Mexico weekly ledger., 1877-03-15
A Gambling Principally.

At Monaco gambling is not only in
fashion; it is at once the life and the
occasion of life in the place. For it,
and in its name, were reared those
handsome halls, mirrored and candle
labra'd, velvet furnished and polished
exceedingly as to floors and walls,
which adjoin the Hotel de Paris and
stand at the top of the enchanted gar
den. In its service are enrolled those
gaily dressed bondsmen who discourse
SUCH elegant music, those plush
breeched, green-coated servitors, who
stand so janitor-like at the doors and
about the rooms, ready to bow obedi
ence to the m%oneyed h46itue, or to col
lar and eject the "souspect" and the
"~welcher." In its service manifestly
have been educated those somber,
leaden-eyed men, pale of face and dirty
of shirt-cOllar, who sit on either side the
center of the table, and with ceaseless
monotony spin the wheel of roulette,
while comrades rake up or shovel out
the consequences Of the game. There
they sit, day after day, hou after hour,
at the gambling tables, their only vari-
alton being from roulette to trente-et-
quarante or rouge-et-noir. One misses
at Monaco the hollow-toned exhOrta-
ton, I" F'Gttes U0S .jcur, mesSseurs, Jattes
U0G jeuG," and its natural accompani-
ment, "Le jue est faa," which used to
be heard at Spa and Baden in old days.
Silence is the rule of Monaco, broken
only by the click of the roller as it falls
into one of the wheel spaces, and by
the judicial declaration of the result,
delivered soto v0ce by the chief. cr0upter.
But, apart from this, there is exactly
the same arrangement; thessame scru-
pulous fairness On the part Of the
bank; the same perfect trust in tue Ill
innate advantage of that institution ;
the same reliance without touting on
the natural attractions of play to allure
poor humanity into the swing, that
characterized the German and Belgian
play places.
The only advertisement resorted to
by the proprietor is in the shape of
those charming gardens which beautify
the place, those balls at which the
beauty and ugliness of Nice delight to
congregate, those Tirs aux Pigeons,
where a thousand pounds represents
the Grand Prix de Monaco, those mag
uluCSuG CouCoAIS HUN WHICH,, Uub Ol
purely local and personal considera-
tions, the music of "Orphee aux En-.
iers'' should be forever excluded. The
reward of NJ. LIE Blanc, the provider OF
all these things, the owner of this beau
tiful "hell,"i is ample, after its kind.
In spite of the occasional visits of "por-
tents" like the Maltese Bugeija who, by
wisdom or strange luck, found his way
to win vast rouleaux from the bank; in
spite of the raids which other mediums
of the Bugeija stamp make upon his re-
sources, the proprietor is, in the long
run, justified in his CHASTITY joke,
"Jouez rouge ou noir, c'est lie Bamt
que gagne." That he does gain is not
only matter of %notoriety, it is evident
from the facts we have recited, from
the apparently unremunerative expend.
iture he is able to make SO freely, from
an hours observation of the crowds who
throng the roulette tables. All the
world, men and women too, of every
nation, come to pour their wealth into
the lap of this Cresus.-London Society
MG0dzine.