GERMANY, RUSSIA, ROUMANIA, BULGARIA AND SERVIA.
“The Huns,” says St. Ambrose, “a fierce and warlike race, are always subject to a set of usurers, who lend them what they want for the purpose of gaming. They live without laws and yet obey the laws of dice.” The Father adds that when a player has lost he sets his liberty and often his life upon a single cast, and is accounted infamous if he does not pay his “debt of honor,” as a debt of dishonor has always been named.
We are told by Tacitus, in his history of the Germans, that the warriors gambled without the excuse of being drunk, which was probably an ironical indictment of the Romans, who did the same thing. The practices noted in a later age, by St. Ambrose, are described by the great Roman scholar, who says that a German who loses his liberty, submits to be chained and exposed to sale. The winner is always anxious to barter away such slaves.
Let us now look into the Germany of to-day. In 1838, the government at Paris abolished the public salons of play, and then arose Baden, Weisbaden, Sissingern, Wilhelmbad, Koethen, Hamburg, Ems, Spa, Geneva and Monaco. The gaming season began in the spring, when the leaves were green and closed in the late autumn. The opening and closing days of the tables were like the saturnalia of the Romans. Rouge-et-noir and roulette were the games.
The Garden at Wiesbaden.
In 1842, Homburg was an obscure village, the capital of the smallest of European countries. Its inhabitants were poor and unassuming. There was one inn, the “Aigle.” To this, a few German families came to drink the waters of a mineral spring. In the year 1842, the famous Blanc brothers arrived from Paris, from whence they had been driven. Frankfort had refused to receive them, and hearing of Homburg, they traveled thither in a diligence, and put up at the “Aigle.” The prime minister, who governed the Landgrafate of Homburg, at a salary of $300 a year, was open to the offers of a visitor so rich as the elder Blanc. Permission was given to set up a roulette-wheel at the inn and an old and skillful croupier of Frascati turned the wheel. No one could beat this wheel. So successful was the summer’s business that Blanc, at its close, obtained from the prime minister an exclusive concession to build a cure-hall, lay out a public garden, and pay into the national exchequer 40,000 florins (over $17,000) a year. With this concession Blanc went to Frankfort, and the Jews aided him in forming a company with a capital stock of about $175,000. Of this sum the Jews took half, and the Blancs half. During the winter a small cure-hall was built, and advertisements of the sanitive[sanitive] properties of the waters filled Europe. Next year visitors poured into Homburg in large numbers, and they were offered fully as much gambling as mineral water. From this beginning arose the great “company.” In 1867, the place was the most noted gaming resort in Europe. Nature and art had conspired to make it attractive. On one side are the mountains; on the other the river plains; the stream being the Main. On the mountain-side is a forest, with walks for the visitors. Gardens, lawns, groves, lakes, fountains, swans, music, and perfume, all united to dull the sense of right, and make a heaven of hell, for hell was what Homburg had come to be in 1867.
Fronting on the main street of the town, built of brown freestone in the fashion of a palace of Florence, was the “Temple of Fortune.” A spacious vestibule, paved with Roman mosaic, led to the great salon, whose walls and ceilings were laden with gilt and sculpture, mirrors and curtains of velvet and satin. Sofas and chairs of damask appeared to invite to rest, but there was no rest in that dread chamber. The rattle of the balls went on. Money sounded and checks clicked. There came regularly the cries of the croupiers, the cappers and the recommenders: “Make your play, gentlemen and ladies;” “The play is made; nothing more goes.”
As he entered, the visitor must remove his hat, as if he were in St. Peter’s. The goddess of fortune was a jealous and very exacting deity.