WIESBADEN.
The gambling here in 1868 has been described in a very vivid manner.
`Since the enforcement of the Prussian Sunday observance
regulations, Monday has become the great day of the week for the banks
of the German gambling establishments. Anxious to make up for lost
time, the regular contributors to the company's dividends flock early on
Monday forenoon to the play-rooms in order to secure good places at the
tables, which, by the appointed hour for commencing operations (eleven
o'clock), are closely hedged round by persons of both sexes, eagerly
waiting for the first deal of the cards or the initial twist of the brass
wheel, that they may try another fall with Fortune. Before each seated
player are arranged precious little piles of gold and silver, a card printed
in black and red, and a long pin, wherewith to prick out a system of
infallible gain. The croupiers take their seats and unpack the strong box;
rouleaux — long metal sausages composed of double and single florins, —
wooden bowls brimming over with gold Frederics and Napoleons,
bank notes of all sizes and colours, are arranged upon the black leather
compartment, ruled over by the company's officers; half-a-dozen packs
of new cards are stripped of their paper cases, and swiftly shuffled
together; and when all these preliminaries, watched with breathless
anxiety by the surrounding speculators, have been gravely and carefully
executed, the chief croupier looks round him — a signal for the prompt
investment of capital on all parts of the table — chucks out a handful of
cards from the mass packed together convenient to his hand — ejaculates
the formula, “Faites le jeu!&” and, after half a minute's
pause, during which he delicately moistens the ball of his dealing thumb,
exclaims “Le jeu est fait, rien ne va plus,&” and proceeds
to interpret the decrees of fate according to the approved fashion of
Trente et Quarante. A similar scene is taking place at the Roulette
table — a goodly crop of florins, with here and there a speck of gold
shining amongst the silver harvest, is being sown over the field of the
cloth of green, soon to be reaped by the croupier's sickle, and the pith
ball is being dropped into the revolving basin that is partitioned off into
so many tiny black and red niches. For the next twelve hours the
processes
in question are carried on swiftly and steadily, without variation or loss
of time; relays of croupiers are laid on, who unobtrusively slip into the
places of their fellows when the hours arrive for relieving guard; the
game is never stopped for more than a couple of minutes at a time, viz.,
when the cards run out and have to be re-shuffled. This brief
interruption is commonly considered to portend a break in the particular
vein which the game may have happened to assume during the deal —
say a run upon black or red, an alternation of coups (in threes or fours)
upon either colour, two reds and a black, or
vice
versâ, all equally frequent eccentricities of the cards; and
the heavier players often change their seats, or leave the table altogether
for an hour or so at such a conjuncture. Curiously enough, excepting at
the very commencement of the day's play, the
habitués of the Trente et Quarante tables appear to
entertain a strong antipathy to the first deal or two after the cards have
been “re-made.&” I have been told by one or two masters
of the craft that they have a fancy to see how matters are likely to go
before they strike in, as if it were possible to deduce the future of the
game from its past! That it is possible appears to
be an article of faith with the old stagers, and, indeed, every now and
then odd coincidences occur which tend to confirm them in their creed.
I witnessed an occurrence which was either attributable (as I believe) to
sheer chance, or (as its hero earnestly assured me) to instinct. A fair
and frail Magyar was punting on numbers with immense pluck and
uniform ill fortune. Behind her stood a Viennese gentleman of my
acquaintance, who enjoys a certain renown amongst his friends for the
faculty of prophecy, which, however, he seldom exercises for his own
benefit. Observing that she hesitated about staking her double florin, he
advised her to set it on the number 3. Round went the wheel, and in
twenty seconds the ball tumbled into compartment 3 sure enough. At the
next turn she asked his advice, and was told to try number 24. No
sooner said than done, and 24 came up in due course, whereby Mdlle L.
C. won 140 odd gulden in two coups, the amount risked by her being
exactly four florins. Like a wise girl, she walked off with her booty,
and played no more that day at Roulette. A few minutes later I saw an
Englishman go through the performance of losing four thousand francs
by experimentalizing on single
numbers. Twenty times running did he set ten louis-d'ors on a number
(varying the number at each stake), and not one of his selection proved
successful. At the “Thirty and Forty&” I saw an eminent
diplomatist win sixty thousand francs with scarcely an intermission of
failure; he played all over the table, pushing his rouleaux backwards and
forwards, from black to red, without any appearance of system that I
could detect, and the cards seemed to follow his inspiration. It was a
great battle; as usual, three or four smaller fish followed in his wake, till
they lost courage and set against him, much to their discomfiture and the
advantage of the bank; but from first to last — that is, till the cards ran
out, and he left the table — he was steadily victorious. In the evening he
went in again for another heavy bout, at which I chanced to be present;
but fortune had forsaken him; and he not only lost his morning's
winnings, but eight thousand francs to boot. I do not remember to have
ever seen the tables so crowded — outside it was thundering, lightening,
and raining as if the world were coming to an end, and the whole
floating population of Wiesbaden was driven into the Kursaal by the
weather. A roaring time of it
had the bank; when play was over, about which time the rain ceased,
hundreds of hot and thirsty gamblers streamed out of the reeking rooms
to the glazed-in terrace, and the next hour, always the pleasantest of the
twenty-four here and in Hombourg — at Ems people go straight from the
tables to bed, — was devoted to animated chat and unlimited sherry—
cobbler; all the “events&” of the day were passed in
review, experiences exchanged, and confessions made. Nobody had
won; I could not hear of a single great success — the bank had had it all
its own way, and most of the “lions,&” worsted in the fray,
had evidently made up their minds to “drown it in the
bowl.&” The Russian detachment — a very strong one this year —
was especially hard hit; Spain and Italy were both unusually low-spirited;
and there was an extra solemnity about the British Isles that told its own
sad tale. Englishmen, when they have lost more than they can afford,
generally take it out of themselves in surly, brooding self-reproach.
Frenchmen give vent to their disgust and annoyance by abusing the game
and its myrmidons. You may hear them, loud and savage, on the
terrace, “Ah! le salle jeu! comment peut-on se laisser
éplucher par des brigands de la sorte!
Tripôt, infâme, va! je te donne ma
malédiction!&” Italians, again, endeavour to conceal their
discomfiture under a flow of feverish gaiety. Germans utter one or two
“Gotts donnerwetterhimmelsapperment!&” light up their
cigars, drink a dozen or so “hocks,&” and subside into their
usual state of ponderous cheerfulness. Russians betray no emotion
whatever over their calamities, save, perhaps, that they smoke those
famous little `Laferme' cigarettes a trifle faster and more nervously than
at other times; but they are excellent winners and magnificent losers,
only to be surpassed in either respect by their old enemy the Turk, who
is
facile princeps in the art of hiding his feelings from the
outer world.
`The great mass of visitors at Wiesbaden this season, as at
Hombourg, belong to the middle and lower middle classes, leavened by a
very few celebrities and persons of genuine distinction. There are a
dozen or two eminent men here, not to be seen in the play-rooms, who
are taking the waters — Lord Clarendon, Baron Rothschild, Prince Sou-varof, and a few more — but the general run of guests is by no means
remarkable for birth, wealth, or respectability; and we are shockingly off
for
ladies. As a set-off against this deficiency, it would seem that all the
aged, broken-down courtesans of Paris, Vienna, and Berlin have agreed
to make Wiesbaden their autumn rendezvous. Arrayed in all the colours
of the rainbow, painted up to the roots of their dyed hair, shamelessly
décolletées, prodigal of “free&”
talk and unseemly gesture, these ghastly creatures, hideous caricatures of
youth and beauty, flaunt about the play-rooms and gardens, levying
black-mail upon those who are imprudent enough to engage them in
“chaff&” or badinage, and desperately endeavouring to
hook themselves on to the wealthier and younger members of the male
community. They poison the air round them with sickly perfumes; they
assume titles, and speak of one another as “cette chère
comtesse;&” their walk is something between a prance and a
wriggle; they prowl about the terrace whilst the music is playing, seeking
whom they may devour, or rather whom they may inveigle into paying
for their devouring: and,
bon Dieu! how they do gorge
themselves with food and drink when some silly lad or aged roué
allows himself to be bullied or wheedled into paying their scot! Their
name is legion; and they constitute the very worst feature of a place
which, naturally a Paradise, is turned into a seventh hell by the
uncontrolled rioting of human passions. They have no friends — no
“protectors;&” they are dependent upon accident for a meal
or a piece of gold to throw away at the tables; they are plague-spots
upon the face of society; they are, as a rule, crassly ignorant and
horribly cynical; and yet there are many men here who are proud of
their acquaintance, always ready to entertain them in the most expensive
manner, and who speak of them as if they were the only desirable
companions in the world!
`Amongst our notabilities of the eccentric sort, not the least
singular in her behaviour is the Countess C — — o. an aged patrician of
immense fortune, who is as constant to Wiesbaden as old Madame de
K — — f is to Hombourg on the Heights. Like the last-named lady, she
is daily wheeled to her place in the Black and Red temple, and plays
away for eight or nine hours with wonderful spirit and perseverance.
She has with her a suite of eight domestics; and when she
wins (which is not often), on returning to her hotel at night, she presents
each member of her retinue with — twopence! “not,&” as
she naïvely avows, “from a feeling of
generosity, but to propitiate Fortune.&” When she loses, none of
them, save the man who wheels her home, get anything but hard words
from her; and he, happy fellow, receives a donation of six kreutzers.
She does not curse the croupiers loudly for her bad luck, like her
contemporary, the once lovely Russian Ambassadress; but, being very
far advanced in years, and of a tender disposition, sheds tears over her
misfortunes, resting her chin on the edge of the table. An edifying sight
is this venerable dame, bearing an exalted title, as she mopes and mouths
over her varying luck, missing her stake twice out of three times, when
she fain would push it with her rake into some particular section of the
table! She is very intimate with one or two antediluvian diplomatists and
warriors, who are here striving to bolster themselves up for another year
with the waters, and may be heard crowing out lamentations over her
fatal passion for play, interspersed with bits of moss-grown scandal,
disinterred from the social ruins of an age long past: Radetzky,
Wratislaw (le beau sabreur), the two Schwarzenbergs (he of Leipsic, and
the former Prime Minister), Paul Eszterhazy, Wrangel, and
Blücher were friends of her youth; judging from
her appearance, one would not be surprised to hear that she had received
a “poulet&” from Baron Trenck, or played whist with
Maria Theresa. She has outlived all human friendships or affections,
and exists only for the chink of the gold as it jingles on the gaming
table. I cannot help fancying that her last words will be “Rien ne
va plus!&” She is a great and convincing moral, if one but
interpret her rightly.'[83]
The doom of the German gaming houses seems to be settled.
They will all be closed in 1872, as appears by the following
announcement: —
`The Prussian government, not having been able to obtain from the
lessees of the gaming tables at Wiesbaden, Ems, and Hombourg their
consent to their cancelling of their contracts, has resolved to terminate
their privileges by a legislative measure. It has presented a bill to the
Chamber of Deputies at Berlin, fixing the year 1872 as the limit to the
existence of these establishments, and even authorizing the government
to suppress them at an earlier period by a royal ordinance. No
indemnity is to be allowed to the persons holding concessions.' —
Feb. 23, 1868.
A London newspaper defends this measure in a very successful
manner.
`Prussia has declared her purpose to eradicate from the territories
subject to her increased sway, and from others recognizing her influence,
the disgrace of the Rouge et Noir and the Roulette table as
public institutions. Her reasoning is to the effect that they bring scandal
upon Germany; that they associate with the names of its favourite
watering-places the appellation of “hells;&” that they attract
swindlers and adventurers of every degree; and that they have for many
a year past been held up to the opprobrium of Europe. For why should
this practice be a lawful practice of Germany and of no other country in
Europe? Why not in France, in Spain, in Italy, in the Northern States,
in Great Britain itself? Let us not give to this last proposition more
importance than it is worth. The German watering-places are places of
leisure, of trifling, of ennui. That is why, originally, they
were selected as encampments by the tribes which fatten upon hazards.
But there was another reason: they brought in welcome revenues to
needy princes. Even now, in view of the contemplated expurgation,
Monaco is named,
with Geneva, as successor to the perishing glories of Hombourg,
Wiesbaden, and the great Baden itself. That is to say, the gamblers, or,
rather, the professionals who live upon the gambling propensities of
others, having received from Prussia and her friends notice to quit, are
in search of new lodgings.
`The question is, they being determined, and the accommodation
being not less certainly ready for them than the sea is for the tribute of a
river, will the reform designed be a really progressive step in the
civilization of Europe? Prussia says — decidedly so; because it will
demolish an infamous privilege. She affirms that an institution which
might have been excusable under a landgrave, with a few thousand acres
of territory, is inconsistent with the dignity and, to quote continental
phraseology, the mission of a first-class state. Here again the reasoning
is incontrovertible. Of one other thing, moreover, we may feel perfectly
sure, that Prussia having determined to suppress these centres and
sources of corruption, they will gradually disappear from Europe.
Concede to them a temporary breathing-time at Monaco; the time left for
even a nominally independent exist
ence to Monaco is short: imagine that they find a fresh outlet at Geneva;
Prussia will have represented the public opinion of the age, against
which not even the Republicanism of Switzerland can long make a
successful stand. Upon the whole, history can never blame Prussia for
such a use either of her conquests or her influence. Say what you will,
gambling is an indulgence blushed over in England; abroad, practised as
a little luxury in dissipation, it may be pardoned as venial; habitually,
however, it is a leprosy. And as it is by habitual gamblers that these
haunts are made to flourish, this alone should reconcile the world of
tourists to a deprivation which for them must be slight; while to the class
they imitate, without equalling, it will be the prohibition of an abomin-able habit.'[84]
