summer excursionists.
`As most of the townspeople are shareholders in this thriving concern, and as all of them gain either directly or indirectly by the play, it was amusing to watch the anxiety of these worthies during the war between Austria and Prussia. Patriotism they had none; they cared neither for Austrian nor Prussian, for a great Germany nor for a small Germany. The “company&” was their god and their country. All that concerned them was to know whether the play was likely to be suppressed. When they were annexed to Prussia, at first they could not believe that Count Bismarck, whatever he might do with kings, would venture
`For a year the Hombourgers were allowed to suppose that their “peculiar institution&” was indeed superior to fate, to public opinion, and to Prussia; but at the commencement of the present year they were rudely awakened from their dreams of security. The sword that had been hanging over them fell. The directors of the company were ordered to appear before the governor of the town, and they were told that they and all belonging to them were to cease to exist in 1872, and that the following arrangement was to be made respecting the plunder gained until that date. The shareholders were to receive 10 per cent. on their money; 5000 shares were to be paid off at par each year, and if this did not absorb all the profits, the surplus was to go towards a fund for keeping up the gardens after the play had ceased. By this means, as there are now 36,000 shares, 25,000 will be paid off at par, and the remaining 11,000 will be represented by the buildings and the land belonging to the company, which it will be at liberty to sell to the highest bidder. Since this decree has been
`Although no doubt individuals will suffer by the suppression of public play here, it is by no means certain that the town itself will not be a gainer by it. Holiday seekers must go somewhere. The air of Hombourg is excellent; the waters are invigorating; the town is well situated and easy of access by rail; living is comparatively cheap — a room may be had for about 18s. a week, an excellent dinner for 2s.; breakfast costs less than a shilling. Hombourg is now a fixed fact, and if the townspeople take heart and grapple with the new state of things — if they buy up the Kursaal, and throw open its salons to visitors; if they keep up the opera, the cricket club, and the shooting; if they have good music, and balls and concerts for those who like them, there is no reason why they should not attract as many visitors to their town as they do now.'[81]
CHAPTER VIII.
GAMBLING AT THE GERMAN BATHING-PLACES. The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims, In all Times and
Countries, especially in England and in France | ||