The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1894-07-01
MONTE CARLOS BANK.
1T is IMPOSSIBLE TO DEVISE !
SYSTEM TO BREAK 1T.
A Dead-Sure Game-The Croupier's
Percentage Enriches the Stock
holders and Prince of Monaco
Annual Profit of Millions.

| A profit of S. 100000 on capital of S6,-
600 represents a fairly. successful in
vestment. 1t is at any rate, a more lu-
crative employment of money than hoard
/ ing it in an old stocking. What provi-
dent father of family, anxious to leave
a decent competence to his children,
would not be glad to find such an oppor-
tunity of placing his savings as this
business affords? The only thing which
could possibly deter him from taking ad-
vantage of it, if it came in his way,
would be his remembrance of a certain
old saw, said to have been much favored
by the Duke of Wellington, in which
high interest is associated with bad
security Prudential considerations of
that sort might make him hesitate, and
would probably put HIM on .inquiring
whether the undertaking which yielded
such magnificent returns was not one of
an exceptionally hazardous, agitating
and anxious character. Yet, if this were
the sole cause of his hesitation, it would
not take long for the case in mind to re-
move it.
1t would be easy to convince the cauti-
Gus investor that the enterprise, so far
from being hazardous, was absolutely
agitating to many people whom it con-
cerned, its directors themselves were not
included among the number, and that, IL
any anxiety broke their sleep O. nights,
origin. The business, he might be aSsur-
ed, is absolutely without risk; it makes
no severe demands upon human labor,
and none whatever upon human ingenuity
or foresight. Little is needed for Its sue
cessful prosecution, but the services of a
considerable number of employees, none
| of whom, however, need possess any
higher or rarer qualifications than those
which fit the cashier of a bank for his
daily duties, while the remainder will be
quite sufficiently equipped for their posi-
! f11aNr hl mi a
experience of a good club waiter. Add
to these outgoings the payments required,
perhaps the only considerable item of ex-
lpenditure, for wages of supervision, y
and we have enumerated all the industrial
burdens which this profitable undertaking
has to bear.
If this account of it still seems to the
prudent investor to be too good to be
! true, if he is inclined to suspect that the
business, though both splendid and safe
| so long as it exists at all, must assured
| ly be short-lived one. the creation OF
some passing taste or fancy of society
well, even here it would be possible to re
move his fear. He might be confidently
assured that this, so far from being a
new and probably transient fashion, is
almost as old as civilization itself; that
those who conduct it have built upon no
| loose and shifting soil of popular caprice,
but have their foundation on the BED
rock of an Interchangeable instinct, and
that unless man himself proposes to pro-
hibit it, their business will last as long
as the Stupidity, the raShness and the roll
| ly of mankind. For the name of that
business is ''hell-keeping,," and the under
taking whose directors have issued this
comfortable balance sheet, declaring a
profit of &c per cent. on their capital, Is
/ that of the Casino at Monte Carlo.
Never. surely, in the whole history OF
the applica ton of human intelligence to
money-making has money been so easily
made OF course, the cost of plant and
material, and the interest of capital
sunk therein has not been reckoned in the
rough estimate above. The invested
wealth represented by the saloons and
gardens themselves is considerable and
the daily charge for maintaing their at
fractions is, doubtless, also very great
Among the annual expenses, too, is to be
reckoned the gift of f5O,OOO year to his
serene highness, the Prince of Monaco
for permitting public gambling house tc
| flourish in his dominions, and dark al
/ lusions are made to a further mysterious
sum of 200 expended in 'subventions'
to European newspapers. But these
after all, are mere f1eabites. The man
agement may well be Indifferent to out.
golngs of this kind which are summed
up in tens of thousands, while it is il
hundreds of thousands that their profits
come rolling in. What is of real though
melancholy significance in the matter is