ANTECEDENTS OF CROUPIERS.
The last season I was at Homburg, six of the croupiers there had histories. One of them was the son of a coffee planter of Brazil. He had fallen into some serious trouble in Rio Janeiro, and had gone to Lisbon, where he led such a prodigal life, and drew on his father so frequently, that the old gentleman refused to honor his drafts further. The young scapegrace then went to Italy, served in the Papal army, afterwards became a sailor, travelled all through the Orient, earned considerable money by trading, went back to the Continent, visited Baden, arrayed himself against the tables, was rendered penniless, and in his desperate strait was appointed croupier.
A second of this fraternity had been a Malay pirate, it was whispered, and also a monk in Palermo; then a valet de place, and finally a brother of the rake.
The third informed me he had been a Greek priest, but, having been suspected of conspiring against the Emperor of Russia, he was sent to Siberia, whence he escaped and entered upon his present calling.
A fourth, a Hebrew, once kept a pawnbroking shop in Chatham Street, and was sentenced to Sing Sing on a charge of forgery, served two years, inherited some money left him by an uncle in Prague, became a victim to play, and at last had the satisfaction of getting on the right side of the table.
The fifth croupier, a Frenchman, had emigrated to California in 1849, and, as a member of the sporting fraternity, narrowly escaped hanging by a mob, some years after. Floating from point to point, he stranded at Baden, and will doubtless die there.
The sixth began his career as a reporter on a Berlin journal; served in the Prussian army; studied law, medicine, and theology, but could never practise anything save gambling. “I always lose,” he said to me; “and having no more money to risk, I have the satisfaction now of seeing other persons make as great fools of themselves as I have made myself.”
Hundreds of chapters might be written on the gambling hells of Germany, for the subject is inexhaustible. But each and all of them, if truthful, would show that the spas, like the Dead Sea apples, are attractive to the sight, but ashes and bitterness within. The players are handsome maskers. They laugh, and dance, and seem happy; but when the masks and dominos are removed, the bodies are leprous, their touch contagion, their soft caress a lingering and loathsome death.