MOSTYN HALL.
Lady Blanche Murphy.
BADEN AND ALLERHEILIGEN.
Before the change which has recently befallen the chief German watering-places, Baden—or, as it was more commonly called, Baden-Baden—was the most frequented, the most brilliant and the most profitable "hell" in Europe. Its baths and medicinal waters were a mere excuse for the coming thither of a small number of the vast concourse which annually filled its hotels. In any case, they sank into comparatively utter insignificance. It was not for water—at least not for the waters of any other stream than that of Pactolus—that the world came to Baden. Of course, the sums realized by the keepers of the hell were enormous; and they found it to be their interest to do all that contributed to make the place attractive on a liberal scale. Gardens, parks, miles of woodland walks admirably kept, excellent music in great abundance, vast salons for dancing, for concerts, for reading-rooms, for billiard-rooms, etc.—all as magnificent as carving and gilding and velvet and satin could make them—were provided gratuitously, not for those only who played at the tables, but for all those who would put themselves within reach of the temptation to do so. And this liberal policy was found to answer abundantly. Very many of the water-cure places in the smaller states of Germany had their hells also, and did as Baden did, on a more modest scale. Then came the German unification and the great uprising of a German national consciousness. And German national feeling said that this scandal should no longer exist. A certain delay was rendered necessary by the contracts which were running between the different small governments and the keepers of the gambling-tables. But it was decreed that when the two or three years which were required for these to run out should be at an end, they should not be renewed. It was a serious resolution to take, for some half dozen or so of these little pleasure-towns believed, not without good reason, that the measure would be at once fatal to their prosperity and well-nigh to their existence. And of course there were not wanting large numbers of people who argued that the step was a quixotic one, as needless and fallacious in a moral point of view as fatal on the side of economic considerations. Could it be maintained that the governments in question had any moral duty in the matter save as regarded the lives and habits of their own people? And these were not imperilled by the existence of the gambling-tables. For it was notorious that each of these ducal and grand-ducal patrons of the blind goddess strictly forbade their own subjects to enter the door of the play-saloons. And as to those who resorted to them, and supplied the abundant flow of gold that enriched the whole of each little state, could it be supposed that any one of these gamblers would be reformed or saved from the consequences of his vice by the shutting up of these tables? It was difficult to answer this question in the affirmative. No liquor law ever prevented men from getting drunk, nor could it be hoped that any closing of this, that or the other hell could save gamblers from the indulgence of their darling passion. Nevertheless, it can hardly be seriously denied that the measure was the healthy outcome of a genuinely healthy and highly laudable spirit. "Ruin yourself, if you will, but you shall not come here for the purpose, and, above all, we will not touch the profit to be made out of your vice." This was the feeling of the German government, and, considering the amount of self-denial involved in the act, Germany deserves no small degree of honor and praise for having accomplished it.
And now it is time to ask, Has Baden—for we will confine our attention to this ci-devant queen of hells—has Baden suffered that ruin which it was so confidently predicted would overtake her? Baden Revisited, by one who knew her well in the old days of her wickedness and wealth, supplies the means for replying to the question. Unquestionably, in the mere matter of the influx of gold the town has suffered very severely. How were some four-and-twenty large hotels, besides a host of smaller ones, which often barely sufficed to hold the crowds attracted by the gambling-tables, to exist when this attraction ceased? It might have been expected that a large number of these would at once have been shut up. But such has not been the case. I believe that not one has been closed. Nevertheless, a visitor's first stroll through the town, and especially in the alleys and gardens around the celebrated "Conversations-Haus," as it hypocritically called itself, is quite sufficient to show how great is the difference between Baden as it was and Baden as it is—between Baden the wealthy, gaudy, gay, privileged home of vice, and Baden moralized and turned from the error of its ways. And it cannot be denied that, speaking merely of the impression made upon the eye, the difference is all in favor of vice. "As ugly as sin" is a common phrase. But, unfortunately, the truth is that sin sometimes looks extremely pretty, especially when well dressed and of an evening by gaslight. And it did, it must be owned, look extremely pretty at Baden. The French especially came there in those days in great numbers, and they brought their Parisian toilettes with them. And somehow or other, let the fact be explained as it may—and, though perhaps easily explicable enough, I do not feel called upon to enter on the explanation here—one used in those wicked old days to see a great number of very pretty women at Baden, which can hardly be said to be the case at Baden moralized. The whole social atmosphere of the place was wholly and unmistakably different, and in outward appearance wicked Baden beat moral Baden hollow. It would not do in the old time to examine the gay scene which fluttered and glittered before the eyes much below the absolute exterior surface. The little town in those old days, as regarded a large proportion of the crowd which made it look so gay, was—not to put too fine a point upon it—a sink of more unmitigated blackguardism than could easily be found concentrated within so small a compass on any other spot of the earth. A large number of the persons who now congregate in this beautiful valley look, to tell the truth, somewhat vulgar. Vulgar? As if the flaunting crowds which seemed to insult the magnificent forests, the crystal streams and the smiling lawns with their finery were not saturated with a vulgarity of the most quintessential intensity! Yes, but that only showed itself to the moral sense of those who could look a little below the surface, whereas the vulgarity that may be noted sunning itself in the trim gardens and sprawling on the satin sofas which are the legacy of the departed wickedness is of the sort that shows itself upon the surface. In a word, moral Baden looks a little dowdy, and that wicked Baden never looked.
IN FRONT OF THE KURSAAL AT BADEN.