Bismarck weekly tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, Dakota [N.D.]) 1884-1943, 1895-03-01
FEVER OF GAMBLING.
KAT. JORDAN'S IMPRESSIONS OF THE
MONTE CARLO CASINO.
F1uttering Like Moths About the Flame,
A He'll of Unholiness With a Rich Set
ting Handsome Toilets and Famous
Especial Correspondence.

Especial Correspondence
HOTEL DE PARIS, Monte Carlo, Feb. IS.
In tho morning after your coffee and
rolls and little corkscrews of unsalted but
ter you go into tho sunlight and lift your
face to the caressing breath of flowers from
the gardens along the way andfrom all of
natures sweets hidden on those big,
watchful, purple hills rising like citadcls
above this principality that has no dupli-
cate in the whole world. Oranges and
roses mix on the villa walls till you feel
in a haze and ask il this be really a day in
February. Monte Carlo is a bower of Qow-
ers, a veritable paradise, or so it seems
until you come out on the plazo that
leads to the Casino.
1t is crowded, it is filled with murmur-
ing voices, and a fever somehow commu
nicatcs itself to you. The doors of the beau.
tiful gambling house arc still closed, for
1t lacks 20 MINUTES of II, the opening
hour. You know you arc surrounded by
the serious gamblers who seek Monte Carlo
as others of well ordered soul go into a
business venture. Nowhere among this
crowd is there any lazy lordling in search
of excitement. He will stroll in later,
when the rooms are full. Nowhere is there
any curiosity seeker like myself. A ter
rlble earnestness, nervousness, speculation,
speak from every eye.
The Game Begins.
In a twinkling, after the doors open,
every seat at the dozen and more superbly
mounted green tables is taken, and stand.
ing circles are soon formed. The croupiers
-four at each table-take their places,
and the play begins. Tho roulette wheels
buzz, the ball of fate leaps in it's circle, all
over the numbered spaces the gold and sill
yer are stalzed, and every eye is fastened
Oh the dizzily whirring wheel.
what number will the ball fall into?"
what color will the number be on?"
These are the thoughts in every mind. 1
60 from table to table. One Englishman
loses $500 in half an hour and doesn't
wink an eyelash. An old grandam, I'M
doubtedly French, who from the wicked
" lined face seems winding up a bad life
to a consistent close, wins 20 franc pieces
TO the June of $500 and rakes them With
claw nails into an Anticipated purse.
BY and by the "swells" stroll in. And
this is where you see the swells at this
season from every quarter of the globe.
In the moving tablcau, where the cur
tanned sunlight mikes with green light
from tho tables, there are imperial, serene
and oyalhighnesscs galore, rich Americans
and even potential dignitaries from Asiatic
lands. They play. So do their wives and
sisters. So do the jewcled and rougcd
women of the "half world, " who make
Monte Carlo a rallying ground. So does
the young English girl, who comes in
with her horid papa, and who laughs
unsteady when she wins, and stamps her
by no means tiny foot when she doesn't.
So does the young French girl of the mid
die class, who follows in the wake of a
portly grandmother. Everybo body plays.
Aqueer place this Monte Carlo-a place
OF moving contrasts, a little hell of unholi-
ness in a jewcllike setting that seems in
spired by heaven.
Come from this first table where the
play lags a little and stroll down the room.
That little man there, wearing a monocle,
whose face is high bred and fatigued, who
cans over the shoulder of a pretty Eng
fish woman amusedly watching her in
genuous play-where have you seen him
before? That Is England's foremost COM
poser, Sir Arthur Sullivan. Who knows
what new aria to delight millions may not
be born of this rhythmic blinking of gold
as the croupiers rake in the losses and
fling out the gains?
The Empress of Austria.
A woman sweeps past, one of q party of
four. Her eyes are proud, her lip softly
scornful. 1t is evident she takes but a
passing interest in the scene. Born to
commando speaks from her every easy
pose, but when she smiles her face lights
into sympathetic sweetness. We need not
make any surlnises as to her identity-the
whisper has gone around-it is the en-
press of Austria.
How close she is to that young, dainty,
exquisitely gowned woman, the center of
a group of men! Is she an empress too?
She looks it. Perfectly groomed, her pale
face untouched by cosmetique, her bearing
modest, refined, her gown and hat of rich,
simple ruby velvet, she seems born to a
throne, and yet the measureless distance
between the status of the two for
the latter is the we'll known ''Nellien who
helped an American capitalist to get rid
OF some of his millions while in Paris last
fall! There are many like her here; but,
unlike her, most Of them wear their his
tories on their faces. Chief among the
celebrities. .resplendept, wealthy and look