Public ledger. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1865-1893, 1872-05-17
ROUGE EFT NOIR.
Doom of the Gambling Hells Of
HOmburg and Baden.


From Once Week.l
The palmy days Of Homburg and Ba-
den are numbered. Throughout the
whole of the new New German empire,
the goddess reign of rouge ct noir
and the hungry genii of the gambling
table have been condemned in the public
interest; the unhallowed scenes Of former
days, so long the reproach and disgrace
of German watering places, which drew
to their hells the folly and reckless
passion of the civilized world, are to lie
committed to the ready oblivion of the
past. This resolution of the imperial
government is based upon no mere freak
of sudden virtue and contrition.
For some years past the tide of public
opinion in Germany has been setting in
strongly, with daily increasing force,
against the pandemoniums which had
gained for the most beautiful natural
resorts of that country such an unenvia-
BILE notoriety.
Their suppression was seen to be a
necessity, not only of public morality.
but of public policy. The question in a
formal shape, first came before the old
Federal diet, and resolution was voted
in that assembly to call upon the gov
ernments Of the different States of Ger
many to state what they were prepared
to do in the matter of this desired sup
preston of open gaming-tables.
The Grand Duchyof Baden responded
that it intended closing the Baden estab-
lishment even before the time of the con-
tract had expired.
But the Nassau authorities were not
quite so complaisant. They maintained
that it was impossible to abolish the
gaming-bank of Wiesbaden and Ems,
inasmuch as the proprietors of these
concerns had built the thermal estab-
lishments there in 1907 and 1910. and
had kept them in repair every since, at
their own expense. They promised,
however, when the present lease had ex-
pired to refuse to renew them.
The government of Mecklenburg-
Schwerin offered to suppress the Dob
berau Clearinghouse, if the governments
of the other states would abolish those
within their own jurisdiction.
Waldeck refused to suppress its two
at Pyrmont and Wild.
ungen, the concessions for which were
in full force till 1873 and 1905 respec-
lively, unless public gaming should be
prohibited throughout the whole of the
federation simultaneously.
These we're the first symptoms Of the
coming reform, and the natural opposi- |
ton of vested interests, however vile or
however blighting, to the healthy moral
of great people. But now
the end is at hand. Rouge ct noir will |
soon be an instrument of the past-so |
far, at least, as the Germans are con-
cerned, and the croupier will find no
other refuge than that wretched rock at
Monaco, (which never sows and never
reaps, yet has an invincible objection to
But the congratulations of
he well-wishers of society have received
4 sudden shock within the last few days,
which, if it means anything, bodies i'll
or the future of the morality of Europe
It large, and France in particular.
An ugly report is abroad that some
financial genius has discovered a golden
ecret for paying out the odious for
,igner," in possession of French terri
ory. The same benefactor to his spe-
lies has unraveled his scheme to M.
Theirs, namely: Of re-establishing by
the public gaming houses, and
hus raising n revenue to the govern
nent sufficient not only to pay off the
russian indemnity in full, but also to
aise the vast paper money Of the coun-
ry to par value. NJ. Theirs is said to
ave coincided with the idea, and to
ave determined to ask parliamentary
anction to the scheme. It is to be
oped that this lamentable scheme for
making Paris one mighty Monaco may
e nipped in the bsa; but the most un-
leasant sign is the spirit in which the
'rench public has received the idea.