238 Baden-Baden. 



No regular gambler plays at Roulette, for lie knows how perfectly 

 hopeless it is to think of gaining. But at Rouge et Noir the case 

 is different ; the table or " La Banque," as it is called, has but the 

 chance of an apres of thirty-one coming up, which by connoisseurs is 

 calculated at 2& per cent., so that the game being fairly played, as it 

 is at Baden, you certainly may calculate on winning some times. On 

 the other hand, if you go on playing day after day, hour after hour, 

 night after night, as you see hundreds and hundreds doing at Baden, 

 and at the other watering places in Germany, it stands to reason, 

 that in the long run (laying aside all the chances in favour of the 

 table, produced by capital coolness, at least 100 per cent.), you must 

 lose. I once saw the Elector of Hesse, one of the most constant 

 Rouge et Noir players at Baden win 10,000 frs. (400/.) ; but of what 

 use ? the next day it was all lost again. It is quite extraordinary 

 how men can come in, coolly hang up their hat and stick to a peg, 

 call for a " carte et epingle," and set pricking the winning colour 

 for hours together, sometimes even without staking a shilling. As 

 Mrs. Trollope says, " What can equal in dulness the whining, lan- 

 guid repetition of the croupier's cry, ' Faites votre jeu, messieurs. 

 Le jeu est fait. Jeu est fait. Le rouge perd, la couleur gagne ; ' and 

 then again, * Faites le jeu ; le jeu est fait : rouge gage, et couleur.' " 

 I am quite ready to agree with Mrs. Trollope as to the heinousness 

 of gambling, but I think our authoress exaggerates the state of play 

 at Baden, at least amongst the fairer portion of the sex. Having 

 read her book, I paid particular attention to the number and to the 

 quality of the women that played. Now as to the number, there 

 were but a noted few whom I saw play at all regularly, and those 

 with very few exceptions belonged to a class we should hardly call 

 ladies. It is true I have occasionally seen real ladies, and even two 

 or three of our own country women, throw down a small piece, 

 perhaps half-a-crown (the lowest sum played), but then it was 

 merely as a joke, just to say that they had done so, and with the 

 most innocent intention possible. The regular players always sit at 

 the table, and I certainly never saw an English woman sitting down 

 at the table all the time I was there. I have dwelt, perhaps, rather 

 fully on this point; but I cannot bear to hear my countrymen, much 

 less my countrywomen, accused of excesses (especially in a foreign 

 land) when they do not deserve it. One word more about gambling 

 and I have done. There is one individual who comes to Baden 

 every year, and in the course of two or three months, I understand, 

 manages to win enough to live on well all the year round. Every 

 one who has been at Baden in 1836 will remember a stout little 

 man, dressed in nankeen trousers and a blue coat, a hat well 

 brushed, and shoes equally well polished, and carrying a brown silk 

 umbrella in his hand. This gentleman was Mr. L'A. ... so cele- 

 brated in the French Revolution. 



People of all ages and from all nations, to* the amount of seven or 

 eight hundred, were assembled at Baden : of course I mean visitors, 

 for the population of the residents amounts to about four thousand.* 



* Sometimes, I understand, there are as many as two or three thousand visitors, 

 but we were rather late in the season. 



