But among the seducing attractions of Baden-Baden, and of all

German bathing-places, the Rouge-et-noir and Roulette-table hold
a melancholy pre-eminence,--being at once a shameful source of

revenue to the prince,--a rallying point for the gay, the
beautiful, the professional blackleg, the incognito duke or

king,--and a vortex in which the student, the merchant, and the
subaltern officer are, in the course of the season, often

hopelessly and irrevocably ingulfed. Remembering the gaming
excitement of the primitive Germans, we can scarcely be surprised

to find that the descendants of these northern races poison the
pure stream of pleasure by the introduction of this hateful

occupation. It is, however, rather remarkable that all foreign
visitors, whether Dutch, Flemish, Swede, Italian, or even

English, of whatever age or disposition or sex, `catch the
frenzy' during the (falsely so-called) _Kurzeit_, that is, _Cure-

season_, at Baden, Ems, and Ais.
Princes and their subjects, fathers and sons, and even, horrible

to say, mothers and daughters, are hanging, side by side, for
half the night over the green table; and, with trembling hands

and anxious eyes, watching their chance-cards, or thrusting
francs and Napoleons with their rakes to the red or the black

cloth.
No spot in the whole world draws together a more distinguished

society than may be met at Baden; its attractions are felt and
acknowledged by every country in Europe. Many of the

_elite_ of each nation may yearly be found there during the
months of summer, and, as a natural consequence, many of the

worst and vilest follow them, in the hope of pillage.
Says Mrs Trollope:--`I doubt if anything less than the evidence

of the senses can enable any one fully to credit and comprehend
the spectacle that a gaming-table offers. I saw women

distinguished by rank, elegant in person, modest, and even
reserved in manner, sitting at the Rouge-et-noir table with their

rateaux, or rakes, and marking-cards in their hands;--the
former to push forth their bets, and draw in their winnings, the

latter to prick down the events of the game. I saw such at
different hours through the whole of Sunday. To name these is

impossible; but I grieve to say that two English women were among
them.'

The Conversationshaus, where the gambling takes place, is let out
by the Government of Baden to a company of speculators, who pay,

for the exclusiveprivilege of keeping the tables, L11,000
annually, and agree to spend in addition 250,000 florins

(L25,000) on the walks and buildings, making altogether about
L36,000. Some idea may be formed from this of the vast

sums of money which must be yearly lost by the dupes who frequent
it. The whole is under the direction of M. Benazet, who formerly

farmed the gambling houses of Paris.
`On trouve ici le jeu, les livres, la musique,

Les cigarres, l'amour, les orangers,
Le monde tantot gai, tantot melancholique,

Les glaces, la danse, et les cochers;
De la biere, de bons diners,

A cote d'arbre une boutique,
Et la vue de hauts rochers.

Ma foi!'
`We find here gambling, books, and music,

Cigars, love-making, orange-trees;
People or gay or melancholic,

Ices, dancing, and coachmen, if you please;
Beer, and good dinners; besides these,

Shops where they sell not _on tic;_
And towering rocks one ever sees.'

`How shall I describe,' says Mr Whitelocke, `to my readers in
language sufficientlygraphic, one of the resorts the most

celebrated in Europe; a place, if not competing with Crockford's
in gorgeousmagnificence and display, at least surpassing it in

renown, and known over a wider sphere? The metropolitan pump-
room of Europe, conducted on the principle of gratuitous

admittance to all bearing the semblance of gentility and
conducting themselves with propriety, opens its Janus doors to

all the world with the most laudable hospitality and with a
perfect indifference to exclusiveness, requiring only the hat to

be taken off upon entering, and rejecting only short jackets,
cigar, pipe, and meerschaum. A room of this description, a

temple dedicated to fashion, fortune, and flirtation, requires a
pen more current, a voice more eloquent, than mine to trace,

condense, vivify, and depict. Taking everything, therefore,
for granted, let us suppose a vast saloon of regular proportions,

rather longer than broad, at either end garnished by a balcony;
beneath, doors to the right and left, and opposite to the main

entrance, conduct to other apartments, dedicated to different
purposes. On entering the eye is at once dazzled by the blaze of

lights from chandeliers of magnificent dimensions, of lamps,
lustres, and sconces. The ceiling and borders set off into

compartments, showered over with arabesques, the gilded pillars,
the moving mass of promenaders, the endless labyrinth of human

beings assembled from every region in Europe, the costly dresses,
repeated by a host of mirrors, all this combined, which the eye

conveys to the brain at a single glance, utterly fails in
description. As with the eye, so it is with the ear; at every

step a new language falls upon it, and every tongue with
different intonation, for the high and the low, the prince, peer,

vassal, and tradesman, the proud beauty, the decrepit crone, some
fresh budding into the world, some standing near the grave, the

gentle and the stern, the sombre and the gay, in short, every
possible antithesis that the eye, ear, heart can perceive, hear,

or respond to, or that the mind itself can imagine, is here to be
met with in two minutes. And yet all this is no Babel; for all,

though concentrated, is admirably void of confusion; and evil or
strong passions, if they do exist, are religiously suppressed--a

necessary consequence, indeed, where there can be no sympathy,
and where contempt and ridicule would be the sole reciprocity.

In case, however, any such display should take place, a gendarme
keeps constant watch at the door, appointed by government, it is

true, but resembling our Bow-street officers in more respects
than one.

`Now that we have taken a survey of the brilliant and moving
throng, let us approach the stationary crowd to the left hand,

and see what it is that so fascinates and rivets their
attention. They are looking upon a long table covered with green

cloth, in the centre of which is a large polished wooden basin
with a moveable rim, and around it are small compartments,

numbered to a certain extent, namely 38, alternately red and
black in irregular order, numbered from one to 36, a nought or

zero in a red, and a double zero upon the black, making up the
38, and each capable of holding a marble. The moveable rim is

set in motion by the hand, and as it revolves horizontally from
east to west round its axis, the marble is caused by a jerk of

the finger and thumb to fly off in a contrarymovement. The
public therefore conclude that no calculation can foretell where

the marble will fall, and I believe they are right, inasmuch as
the bank plays a certain and sure game, however deep, runs no

risk of loss, and consequently has no necessity for superfluously
cheating or deluding the public. It also plays double, that is,

on both sides of the wheel of fortune at once.
`When the whirling of both rim and marble cease, the latter

falls, either simultaneously or after some coy uncertainty, into
one of the compartments, and the number and colour, &c., are

immediately proclaimed, the stakes deposited are dexterously
raked up by the croupier, or increased by payment from the bank,

according as the colour wins or loses. Now, the two sides or
tables are merely duplicates of one another, and each of them is

divided something like a chess-board into three columns of
squares, which amount to 36; the numbers advance arithmetically

from right to left, and consequently there are 12 lines down, so
as to complete the rectangle; as one, therefore, stands at the