So profitable to their managers are these baccarat clubs, that it is not surprising their number increased rapidly, until, at one time, there were nearly a hundred of them, the majority of which occupied pretentious and well-appointed quarters, until, a few years ago, in obedience to public indignation, an attempt was made to close them up. Many were compelled to shut their doors, but, as the movement was not thorough, a score or more remained, defiling and corrupting the best quarter of the city, prospering the more because of the diminished competition. As a rule, these clubs bear high-sounding names, not calculated to arouse suspicion in the mind of a stranger of the iniquitous business going on within their walls. The Cercle des Arts Liberaux, Cercle des Arts Industriels, Cercle des Artistes Dramatiques; such were and are specimens of these names. Standing side by side with clubs of genuine respectability, are some of these dens, in which it is unsafe to leave anything of the slightest value in an over-coat pocket. As a rule the baccarat clubs are managed with great shrewdness. Rules regarding entrance fees and dues exist, but merely that they may be cited when necessary in support of a claim that these institutions partake of the character of genuine clubs. “Members” are rarely asked for either fees or dues. Invitations by the hundred are sent to frequenters of the boulevards, and each one is given to understand that he may take his friends. Practically, these cercles are open to all who have money. Emissaries, known variously as rabatteurs, racoleurs, or rameneurs, or, as the English would call them, “bennets,” frequent public places, in order to specially invite rich foreigners and greenhorns with whom they may become acquainted. Journalists are always welcomed and treated handsomely, in order that they may puff the musical or other attractions offered, and that they may refrain from exposing the real character of the places. Elaborate dinners and luncheons are served at nominal prices; the rooms are richly furnished and adorned; there are reading rooms, containing a wide range of current literature, and writing rooms replete with all that convenience could suggest; liveried attendants, deferential and polite to a nicety, attend to all possible wants, and, in short, almost every conceivable attraction is provided. Those who enter and, amid all these seductions, resist the temptation to play, are exceedingly few, and to play is to lose. Visitors naturally infer that they are in the private club house of a company of gentlemen. The elegance is substantial enough, but the company in reality is largely composed of genteel scoundrels and thieves, who scruple at no dishonesty, provided the chances are fairly against detection.
These Paris clubs are exceedingly demoralizing, not only to the members and visitors, but to their attaches. Hundreds of persons, employed at first when mere boys, as pages, and rising (rather descending) to be croupiers, dealers, cashiers, etc., and gradually acquiring the desire to own houses and carriages, and keep mistresses, can attribute their ultimate ruin to these dens.
Dishonest playing is probably more rife in the Paris clubs now than ever before, and is carried on with skill never before equaled. Once in a while, as in the case of the very “respectable” Cercle de la Rue Royale, an expose is made of a system of cheating that has been pursued for months, perhaps, and for a week or two all Paris talks of the scandal. If the truth were known it would be found that similar practices obtain in nearly every gambling club. Only collusion between a menial, a croupier, the dealer, and perhaps one or two others, is necessary for marked cards to be introduced. Those in the secret, divide the ill-gotten profits and detection is not probable, unless a quarrel arises over the division of plunder. Cheating at baccarat is general, and organized bands of sharpers scour the cities of Europe, reaping a rich harvest from each one. The mechanism and methods of cheating at gambling have been perfected wonderfully within the last twenty or thirty years, as the reader of M. Hector Malots’s novel, “Baccara,” can well understand, and nowhere has this perfection manifested itself to a greater extent than in Paris. That Gambling is having a most demoralizing effect in Paris is indisputable.
The time is ripe for a reformation in Paris, and many are praying that it may come soon and be sweeping and thorough in character.
DISTANT VIEW OF MADRID CLUB HOUSE.
The Spaniards are as much addicted to gambling, at least, as any nationality. There is a tradition that they were once very liberal in their gaming, and Voltaire says: “The grandees of Spain had a generous ostentation; this was to divide the money won at play among all the bystanders of whatever condition.” Montefiero tells of the liberality of the Duke of Lima, Spanish minister to the Netherlands, who, when he entertained Gaston (brother of Louis XIII), with his retinue, was accustomed, after dinner, to put two thousand louis d’or on a large gaming table, to be gambled for by the Prince and his attendants. Such open-handedness certainly does not characterize the Spanish gamester of this day. He is as greedy as any gamester, judging from appearances. Gambling in Spain is general, and has always been practiced more openly than in other European countries.[countries.] “I have wandered through all parts of Spain,” writes a traveler, “and though in many places I have scarcely been able to procure a glass of wine, or a bit of bread, or any of the first conveniences of life, yet I never went through a village, however mean and out of the way, in which I could not have purchased a pack of cards.”
The nobility of Spain, for centuries, have been especially addicted to gambling. Not a few of this class, indeed, are said to live from the proceeds of the gaming table, and that, too, without any apparent loss in reputation. The condition of things in Spain thirty years ago, is thus described by another traveler: “After the bull-feast, I was invited to pass the evening at the hotel of a lady who had a public card assembly. This vile method of subsisting on the folly of mankind is confined, in Spain, to the nobility. None but women of quality are permitted to hold banks, and there are many whose faro banks bring them in a clear income of a thousand guineas a year. The lady to whom I was introduced is an old countess, who has lived nearly thirty years on the profits of the card tables in her house. They are frequented every day, and though both natives and foreigners are duped out of large sums by her, and her cabinet junto, yet it is the greatest house of resort in all Madrid. She goes to Court, visits people of the first fashion, and is received with as much respect and veneration as if she had exercised the most sacred functions of a divine profession. Many widows of great men have kept gaming houses, and lived splendidly on the vices of mankind. If you be not disposed to play, be neither a sharper nor a dupe you can not be admitted a second time to their assemblies. I was no sooner presented to the lady, than, she offered me cards, and on my excusing myself, because I really could not play, she made a very wry face, turned from me and said to another lady in my hearing, that she wondered how any foreigner could have the impertinence to come to her house for no other purpose than to make an apology for not playing. My Spanish conductor, unfortunately for himself, had not the same apology. He played and lost his money—two circumstances which constantly follow in these houses. While my friend was thus playing the fool, I attentively watched the countenance and motions of the lady of the house. Her anxiety, address and assiduity were equal to that of some skillful shop-keeper, who has a certain attraction to engage all to buy, and diligence to take care that none shall escape the net. I found out all her privy counsellors, by her arrangement of her parties at the different tables, and whenever she showed an extraordinary eagerness to fix one particular person with a stranger, the game was always decided the same way, and her good friend was sure to win the money. In Madrid one is scarcely welcome in polite society, unless he engages in play, and, it may be added, unless he loses much more than he wins. In the capital there are resorts where all classes meet and play together. In these places the tables are managed by suspicious looking men, who insist that you will be almost certain to win, if only you engage in play: They even go so far, in inviting you to play, as to assert that they themselves do not play for gain but for pleasure.”[pleasure.”]
Gambling is perhaps more distinctively a characteristic of the Latin races than of any other. Not only is it almost universal in Spain, but it seems to cling to Latin blood wherever it is found, however much it intermingles with that of other peoples. In Mexico, Central America, and the countries of South America, gambling thrives as in the mother country. “Chusa,” dice, cards, and lotteries are the principal means of indulging the vice, but there are many other devices and games in use. The lottery is an especial favorite, and no Mexican, Nicaraguan or Brazilian neglects taking one or more chances of getting a fortune in each drawing, as it occurs. Gambling in these countries is carried on with more publicity than in England, France or Germany. In none of the Spanish Republics on our South, is it acknowledged as one of the most debasing and ruinous vices to which humanity is addicted; indeed, by many, it is scarcely thought to occupy a place among the vices at all. It is regarded scarcely to the injury of a person’s reputation that he gambles, and it will doubtless be many years before serious attempts are made in these countries to suppress the evil.
In this connection may appropriately be appended a picture drawn by a tourist in Mexico, a Mr. Mason, illustrative of the gambling propensities of the Spanish Americans in that country. He writes: “This, being Easter Eve, was the first of those days especially set apart for gaming and idleness, and at about nine o’clock I went to the Plaza—an open space near the church—where I found many hundred people already assembled to amuse themselves. A large circle, surrounded by spectators and dancers, was especially set apart for fandangoes, which, whatever they may be in Spain, are in the New World much inferior in grace and activity to the common American dances, though the latter, it must be confessed, are usually to the sound of tin pans and pots and empty gourds. Here the music was somewhat better, though not less monotonous, and consisted of a guitar, a rude kind of harp, and a screaming woman with a falsetto voice. Beyond the fandango stood a range of booths beneath which men and women of all descriptions, old and young, rich and poor, officers in full uniform and beggars in rags, were gambling with the most intense interest, and individuals who, from their appearances, might be considered objects of charity, were fearlessly staking dollars—some even venturing a handful at one time. The favorite game was called “Chusa,” which is played on a deep saucer-shaped table, and resembled the “E. O.” of England.