The Washington herald., 1911-02-17

I contented. At first sight one would
| imagine that they had every reason TO
| be satisfied since, thanks to the money
paid by the gambling syndicate, the peo-
pie are exempt from taxation. But they
| earn next to nothing. The principality
| has no industrial or agricultural re-
sources 1t lives on its visitors. The
very people who thrive and fatten upon
| the visitors are strangers themselves,
that is, Frenchmen. who are favored by
the gambling syndicate. all the employees
! of the latter being French. The natives
do not share in the spoils. They see the
syndicate making annually a net profit
| of more than $4,000 900, yet ignoring them
save for the fact that access to the
gambling tables is barred entirely to the
natives
The financial relations of the prince
and the company have been so often
described that only the briefest refer
ence is necessary. The company's char
ter was granted in 1853 for a term OF
fifty years, and was prolonged in 1882
until 194S The charter requires the COM
pany to furnish the prince with an an
nual income of $25O.OOO, plus S per cent
of the gross surplus proceeds from the
tables above $5,OOO,OOO. Thanks to this
clause, the princes annual income from
the concern to-day is S1,OOO,OOO. Besides
this, the company had to pay the prince
a lump sum of 100000 in 1899. and
second sum of S3,0O0,O 900 falls due in like
manner on January /, 1914. When to
this is added the fact that the gambling
concern pays the salaries of all the Off
cials of the principality. defrays the cost
OF the lighting of the streets and of the
harbor, the maintenance of all public
thoroughfares and OF the water supply.
pays, the stipendS of the bishop and
clergy and the repairs of the cathedral,
subsidies the opera and theater at
Monte Carlo. besides providing for the
salaries of the judiciary and for the
wages of the police-it will be seen that
the prince benefits to a very considerable
extent by his concession of gambling
rights to the Monte Carlo Casino syn
dicate. in which the prince is a large
shareholder.
The principal members of the bank are
Edmond Blanc, son of the original con
cessionaire," and his two brothers-in-law,
Prince Constantine Radziwill, who mar
ried Louise Blanc, and Roland Bonaparte,
who captured the hand and fortune of
the late Marie Blanc. Roland is a son
of the late Prince Pierre Bonaparte and
Of Justine Ruflin, a plumbers daughter,
and considerable mystery prevails with
regard to his birth. it being claimed by
some that his parents never were mar
ried, and by others that they were not
welded until after the overthrow of the
empire, when Roland was twelve years
old
At any rate, Prince Pierre Bonaparte |
declined to recognize him or his sister, |
the late Marquise de Villeneuve, and con- |
tinued until his death, IN 1881. to figure |
in the pages of the Almanac de Gotha as |
a bachelor. Nor was it until several |
years after Prince Pierre's death that |
Roland managed to secure access to the |
Almanac de Gotha, in which he now
figures, not among the reigning or media |
tized houses of Europe. but among the |
"mere nobility" Yet Roland's daughter |
that is to say the granddaughter of old |
Francois Blanc. who was on record as |
an ex-conyict and whose wife had been
a hotel chambermafd. was enabled, thanks |
to her big dowry derived from the Monte |
Carlo gambling concern, to find a hus-
band among the reigning dynasties OF the |
Old World in the person OF Prince George I
Of Greece. FLANEUR.