or ribbons in their button-holes. Amongst
them are many ruined barons and dismissed
military officers, well connected and unsuspected.
The female staff is yet more dangerous for
foolish men. It includes the most respectable-
looking old ladies, having their liveried footmen
in attendance, riding, perhaps, in emblazoned
carriages. It includes young bewitching widows,
of course marchionesses, countesses, or
baronesses, with names beginning with Saint,
probably because most of them come from the
neighbourhood of Notre-Dame de Lorette in
Paris. You meet them in all the hotels, and at
the promenades, their fresh toilettes exciting
the admiration of many a real lady. Some of
them have husbands with them at whose
appearance one cannot help wondering. They look
as if not at home in their clothes. Their hands
are not over clean, and a man of the world
suspects at once the brilliant rings upon their
vulgar fingers. They are, however, rarely seen
with their more elegant wives, and keep carefully
out of the way if these are in gay company.
Many of those ladies may be seen at the
gambling-table, piles of gold before them, and
playing eagerly. The gold belongs to the bank,
and that fellow sitting upon a high stool behind
the croupiers of the middle keeps a sharp eye
upon their fingers through his tortoiseshell-
mounted spectacles. They are decoy-ducks, of
course, and they catch many geese.

There are many degrees in this service of the
bank. Some of its servants are employed only
as spies. It is their business to watch
comrades, and to get true information as to the
money and the whereabouts of casual visitors to
Homburg. Amongst them are hotel-keepers,
waiters, commissioners, &c., who have
themselves an interest in the same matters.

Since the establishment of the bank the
Landgrave gave up his position as lord of the
place. The banker is more prince in Homburg
than the prince himself. An officer of the
state with a hundred pounds of pay is already
one of a high rank, and there is, probably, no
one employed by the government in Homburg
who can boast of a salary of three hundred
pounds a year. Before the shameful transformation
of the town a family might live in
Homburg decently on fifty pounds a year, as it is
still the case in many other parts of Germany;
but now the place has become more expensive,
and the government servants must look out for
an addition to their income. Most of them let
lodgings; but not all have houses, and they
soon find that it is their interest to stick to the
bank. The consequence is obvious. Formerly
it was the fashion of the subjects to change
even their religion when the prince did, and we
must not wonder too much if the Homburgians
now follow the lead of the Landgrave. It is
said that the police is more in the service and
pay of the bank than in that of the prince or
country, and that it is the same with all the
tribunals. Facts seem to prove it. We think
high treason against the prince would find in
Homburg more merciful judges than any acts
or even words against the bank. If all was right,
the bank and not the Landgrave ought to be
represented at the Frankfort diet.

The police in Homburg are the most tolerant
in the world to those who have money, or at
least do not molest the bank by word or deed.
Nobody asks for a passport, and the visitor may
assume any name or title he may fancy. A
fraudulent bankrupt is there safer than in
America; the police will shield and protect him
as long as there is a louis d'or in his pocket.

Another set of servants of the bank consists
of the professors of gaming. Some of these are
genuine enthusiasts, shabby and careworn, who
believe that there exists some law by which
chance is regulated, which, if they once discover
it, ensures their winning ever after. Each of
them has his system, which he holds to be
infallible, but which it requires considerable
sums to carry out. There is undeniable truth
in most of these systems, for almost all of them
are founded on the fact that the colours red and
black must change. If I, therefore, lose money
on one of them, and double always until it
appears, I must win. This is clear, and the bank
knows it, of course, perfectly well. But it does
not intend to lose, and for this reason the
amount of the stakes is limited. That to be put
on a single chance as, for instance, red or
black must not much exceed three hundred
pounds. The lowest stake at the roulette is one
florin, and at rouge et noir three shillings. The
importance of this maximum will be shown by
an example. If I stake one florin on red, and
double always when losing, my stake will have
increased at the eleventh appearance of black
to an amount at which I am not permitted to
double again. Forced to submit to the laws of
the bank, I lose a hundred and thirty florins,
even in the case of winning. But if black
appears for the twelfth or thirteenth time, as it
occurs on the average every ten days, I am a
loser of more than seven thousand florins. By
following such a system money may be won for
several days; but the player once caught cannot
recover his losses. Whoever adheres long to
such a system will be ruined. This the bank
knows, and it patronises, therefore, such
professors with the utmost tenderness, taking the
cleverest of them into its service. They are
sent abroad, and fitted out by the bankers with
means to appear as fishermen in good society.
Many, however, of these professors are the
bitterest enemies of the bank, infatuated
believers in their own systems. They have them
ready made for small, middling, and large capitals,
and are contented with a certain share in
the gain made by any who apply to them. The
client will, perhaps, win for a week or longer,
and rejoice; but the day comes surely when the
system fails.

Sometimes large sums are won by punters.
This accident, by strengthening the faith of the
credulous, only draws more custom and profit
to the bank. It is therefore the duty of the
servants of the bank to invent stories about
persons who have become rich by gambling at the