Daily inter mountain. [volume] (Butte, Mont.) 1881-1901, 1901-03-06
MONTE CARLO.
WITH ITS PRESENT MONOPOLY OF PUBLIC GAMBLING THE MOST
UNIQUE SYNDICATE IN THE WORLD. ....t
Shrewd Business Methods Behind Lavish
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On the evening Of December 81, 1900,
the winter resort of Eugene, in the
Southern Jura, closed it's roulette rooms,
and thus turned the gambling license
of Monte Carlo into a practical monop-
oily. The only European rival of the
Blancs is at present the proprietor of a
faro bank at Paetigorsk in the Russian
Caucasus, but that establishment has
never recovered from the blow of the
u1ase prohibiting the admission of Rus
sian army officers. In Homburg, Ems
and Baden Baden public gambling was
stopped years ago, and PaetigOrsk, with
all the attractions of it's hunting grounds
and marvellous scenery. is too far east
to ATTRACT many tourists. The nearest
railway town is Stawropol and in win
ter the wagon road through the inter-
veinng mountains is often blockaded
by snowdrifts. Monaco. on the o ! er
hand, is in the very center of the Medi-
terranean winter resorts, and is at
present more accessible than Los An
geles-steamers from Genoa, railway
from Marseiles and Toulon and hourly
| omnibus connection with Nice, now
city of some 10000 inhabitants, with a
grand railway depot and u busting har-
Dor.
A BATHING ESTABLISHMENT.
Monaco has little seaport of it's own,
with surf baths that give the managers
of the gambling den a chance to de-
scribe themselves as The Society OF
the Monte Carlo Bathing Establish
ment.'
In the art of what the French call
"respectablizing." l. e., embarrassing,
decorating and artistically batting their
ugly trap, the Blanc Stock company has,
! indeed never been rivaled. Old Fran
co.'s Blanc. the founder of the syndi-
| cate, was pronounced believer in orna-
ment. a real artist in his speciality, and
would have undertaken to give the
auction room Of Morocco slave dealer
an aestehtic exterior. On the Monaco
| mountain park alone he spent a million
l. francs, and before he died his assert
| ment of miscellaneous attractions in
cluded anything from a paroquet aviary
to a collection of six-foot aristocrats.
Count Antonio Berbora acts as major.
domo, of the gambling palace and it's
resident treasurer is a baron de Thezil-
lat-Garnier-a name which alone would
suffice to redeem the reputa ton of
Chinese opium joint. Besides, there is
director of public works, Baron de Far
with titles enough to equip a dozen
chanberlains. Nine. Blanc added
Polish grande, Prince Constantin Vim
| cent de RadZyWill, who married her ED
est daughter. and consented to join the
Directory as figurehead ornament.
But just before his death old Blanc
eclipsed that coup by capturing kins-
man Of the Corsican Caesar. Prince
Roland Bonaparte, and paying his debts
to get his name on the wedding cards
of his second daughter.
PRINCE ROLAND BONAPARTE.
He struts about the Casino Park,
| twirling his moustache, and feigning an
interest in the exotic plants of the con-
servatOry. His uncle, the ex-emperor,
! missed his chance by dying at Chisel-
hurst, or NJ. Blanc would have tried
to hire him for a marshal of the uni
formed park police. The acting mayor
of Monte Carlo, and one of the principal
stockholders, is an impoverished but
Observation-Disclosures French marquis,
with a son who has served in Algeria
and flaunts the cross of the Legion of
Honor. There was no resisting such
endorsements, and when ex-Empress
Eugene recently passed few months
at San Reno. near Nice, she addressed
personal communication to M. lie
Baron Thezillat, asking his assistance
in renting a suitable villa But the work
| of developing" the attraction of Monte
Carlo still continues. There is now a
botanic garden, a grand aquarium, a
picture gallery surprising that of Nice,
| and a library with an archaeological de-
partment that is fast evolving into a
first-class museum. Sightseers of all
| sorts can now visit Monte Carlo under
plausible and highly respectable pre-
texts. and, while they are about it, take
a look at the famous gambling rooms
No one urges them to enter. It is a
mistake to suppose that the adminstra-
ton employs steerers and female de-
coys. They know tricks worth ten like
that Their stockholders in the Nice
Omnibus Line have reduced the fare
! to minimum, and, day after day, hun
dreds of idlers are coming up by way
of pastime and experience has proved
that curiosity will do the rest. "Ac-
quisitiveness." as the phr biologists call
| the Doodle instinct, attracts a few regu-
| lars from as far east as British India
! and west as Mexico. but the great army
of incidental visitors come as sight
SeerS.
THE STAR ACTORS.
In the grand variety show at the
Monaco winter resort the gamblers are,
after all. the star actors. What are
| Etruscan copper coins compared with
| the hillocks of international gold that
| change hands on the green colth Of the
roulette tables? Amusement seekers en-
ter the tiger den, watch the panorama
of passions for while, and, just for
curiosity's sake, decide to test their own
| standing in the good graces of Fortune.
If they win they try again, merely to
ascertain the limits of their guessing
| talent. If they lose they are very apt
to double the next stake just to verify
the possibility of firing out the spite of
! i'll luck by sheer persistence. The press
| fund of the administration expends a
| hundred thousand francs a year on
masked advertisements. ''Tendenz
nOtizen." the German literateu call